The F-35C and the USS Nimitz

Well, I hope everyone's Thanksgiving holiday went well. It's been fairly busy for me since September and I've really appreciated it all, after going several months with barely any activity. I got quite the surprised when the US Navy invited me to witness their testing of the new F-35C Lightning II fighter. The plane was testing the launching and landing capabilities onboard the USS Nimitz.

It was extremely exciting/stressful for me, as this would be my first time landing and taking off on an aircraft carrier. I meet the Naval Air Forces PAO at NAS North Island, and we drove over to the passenger terminal. We boarded the C-2A Greyhound of the VRC-30, the Providers,  and took off over the Pacific for our flight of roughly 1 hr. The Nimitz was approximately 100 miles off of San Diego. They had been conducting the training for well over  a week, by the time we arrived.

The one thing I will say about the C-2A is that the passengers sit backwards, and there's only two small windows in the plane, so when we came into land, it was kind of like a roller coaster effect. Here we are going well over 100 mph, and then suddenly coming to a violent stop and being thrown back into your seat, and you are not seeing anything.

We landed safely onboard the Nimitz and were escorted to the Ready room, where we met several of the Lockheed Martin folks, the PAO of the boat and several other people. back up to the flight deck for a tour and an interview with one of the Test Pilots, and then back down to the officers galley, where we were able to conduct interviews with the Strike Groups admiral, the C.O. of the Nimitz, the Test Pilots again and the people from Lockheed Martin. We then broke for a short lunch.

It was then time for us to see and photograph the F-35C launch and recover, so it was up many, many flights of ladders (Navy speak for stairs), and we finally found ourselves on Vulture's Row. Here we were able to see 2 different launches and 1 recovery before we headed back down to the ready room and got ready to head back to NAS North Island.

 

 

 

 

The launching of an aircraft off of an Aircraft Carrier is a very violent action. You go from a dead stop to well over 120 miles per hour and upwards at an extreme angle. In the C-2A, you again are violently thrown forwards and it seems to last forever, but then suddenly your airborne and leveling out. The rest of the flight was uneventful and we landed safely back on base. The crew of the Providers gave me a patch recognizing my first time experience with the Carrier.

 

 

 

I'm scheduled to be back onboard one of the carriers in January, 2015 to stay for a few days to cover the flight operations out to sea. I can't wait!

A Busy Time

Well, after my US Air Force Tanker flight, things got busy. At the end of September, I was able to fly with the Marines twice during the WTI's in Yuma, AZ. First day was on a C-130 where I had a F/A-18 from VMFA-323, the Death Rattlers come up for a refueling and then the next day, I spent flying around with a CH-53 delivering artillery pieces to Marines and then watching them fire off the rounds.

 

In early October, the Miramar Airshow was back, while a smaller show was store due to the sequestration still being in effect. it was still a good show.

 

 

 

Then in late October, something that I've been waiting for approx. 1 year for.

To fly on the last Marine Corps active duty CH-46's., and this happen with the Purple Foxes HMM-364, now known as VMM-364, since they are getting Ospreys. I spent twos days with these great Marines, as flew from Camp Pendleton to Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, and delivered one bird to the Bone Yard,  and then back to Pendleton the next day.

 

 

 

 

Frustration and Happiness

Over a year ago, I put in a request with the Naval Air Forces West people to do a Carrier Qual, basically asking to be onboard during Flight Operations for a story. The first PAO officer I spoke to said "No Problem:, and then got transferred. The current PAO, has been a little difficult, but finally gave me some dates for my embarkation onboard the USS Nimitz. She would be conducting Carrier Quals for anyone of the Navy and Marine pilots who needed the training off of the coast of San Diego, before she departed back home to Washington State.

On September 9th, I find myself at Naval Air Station North Island at 0830 hrs., and ready to go. We would walk onto the ship, but the next day fly off onboard a C-2a Greyhound. Being launched from a carrier would be a new experience for me.

The PAO came up to me, and stated the ship was leaving late, and flight ops would not be conducted until night time, when I really can't get any great shots. I said, well there's tomorrow, and he said my plane would be the first to leave, so I'd miss those flights also. He was still willing to let go, but I declined, and he promised to get me onboard another Carrier in the near future. AARRGGHH!!

For some better days. September 23rd found me at March Air Reserve Base. After a simple briefing by the Base's Commanding Officer, and the briefing with the flight crew. I boarded a KC-135R Tanker, and we took off toward the south.

 

 

 

After flying over Mount Palmar, we turned to the west and out over the ocean, To our south was US Navy owned San Clemente  Island. The most southern of the California Channel Islands.

 

We were soon joined by a C-17III while flying over Catalina Island, and we headed for the coastline going north. The entire time to towards Monterey Bay, the two planes practiced connecting and disconnecting with one another to refuel, and flying in formation.

 

A great experience and photo op.

 

 

It's September, and it's been hot.

Hi Folks,

Time to catch up since April. In order to keep cool this summer, I've spent a lot of time sitting around San Diego Bay with it's cooling breezes. By doing so, I was able to photograph a lot of US and Foreign Naval Ships as they came in and went out of the Harbor. The US Navy had a major exercise off of Hawaii called Pacific Rim, and so a lot of US Navy ships from San Diego took part, and the Norwegians, Chileans, Mexicans, and other had ships coming to San Diego before departing for Hawaii. ThJapanese had also came for a visit with 3 of their training vessels.

