"Lynn Coffelt" wrote in news:heWdneG_8-
:

That's what you get when you don't use a good brand of relative
bearing grease!
g

Good grief, is that something made from aunts or
cousins?..........
ducking...............

OCL


Our SPS-6 aboard USS Everglades (AD-24 may she rest in peace) ran on a
pair of Fallopian tubes. Every new ET aboard was sent down to After GSK
with a supply chit in his hands for a new pair for the radar as soon as
possible, to welcome him aboard.

The supply guys in After GSK were in on it. They'd act non-interested
and take the paperwork, stamping it properly, then go in the back and cut
off two 6" lengths of rubber surgical hose specially planted for the
newbie ETs. Of course, they'd make him SIGN for the new tubes before
leaving so we could publish proof of his stupidity in the ship's next
newspaper...(c;

There were two fittings on the SPS-6 antenna mount and one on the
Raytheon Pathfinder's mount that required relative bearing grease. It
came in a green government tube marked "Jelly, Petroleum" from Forward
GSK, a different series of ladders into the bilge level storeroom in the
bow.

Between the bogus supply runs and the mail bouy watch on the bullnose,
after a couple of weeks, it was real hard, for some reason, to get young,
green technicians to make any real supply runs....Until that time, it was
great fun!

Larry ET1
Supervisor - Shop 67B - Metrology Laboratory
USS Everglades (AD-24) '66-'69
Cruisin' the Med for Uncle Sam

A roll of aluminum foil and a "green" deckhand made for good humor, I would
instruct the deckhand to wrap himself in foil, stand upon the foredeck, as
we would command him to hold himself in rather odd body positions while the
chief and myself up in the wheelhouse "tuned" the radar. If possible we
would do this in port, prefferably so the crews of other vessels could be
witness to the charade. The tinfoil hat was always the crowd pleaser.



"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Lynn Coffelt" wrote in news:heWdneG_8-
:

That's what you get when you don't use a good brand of relative
bearing grease!
g

Good grief, is that something made from aunts or
cousins?..........
ducking...............

OCL


Our SPS-6 aboard USS Everglades (AD-24 may she rest in peace) ran on a
pair of Fallopian tubes. Every new ET aboard was sent down to After GSK
with a supply chit in his hands for a new pair for the radar as soon as
possible, to welcome him aboard.

The supply guys in After GSK were in on it. They'd act non-interested
and take the paperwork, stamping it properly, then go in the back and cut
off two 6" lengths of rubber surgical hose specially planted for the
newbie ETs. Of course, they'd make him SIGN for the new tubes before
leaving so we could publish proof of his stupidity in the ship's next
newspaper...(c;

There were two fittings on the SPS-6 antenna mount and one on the
Raytheon Pathfinder's mount that required relative bearing grease. It
came in a green government tube marked "Jelly, Petroleum" from Forward
GSK, a different series of ladders into the bilge level storeroom in the
bow.

Between the bogus supply runs and the mail bouy watch on the bullnose,
after a couple of weeks, it was real hard, for some reason, to get young,
green technicians to make any real supply runs....Until that time, it was
great fun!

Larry ET1
Supervisor - Shop 67B - Metrology Laboratory
USS Everglades (AD-24) '66-'69
Cruisin' the Med for Uncle Sam

"Sun Dragon" wrote in
:

A roll of aluminum foil and a "green" deckhand made for good humor, I
would instruct the deckhand to wrap himself in foil, stand upon the
foredeck, as we would command him to hold himself in rather odd body
positions while the chief and myself up in the wheelhouse "tuned" the
radar. If possible we would do this in port, prefferably so the crews
of other vessels could be witness to the charade. The tinfoil hat was
always the crowd pleaser.




Darn. I never saw that trick.....(c; Thanks.

Bored to tears crossing the Atlantic for Naples at our breakneck speed of
17 knots, some of the boys in the DASH helo hanger got the bright idea to
screw with the CIC watch (an oxymoron in a tender with 2 3" cannons the
gummer's mates have to break out the manual to fire). They built a tin
foil kite out of Reynolds Wrap stolen from the galley, a really nice box
kite with fiberglass spars. The DASH helo deck was above our fantail and
a great place at sea to fly kites, which up to this point was no problem.
They had about 3 miles of some exotic monofilament line with an amazing
tensile strength, but little weight/mile.

