A Korean Memory

Even the tankers were loaded for bear...

OldAFSarge just posted a story that brought back some memories...  This was back in 1976 when we were both E-4's in our respective services, though we hadn't met.  In one of the periodic flare ups that happen with depressing regularity in Korea, a ruckus occurred on the DMZ that ended up in a lethal fight with axes of all things.  This snapshot was taken during our response from the USS Midway to the incident.  During our month of "practice strikes" on Nightmare range; conveniently located near the DMZ we operated pretty much round the clock dropping ordinance.  I remember taking this shot since the aircraft, an A-6A of VA-115 was assigned as a tanker, and you may notice he's carrying 500lb bombs and sidewinder missiles in addition to the refueling equipment.  He brought the missiles and fuel tanks back, but left the bombs on the target.  You should have seen what the aircraft actually assigned to bomb looked like!  As a historical note at the time CAG-5 aboard the Midway had two squadrons of F-4s (VF-151 and VF-161), two of A-7s (VA-56 and VA-93), and an A-6 squadron (VA-115) handling offense.  In a supporting role were VQ-1s EA-3, VMFP-3's RF-4s, VMAQ-2's EA-6s, VAW-115's E-2s, and HC-1's SH-3s.  Not a bad turn out for one ship.

Enjoying the View

On the way to Flagstaff

Here's another photo from the last drill, this one from the trip up to Flagstaff.  We have routes where we do terrain flight up most of the way, but while those are fun they're also work.  This trip we were moving the unit up to our training area so the concentration was on multiship operations.  They also involve work, but with the higher altitude there was the occasional moment to enjoy the view.  This was taken looking west in the Sedona area.

Longbow over Arizona

Apache Longbow near Picacho Peak

We had a busy weekend spent mostly in the Flagstaff area doing high altitude training.  There was a fair amount of weather (rain, hail and thunderstorms) that we dodged in the process.  It was a nice break from the usually nice but hot weather in the Phoenix area.  Sunday we flew some people down to Marana and had an AH-64D Apache Longbow join up with us.  Getting air to air shots is not something you get to do every day, so I grabbed my iPhone and got this one.