The Planes of Fame had their annual air show, and again, another great performance, but the heat was just kicking my ass. I'm surprised, I made it back to my truck without heat stroke.

After that, was the new San Diego Air Show (formerly "Wings over Gillespi"), and it was a major disappointment. Just a boring show..

Now for the best and worst part. In July, I took off for Las Vegas to attend the Red Flag 14-3 exercise, and it was HOT! it was 107 on the runways, and Media Day got cancelled before it even started due to a security issue. The next day was my scheduled flight onboard a US Air Force KC-135. it was 107 degrees again on the runway, but with the plane sitting in the sun all morning, I entered into the aluminum body of the KCC-135 at 120 degrees, and they even had the main cargo door wide open. When it was time to take off, they closed the doors and we sat for over 30 minutes, waiting to take off. The temp soon rose to over 130 degrees. I honestly thought at this time, heat stroke was going to get me. After we took off and climbed to over 35,000 ft. It was much cooler,a nd I survived.

It's now September and lots of things are happening. Tomorrow, I will embark on the USS Nimitz to photograph some flight ops. looking forward to that. Also, I will be flying in another Air Force KC-135, photographing a C-17 late in the month, and the 2 days of flying with the Marines at their Fall WTI exercises, onboard a C-130 and a CH-53. I'm working aon a US Coast Guard story, but I'll leave that for the next update. Take care folks.

Catching up

Well, after doing my Air Force tanker flight for Red Flag 14-1, I went back to Nellis Air Force Base, and did the Red Flag 14-2 exercise a few weeks later. Not much difference, except the Saudis and United Arab Emirates were participating.

Things slowed down quite bit for me, except I was able to get out to sea quite a bit and shoot a lot of Naval vessels including Cruisers, Destroyers, and Submarines.

In late March, I covered the Marine Helicopter Squadron, "The Purple Foxes" as they did a commemorative flight with their CH-46's, before transitioning to the MV-22 Ospreys later this year. My story was published in the Military Press Newspaper, Vertical Magazine, and Photorecon.net.

 

 

On April 16th, I went to MCAS Miramar, and interviewed the Major in charge of the F/A 18 simulators. this was a pretty cool experience to see these machines and how they operate.. The story will be out soon.

April 17th and 18th, was suppose to be days of really cool experiences. I was scheduled to fly with the Marines at MCAS Yuma in Yuma, Arizona. So I show up on the 17th, ready to fly in a RC-130, and refuel F/A-18's, but then I'm told that it has been cancelled due to having an inexperienced mixed community crew onboard and they feel uncomfortable with a civilian onboard. I reminded them, that I'm a former Marine and have plenty of flight time in C-130's, but it didn't work. So it wasoff of the base and out to the fence line to shoot whatever was flying.

It turned out okay, as I saw and photographed my first Russian Hind helicopter, my first Israeli Kfirs, and I saw a lot of Marine aviation.

On April 18th, I was scheduled to fly in a UH-1 Huey Gunship that was to support a operation at a local park, but the winds had kicked up, and the Huey;s were cancelled, so after much  debating back and forth, I found myself in a RC-130 heading for Twenty-nine Palms, CA, to refuel a squadron of MV-22 Ospreys. 30 minutes into the flight, and the Ospreys scrubbed the mission due to weather conditions. Oh well there's always the fall WTI's.

Now, I'm just waiting for the Planes of Fame Airshow, and working on two other stories for the near future.

Red Flag 14-1 Tanker flight

Well the 3rd time is the charm. At the last two Red Flags in 2013, I was scheduled to fly with the US Air Force in their KC-135 Tanker plane, but due to some major miscommunications, the mission failed, and it was two long angry trips back  to San Diego from Las Vegas.

Here it is, Feb.10, I found myself back at the Nellis Air Force base's parking lot, and getting in a van to go on base and get on a plane. There was 5 of us, one was my editor from Combat Aircraft Magazine, Jaime Hunter, my new friend Ivan Voukadinov, who is one of the best Aviation photographers that I know, and two others.

Ivan and I got on our Boeing KC-135, while Jaime jumped on another. Our plane was being piloted by Captain Alex Duke, Co Pilot Robbi Bethancourt, and Boom Operator Airman Ryan Kemp. They were all attached to the 92nd Air Refueling Wing, out of Fairchild AFB, Washington.

We settled into our seats after the safety briefing, and soon we were in the air and climbing high into the sunny blue skies with huge billowy white clouds. We headed north, and I believe we were over Southern Utah, when the first of the fighters started to show up for refueling.

In 3 hours, were refueled fighters from:

The 1st Fighter Wing, 27th Fighter Squadron, F-22As, from Langley AFB, Virginia.
The 20th Fighter Wing, 55th Fighter Squadron, F-16CMs, from Shaw AFB, South Carolina
The 140th Fighter Wing, 120th Fighter Squadron, F-16C, from Buckley AFB, Colorado.

This was my first Air2Air with modern military aircraft, and what a blast it was. I shot through the side windows of the aircraft, and then down though the windows in the tail of the plane where the boom operator is located while refueling is taking place.

After landing, I drove back to San Diego. I was just so happy, that the 5 hour drive felt like only a few. I want to thank the US Air Force, the Base PAO's, and the crew of our tanker flight. Some of the best moments of my life.