After darken ship (why we did that was always a mystery), when you
couldn't see it, they flew the kite behind Everglades and payed out lots
of this tiny line. The kite was quite large and had a lot of lift. It
would fly back until you could hardly see it, its line seemingly trailing
off to nowhere. Flying above the fantail watch, who was looking at the
horizon, not for the Luftwaffe above, he reported nothing. Not so the
radar operator in CIC. He sounded the alarm of a UFO trailing the ship
on the Raytheon Pathfinder (SPS-21) display at about 2 miles. The watch
reported no sighting as the kite was too far away by the time he looked
for it. The ship's log was duly noted and everyone aboard, mostly the
enlisted ratings who knew all about what was going on, was told to keep a
sharp eye.

Every night, for over a week, this "thing" would show up on radar in the
dark and trail the ship for hours...Then, just after midnight, it would
approach the ship and disappear, suddenly, off the radar less than a mile
away, undetectable.

Finally discovered what it was by the Comm Officer who observed its
launch from the deck outside Radio Central one night, the jig was up.
The airdales on the helo deck apologized and said they'd been flying many
kites. This one was just new. They pleaded innocent, which they
weren't. Our captain decided it was a great test of CIC efficiency, an
unintended drill of great success. The kite continued to fly, but with a
new Saran Wrap covering that was radar transparent, compliments of the
Chief Radarman and cooks....(c;



Larry
--
VIRUS ALERT! VISTA has been released!
NOONE will be spared!

snip
Our SPS-6 aboard USS Everglades (AD-24)...

Sea stories? Oh boy! Now this one is a no ****ter. In 1965, up on one
of the westernmost islands in the Aleutian chain, we used to send guys
outside with a compass, a pair of binoculars, and a notepad, to watch
for the Russians making overflights.

They were told the aircraft would be either GU11's or B1RD's and to note
the number of aircraft in the flight, relative bearing, and approximate
distance. Sometimes we'd use two guys and one of them would be a runner
to bring the reports back in where they were plotted and tracked on a map.

Jack

--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA (jackerbes at adelphia dot net)
(also receiving email at jacker at midmaine dot com)

Jack Erbes wrote in news:1
:

GU11's or B1RD's and to note

If you ever get access to a milspec AN/xxxxx chart that shows what the
letters stand for in AN/ electronics, look up:

AN/ABB-(put your fav number-letter here)

ABB amounts to the model designation for a carrier pidgeon....(c;

Just to see if anyone ever really READ the data from a 2Kilo, we did some
maintenance on AN/ABB-3A, S/N B283845 located at the frame number/deck
level of our flag storage locker atop the main deckhouse. We even turned
in 2Kilos announcing we had completed Field Changes 1 through 12, but not
13, 14 or 15 due to deployment (we hardly left the dock as a tender).

The computer added it to the ship's equipment listing on the Z-fold
printout and listed it as needing 6-month updates, which we always filled
out 2Kilos for and turned into the 2Kilo center...trying to keep a
straight face.

I often wondered what the decommissioning outcome was when they couldn't
locate this expensive piece of equipment to toss into the dumpster. We
never reported he died or was lost at sea flying back to Charleston...(c;

Oh, obviously, noone ever actually READ any reports we sent in.....

Larry
--
VIRUS ALERT! VISTA has been released!
NOONE will be spared!

Jack,

What Island was that? I spent a year at Shemya (aka "The Rock")

Ken

On Feb 9, 2:04 pm, Jack Erbes wrote:
snip

Our SPS-6 aboard USS Everglades (AD-24)...

Sea stories? Oh boy! Now this one is a no ****ter. In 1965, up on one
of the westernmost islands in the Aleutian chain, we used to send guys
outside with a compass, a pair of binoculars, and a notepad, to watch
for the Russians making overflights.

definer wrote:
Jack,

What Island was that? I spent a year at Shemya (aka "The Rock")

Ken

That was it. I worked out at the AAFJOG on Shemya for about 8 months in
1966, we were a small detachment from NAVCOMMSTA Adak.

Jack

--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA (jackerbes at adelphia dot net)
(also receiving email at jacker at midmaine dot com)

What Island was that? I spent a year at Shemya (aka "The Rock")

Ken

That was it. I worked out at the AAFJOG on Shemya for about 8 months in
1966, we were a small detachment from NAVCOMMSTA Adak.

