Chris,

Pilots were hands down my favorite people to communicate with. You boys saved more lives on the ground where I was at in 2010 than people can appreciate. Somehow they understood that comms wouldn't be perfect in the midst of a gunfight and just did their job vs. some battalion higher ups who only heard errors or breaks where there shouldn't be any. For that, I thank you.

And I picture every pilot I communicated with as "Fat Jesus" but there were quite a few respectable salty deployment stache's.

BRB -- Watching Top Gun.

 

Thank you for your service. It always amps us up when we hear the gunfire in the background. And nothing is more satisfying and relieving than knowing we helped our boys get home safe. I know I'm not alone when I say I wish we could have done more sometimes. By the time I got there, the ROE was so restrictive that sometimes getting permission to employ caused us to lose PID or miss a small window where it would be safe to employ.

Sadly, I could not grow a healthy mustache like FJ. Asian genes...

 

Thankfully, we went off topic from the stupid **** we were discussing before to this,

Good stuff guys! Post up more vids !

 

Alright! I'll feed you, baby birds both of these vids are pretty sick. I'm not even sure how they were able to get some of the footage.

This video isn't mine. It's from the West Coast Hornet Ball in 2014. Probably one of the best vids made.


Also not mine. This is last year's video. The bad weather landings at the boat (4:30ish) are pretty cool. And the MiG-29 and Su-30 footage around 9:00 gives me a chub.

 

^That is some like, real production good stuff. What is the bad landing pucker effect like? Haha, If I was the guy in the back seat I see myself clenched with my eyes closed each time.

I don't really have stuff like the above, but I guess I'll play along too. None of the videos are mine, but do the better job of showing where I was, Marjah. Same place that Medal of Honor recipient Kyle Carpenter was, he just came with one of the battalions that replaced us in late 2010.

For the readers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Moshtarak

Pre-video warning: There is language in the videos. Feel like that should be there?

Quickie, but a goody:

Some of the better helo clips (unfortunately there is music over this one).

Same old, there is stuff all over youtube:

This last one is 90 minutes, but the HBO documentary on it that is an actual production and not just a bunch of short shaky clips thrown together.

 

@chrisridebike8 much respect man. You showed him what's up. Hahah. Also, thank you for your service.

@OP I thank you for entertaining me this fine evening. You are a gentleman, scholar and a damn fine troll.

 

Yeah you guys are definitely more in harm's way than us. Cool vids.

And yeah, we love to make our jet **** videos as cool as possible. Those dudes that made those are on another level. I'm actually the one in the back. I'm a WSO. Landings in bad weather don't necessarily scare me. You don't see anything. Paddles (the LSOs on the flight deck) is talking you down and if the tone in his voice calm, it keeps you calm. Sometimes you see nothing...nothing...nothing...oh there's the ship...touchdown in the wires. You might not see anything until you're in the wires getting thrown forward during a trap. The scary passes for me are when I can see and feel what's going on and I can hear Paddles' voice inflection change. There have been times where it's a hot day in the gulf and the density altitude is 3-4000 feet and the jet just doesn't perform the same. You feel the jet go a little light during the pass and just start falling, Paddles gives you a "power, Power, POWER" call and you hear the engines spool and the jet is still falling, and you are at full power, falling out of the sky, hoping to you're going to make it past the rounddown at the back of the ship.

I'm actually going out to the boat today for a couple days with a student pilot to do his inital carrier quals in the F-18.

 

^I couldn't even imagine the feeling of knowing you have jet engines spooling and the thing is still falling. I bet I'd get pretty animated haha.

I'm also sitting here interchanging "student pilot" with "student driver" and having myself a good ole time with that idea.

I imagine the instructor doesn't exactly have a brake pedal

 

pretty cool man. life on the line for your own country. much respect!

 

Damn, those videos are sick.

This thread became bada$$.

 

This thread became awesome, hell yeah

 

Haha. Internally I can be saying "Oh ***** oh ***** oh *****....oh thank God we cleared the ramp (didn't hit the back of the ship)" but I won't talk when the pilot is flying the ball. The LSOs are keeping us safe and talking to the pilot if anything is wrong. The last thing I want to do is talk over that. And we don't use brakes when landing at the boat. We touch down and go full power and rely on the wires to stop us. If we don't catch a wire, we need full power to take off again. A few of the jets at VFA-106 have controls (brakes included) in the back but we don't take those to the boat, and none of the jets in the fleet have controls in the back.

Here are a couple pics from the last couple days.

 

I like how this thread has turned out

Have any air combat stories you can share?

 

Probably my favorite story I have:

I was the new guy in the squadron. I had been in the squadron maybe 6 weeks. It was the last day of our combat operations in OEF for our 2011 deployment. It was going to be my 5th flight in country. Intel briefed us that the location we were going to be doing CAS (close air support) over had an 83mm recoilless rifle that would attack them from various locations around dusk and to be on the lookout for it. We checked on station in the early afternoon and everything seemed quiet. Eventually we got called to a Pri (priority tasking) and performed armed overwatch for a convoy of SEALs returning to their FOB. Nearing the end of the flight around dusk as the SEALs got back to their FOB, we got called to a TIC (troops in contact) that happened to be at our original killbox. The JTAC on the ground gave us the grid and we put our sensors there. The lead jet wasn't seeing anything, just trees and dirt homes. When I put my sensor there, I saw muzzle flash. It was along a treeline that was kind of close to some houses. Too close for a bomb. Eventually the JTAC gave us clearance to strafe the location where I saw muzzle flash. They stopped getting shot at. When we got back to the boat later that night, we chatted with the JTAC via basically a secure instant messenger to see what happened. He said enemy chatter on the radios said they were screaming that we killed 2 of their guys. When they sent a team out there to conduct BDA (battle damage assessment), they found a bunch of blood and broken rifles. They also said that we got that recoilless rifle that had been bugging them for awhile. It felt good to know we got the bad guys and helped keep some people safe.

As far as stories about the jet or other jets trying to kill me...I have too many for my own comfort. Haha. No air to air combat though.

 

That's a good point. If these engines in other forms come stock with the extra power how can it be said that a tune makes them not last as long?

Unless everyone agrees the higher tuned stock engines won't last as long as a detuned c63 from factory

 

 

Put a piece of paper in the picture that says duckbootz. Why aren't you doing this? I don't get it.

 

That would be because he is making it all up

 

Why are guys like duckbootz still trying to be relavent?

We have people here on this forum that fight for our freedoms and deserve our respect and this ***** is still trying to claim he has cars that aren't his lol

 

Yeah. But so what?

Most of us here are just laughing at it at this point, using this thread as entertainment, and not taking it personally like this dude is robbing us of something.

Let's just all have a good laugh until the ban hammer gets dropped.

 

Excellent points

 

Ill never get banned My truths are forever

 

This guy lies so much he probably doesnt even know whats real anymore.

 

Sad. I gave you an example MrDuckLips. Yet you still can't get it right...

And seriously, what a crappy pic. Did you use a motorola razr? Can't you even afford an iphone if you drive that Bug?

 

He may truly have a learning disability ...