Friday, January 26, 2024

VAQ-33 (GD 12) Lockheed NC-121K on it's last flight to Davis-Monthan AFB for retirement in April 1982. This was the last "Connie" to serve the Navy. Photo by Robert Lawson.

 


11 comments:

  1. Beautiful beast, sucking that avgas through 72 cylinders of 13,400 cubic inches total displacement.
    The analog world we once inhabited; machines designed by engineers with slide rules and nomographs, men that smelled like sweat. Of course technology evolves, efficiency improves, performance eclipses prior models. Yeah, sure.
    But the equipment we use today lacks the soul and human investment integrated into it from other humans.
    Or maybe my romantic attachment to the past is showing.

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    1. There's nothing wrong with your romantic attachment to the past. IMHO, today's cars, trucks, airplanes, locomotives and even television shows haven't had the same class and quality, let alone style, as any of the above that were made when engineers still used slide rules.

      I applaud your good taste.

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    2. Phil had a post with similar sentiment recently. You are not alone.
      https://bustednuckles.net/its-not-just-me-then/#comments

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  2. Used to do a lot of work at Homestead AFB in southern Florida, now defunct since hurricane Andrew in '92....there was a fleet of hunters and AWACS that were made up of Connies....I really enjoyed watching them flying in the end of their life span....majestic is the best description.....I remember sealing the joints on a new concrete apron in front of the maintenance hanger.....the inspector insisted that we fill the joints to overflowing.....we tried to explain to him that the sealnt needed to be recessed so the tires couldn't touch it, but he knew better...when we came back a month later to do another job we noticed the Connies had tracked that seal everywhere....the hardest lessons learned are the best ones, IMMHO....

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  3. Flew on a Homestead Reserve 121 for a 1976 Nellis AFB Red Flag event over the Tonapah range...about 9 1/2 hours. This crew was tasked with loitering on a race track and directing the friendlies (lots of ECM jamming). Took a lunch break between the morning and afternoon airborne fighter exercise traveled north and buzzed the lake Tahoe shoreline and checked out the winter ski areas. Memorable day.

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  4. The best looking airplane ever made. Have wondered if the radials could be replaced with modern turbo props.

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  5. In 1948, when my Army Air Force career officer was PCS-ed from Germany back to the States, we flew home on a "Super Connie." I was only 2 years old, but my mother seemed to think it was a pretty elegant flight.

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  6. If I'm not mistaken, they were also the last squadron to operate the A-3 Skywarrior in '91. My squadron (VAQ-34 in Point Mugu) was next-to-last.

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  7. Used to have one parked out side the Ops building, occasionally, at NAS Key West, '66-'68. It was guarded 24/7, deadly force authorized.

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  8. My first flight as an 18 y/o headed for Europe was from St. Louis to NYC on a Connie. Spent the whole trip glued to the window watching the country roll by and still think about it late at night.

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  9. That bird was one of two Connies originally at NAS Glynco, flown to Key West in 1973 when Glynco was closed. The other one was flown to the 'new' Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, where it resides today.

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