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1977-1978.
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Look at these "I Love GAZA" Tee Shirts |
Photo by C. Jeff Dyrek
In the foreground are the S-3 Viking Anti Submarine aircraft from VS-33 the Screwbirds. You can see the photo of the Screwbird on the tail.In the background you see the golden tails of VA-192 's Golden Eagles. The men on the deck are performing a FOD walk down. FOD stands for Foreign Object Damage. Even a small bolt can cause serious engine damage in these super vacuum cleaners called jets. Every day the flight deck crew does a FOD walk down to eliminate any damage possibilities.Here's an interesting story about these S-3 aircraft Viking. One night were off the coast of California. It was very windy. The seas were high and the ship was rolling heavily. It was cloudy and foggy. The Automatic Carrier Landing System (ACLS) was down so the planes were required to land visually and manually. Can you imagine this? An F-14 Tomcat came in for a landing only twenty feet off of centerline. Its wing tip cut every one of these S-3's radomes and cockpits completely in half, destroying the entire squadron with one hit. You should have seen the damage. The S-3's were incredibly destroyed. Wires and sheet metal were hanging everywhere. Of course these planes would never fly again, at least without some major repair, and were off loaded in San Diego at NAS North Island. About ten years
later I was working as an Automated Test Programmer at the Sacramento Army
Depot. One of the engineers there was named Lisa. I told her
that I was on a cruise aboard the USS Kitty Hawk and told her about this
accident. Now, this is a small world, it turned out that Lisa was
stationed at North Island and was one of the persons assigned to repair
these highly damaged aircraft.
My name is Marlin Schauss, ATC, USN RET. I was aboard the USS Kitty Hawk on the night that the four Vikings in my squadron were hit by the landing F-14.The fairytail written about about all four planes being completely wrecked and never flying again is totally not true. Two of the planes had their forward pressure bulkheads sliced open. A three man team from NADEP North Island where sent out to the ship to perform the require Depot Level repair on those planes. The other two planes were repaired by me and my shipmates in the squadron. I can tell you from first hand experience, that all four of the planes that are mentioned as never flying again, ALL FLEW BEFORE the end of the cruise, and flew off to our home base at NAS North Island. I just thought that I would help set the record straight. I served
with VS-33 from 1973 though 1978 and again 1981 through 1984. I am
truly proud to have taken part in the fantastic safety record that
VS-33 has had.
Here's a little information about VS-33:Making its first
deployment with the Lockheed S-3A "Viking" aircraft on this cruise,
VS-33 logged 17 years of accident free flying as of September 1977.
Another first
for VS-33 was the US-3A COD aircraft, which is the only aircraft of its
type. VS-33 was chosen as the squadron to take the US-3A on its first
operational deployment, during which it carried over 200,000 pounds of
mail and cargo to the USS Kitty Hawk. The US-3A gave the
USS Kitty
Hawk unprecedented mail service and on one occasion carried vital repair
parts and shipyard personnel over 1500 NM to repair major casualty damage
on the ship. |
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VS-33 Links
1966
VS-33 flying the S-2E on the USS Bennington
VS-33
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NAS
North Island Air Wings and Squadrons
USS
BENNINGTON AIRCRAFT (CVS-20) S2E from VS-33 October 1968
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