Jack

We sent a reserve crew from Travis to Shemya one weekend in the early
1970's, flying a C-141, carrying rebar for...... what was it? Cobra Dane
maybe?
Anyway, the reserve pilot debriefed back at Travis that he landed, did
an "engine running" offload, and departed without ever seeing the ground.
The snow was blowing sideways in a virtual whiteout, and all he could see
was the tail-lights of the "follow-me" vehicle, and the wands of the
"marshaller"
I heard the debrief.... was it really like that at times?
Old Chief Lynn

Lynn Coffelt wrote:
What Island was that? I spent a year at Shemya (aka "The Rock")

Ken
That was it. I worked out at the AAFJOG on Shemya for about 8 months in
1966, we were a small detachment from NAVCOMMSTA Adak.

Jack

We sent a reserve crew from Travis to Shemya one weekend in the early
1970's, flying a C-141, carrying rebar for...... what was it? Cobra Dane
maybe?
Anyway, the reserve pilot debriefed back at Travis that he landed, did
an "engine running" offload, and departed without ever seeing the ground.
The snow was blowing sideways in a virtual whiteout, and all he could see
was the tail-lights of the "follow-me" vehicle, and the wands of the
"marshaller"
I heard the debrief.... was it really like that at times?

Yeah, on a nice day. :)

Like many places in the chain, most of the snow blew by and was blown
off before it accumulated much. But the winds and chill factors were
not to be taken lightly in any season. But we spent a lot of time out
boondocking and roaming the island when we could, there wasn't much else
to do there.

Actually Shemya was pretty small island, about 4 miles by 2 miles,
fairly flat with most of it about 200 feet ASL.

The runway was about 12,000 feet. There was an another abandoned/unused
runway that featured the remains of a B-17 that was used for crash crew
training.

In the mid 60's Shemya was the home of a joint Air Force Security
Service/Army Security Agency element, I was in a co-located Naval
Security Group Detachment. The over dramatic people used to say we were
"DIPs". Our job was to die in place with ears and eyes open.

Shemya was also home to a big fixed array radar (AN/FPS-17? AN/FPS-80?)
that would occasionally cause birds that few through the "sweet spot"
too close to the array to fall out of the air dead. The little arctic
foxes were grateful for that, a lot of them lived in the area below the
dead bird drop zone. Some of the foxes would take food out of your hand.

Some interesting and not often seen aircraft used to visit and operate
out of Shemya, it was a "spooky" place to say the least. The runway was
at a right angle to the prevailing winds, when the VQ-1 EA3B "Whales"
landed they sometimes used the arresting gear because of their narrow
landing gear and the cross winds.



I helped the VQ-1 Det guys reset the arresting gear once. It was two
lengths of huge chain and they had to be dragged back into place with a
big font end loader. The catch wire was rigged across the runway,
shackled to the end links, on the approach end. The catch wire was
tensioned with two "come alongs" and held up off the ground with some
tires cut in half. The come alongs exploded with each use and were
replaced. Seeing the EA3B take the arresting gear was pretty spectacular.

The base there is now called Eareckson Air Station:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/facility/shemya.htm

Like all my sea stories, this one is a no ****ter. Here is a little bit
more of the story:

http://www.navycthistory.com/shemya_1.html

Jack

--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA (jackerbes at adelphia dot net)
(also receiving email at jacker at midmaine dot com)

In article ,
"Lynn Coffelt" wrote:

We sent a reserve crew from Travis to Shemya one weekend in the early
1970's, flying a C-141, carrying rebar for...... what was it? Cobra Dane
maybe?
Anyway, the reserve pilot debriefed back at Travis that he landed, did
an "engine running" offload, and departed without ever seeing the ground.
The snow was blowing sideways in a virtual whiteout, and all he could see
was the tail-lights of the "follow-me" vehicle, and the wands of the
"marshaller"
I heard the debrief.... was it really like that at times?
Old Chief Lynn

Hell, it is "Really like that" on some days NOW..... Just ask any
North Pacific or Bering Sea Crabber...... there are days when the only
thing they see are Radar Returns, and MAYBE Pot Bouys closer than 100 Ft.
You really know it is Blowing when all the snow is going horozontal or
upwards..... and the seas are 40ft Swell, with a 10ft Chop running
perpendicular to the Swell..... like riding a CorkScrew Rollercoaster,
24/7, for days at a time....

Bruce in alaska who gets Seasick, just thinking about it.....
--
add a 2 before @