Good evening and welcome to the world of Mike. I'm very happy to have you drop in and visit, so pull up a chair and order what you want. The drink of the evening of water, but if you want something stronger I'll add lemon. ( :-D ) At any rate, enjoy yourself. The story for this evenings post is about something that I actually witnessed. I can still see it in my minds eye as clearly as if it had just happened. When it occurred I couldn't believe my eyes and still have trouble believing it. This happened in the pacific ocean in the early seventies. (I think) The squadron I was serving in was deployed on a aircraft carrier. On that particular deployment our line officer was Lt. Jones. Let me describe Lt. Jones. He was a gung ho wannbe genius that sadly missed that aspiration. The one most impressed with Lt. Jones was Lt. Jones. Ok, Ok, enough about the star of our tale. Lt. Jones was a pilot on a A7 corsair attack aircraft. When that particular plane was built it cost about three and a half million dollars. Today's cost would be more like thirty million. What made that plane special was the top secret gear it had. (now declassified of course) Being a plane captain I had to be present on the flight deck during launch and recovery. This particular event happened during recovery. (the planes landing on the carrier) The A7 had a two glaring weaknesses, one of which I'll dwell on here. The corsair had very weak nose wheel steering, which is what is used to steer when taxiing. Of course there wasn't that much taxiing done since it was in the air most of the time. On this occasion Lt. Jones had just landed on the flight deck, raised his tailhook and started to taxi out of the way of the next plane landing. As He pushed forward on the throttle to start the plane moving the nose wheel steering jammed in the port (left) position. Since he was already on the very port side of the ship there was only one place he could go. YEP, you guessed it. Right over the side of the ship. We all stood in dumb amazement as the plane headed nose first over the side of the ship and into the depths of the pacific ocean. Now, you're all wondering at this point "what about the pilot", right? I just had an evil thought. How about I just end this story here and let you wonder.
( :-D ) Naw...I won't do that. Anyway, Lt. Jones "punched out" or deployed the ejection seat just as the plane was hitting the water and had turned upside down. The position of the plane is what saved his life, but it's also what made this so funny. As the 'rocket' from the ejection seat fired it sent him skidding across the water like a stone skidded on a pond. Imagine hearing the plane hit the water as we watched Lt. Jones skid like a rock across the waves for more than a quarter of a mile. As I remember it I can still see him bouncing off of the waves. It was, I believe, one of the funniest things I can ever recall having seen. We all just stood with mouths open for a few seconds before abruptly erupting into gales of laughter. Our thoughts at the time 'it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy'. The angel, the rescue helicopter which was always in the air during flight operations, headed out to pick him up, and successfully retrieved him from the water no worse for wear. (just very stiff, sore and embarrassed) Needless to say, we weren't allowed to discuss the event in his presence. Needless to say also, we talked about it A LOT when he wasn't around. I'm very pleased to have witnessed that but I'm also glad that he wasn't hurt seriously. .........And so it went.........
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