The Passdown Log
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| And then
there was Seven! It was April of 1987. I had just finished my first year at VA-42. Even though I was not neutral duty, I had made practically all of the VISWEP and CQ Detachments. The El Centro VISWEP Detachments were my favorite. Since I was from Simi Valley, CA. (Five hours northwest of El Centro), it was always nice to go home and see family and friends. It was not all that convenient at NAS Oceana in VA. Beach. I really took a liking to El Centro, as it was a civilian run base and things tended to run at a more civilized pace. So as I stated, it was April of 1987 and VA-42 and VA-128 (the east and west FRS Squadrons) decided that a permanent detachment in El Centro (also known as "El Sweato" or "Hell Centro") made a whole lot of sense. So both squadrons agreed to send a small number of personnel to El Centro to establish equipment, hangars and offices for the permanent detachment. It was determined that four personnel for VA-128 (Three Enlisted and one CWO) would be sent and two (both Enlisted) from VA-42. I was one of the two from VA-42. An AZ3 at the time (Just made 3rd from the March exam cycle. Just pinned it on by the time I left.) I was the admin guy. It was real tough. 8am to 2pm mostly, with 72 hour liberty almost every weekend. This lasted about three months. By the end of July, most of the six other personnel were returning to their squadrons, but lucky for me, the Detailer for VA-42 was an AZ and probably one of the nicest chiefs I met in the Navy. (Continued at top of next column) |
Anyway, to make a
long story short, he got me new orders to MATKWEPSDET, at the price of a three month
extension of duty (A very small price to pay!). Even though most of the former VA-174 Desert Rats had transferred over to MATKWEPSDET, I was the last remaining of the original seven. When I left MATKWEPSDET in February of 1990, there were over one hundred personnel assigned. Since this page's inception, a funny thing happened, one the other original seven found my site and sent me an email! The Melting Taxiway... Believe it or not, the taxiways, which were made out of asphalt, actually got so hot one day, that they melted and sucked in one of our visiting Intruders. The base crane had to pluck it out of the taxiway! That is pretty hot! About the Gedunk... It would not be a M.A.W.D. Page without mentioning our Gedunk! Our Gedunk was world famous. At one point, the base cafeteria (NOT the chow hall!) was closed for business because we became the alternative site for chow! Even the civilians gave us high ratings (They must have tried the chow hall)! Our Gedunk was opened 24 hours a day, 7 days a week during ops. We maintained the 7:00am to 5:00pm time frame between ops. You could get a chili dog with cheese at 3:00am if you wanted! All of the proceeds went to detachment picnics and BBQ's. Lt. Mitchell and AO1 Haney commissioned the gedunk. I was the second enlisted personnel put in charge of it. During my days, we broke in the Nacho's machine (What a life!). The El Centro Wing Crack Incident Probably one of my more memorable experiences was in 1987. When I was VA-42 we had as many as 22 Intruders. A lot of them were 3G aircraft. This meant that they had cracked or overstressed wings, and were awaiting rewing from NARF Depot level maintenance, which occurred every four years of the aircraft's life cycle. The 3G planes were fine for some of the training missions. When it was determined by the NAVY that the A-6 was having wing fatigue problems, VA-42 lost some of their 6.5G aircraft and was given 3G aircraft from the fleet squadrons (Seagoing).
(Continued at top of next column) |
If the G-Force was exceeded on
any of the aircraft, an overstress inspection was executed by Maintenance Control to
assure that no further fatigue or cracks occurred. I had the unfortunate experience of watching an A-6 Intruder succumb to wing fatigue. This was at NAF El Centro when the XO of VA-128, B/N Lt. Col. John Calvin was flying and went into what looked like a 3G dive. When the pilot pulled out, the port wing separated from the aircraft. This was described to me from a member of VA-128. He had told me that in an act of bravery and courage, knowing that the A6 does not have command ejection, blew the student pilot out as he went down with the aircraft as it exploded. This version does differ from the interview done with Robert Pandis (The Pilot) by The Discovery Channel, however only he really knew what happed up there. Immediately after the incident, the Navy called for a
grounding of all Intruder. They were all inspected for inner wing cracks. Very soon after
the inspection was performed, it showed that the Intruders were suddenly showing excessive
wing fatigue. Based on that inspection, the G-Force Limitations were established. For more stories, click here |
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