These digital charts are the same as your typical FAA/NACO charts but insanely more manageable. What Sky Sectionals has done for us is provide the conventional grid overlay we use (15′x15′) further subdivided into 7.5′ grids (A,B,C,D). The grids are easily identified with semi-transparent lines and don’t obscure key critical information on the chart. This is simply a Godsend to Search and Rescue Pilots and Aircrew. Now you can carry current and updated GRIDDED charts with you at ALL times. I still see some guys flying around with charts that are 10 years old because they don’t want to grid a new one (granted they have current paper charts, but still…), all that is in the past! There’s simply no excuse for not having up to date gridded charts anymore.

Other nice things about these charts are that they are perfect for folding up and putting them in your kneeboard. Just get your grid assignment ahead of time and print them out before you head out to fly your missions. I’ve gone the extra mile and printed out the entire Seattle Sectional, TAC and VFR Flyway and laminated each page. I carry them all in one giant spiral bound stack so that if we get reassigned to an unexpected grid, I’ve always got them with me. The laminated surface works great with a dry-erase marker as well for adding notes and outlining your grid.

If you’re jumping up and down like I was to hear about this new product, you can get a full tour by heading over to: http://www.capcharts.com/tour

The Sky Sectionals team has even provided a full video tour of the sectionals:

Last but not least, if you aren’t already convinced you need to go order these charts, a portion of the proceeds of every CAP Chart they sell is donated to the Civil Air Patrol Foundation. You can make your life easier and contribute further to a great cause all in one! It’s great to see a company that has taken the time to address the needs of an organization like the Civil Air Patrol and we should definitely make every effort possible to support them. Happy flying!

Write a quick comment

If you would like to show your support, it only takes a check for $4 (made out to GSWW (Girl Scouts of Western Washington)) to do so. Contact me @ [ cookies (at) bisonium.com ] for the address of where to send the check. Thanks for supporting our troops!

Write a quick comment

Assembly Bill 132 requires that employers with more than 11 permanent employees grant a leave of absence without pay for not more than five consecutive days or 15 days total to employees serving in an emergency service operation of the Civil Air Patrol. The bill also prevents employment discrimination based on participation in the Civil Air Patrol. Governor Doyle thanked Representatives Huebsch and Murtha, and Senators Kapanke and Vinehout for their work on the bill. I am thrilled to see so many states now jumping on the bandwagon to protect CAP members with the same rights afforded to our military reservists and National Guardsmen. CAP plays a vital role in our nations disaster preparedness and as a supporting role to the United States Air Force. I only hope every state in the nation adopts a similar policy.

Write a quick comment

Assemblymember Wilmer Amina Carter’s Civil Air Patrol Employment Protection Act – Assembly Bill 485 – was signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger on Oct. 11. The measure assures that members of the all-volunteer Civil Air Patrol in the state of California will have employment protection after returning to their jobs from an authorized emergency mission.

AB 485 establishes a right to employment leave (up to 10 days a year) for members of the California Wing of CAP, which is an official Civilian Auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force. The protection applies only when members are called up for an emergency by the U.S. Air Force, the California Emergency Management Agency or any subdivision of the state with the authority to declare an emergency.

Emergency operational missions are those that involve the saving or protection of life and property. “To perform search and rescue flights for several days and find out you’ve lost your job is devastating to a volunteer whose main purpose is to save lives,” Assemblymember Carter said. “Until my bill was signed into law, CAP members only had the job protection rights given to them by their employers,” she added. “Fortunately, employers have generally been supportive of the Civil Air Patrol.”

“This bill enables us to respond emergencies that will help save lives and properties without this threat of losing our employment if we do so,” said Lt. Col. Carl Morrison, co-chair of the California Wing’s Legislative Committee, which is the principal sponsor of the measure. Similar legislation has passed in nine states. “We’re very very pleased that Assemblywoman Carter has been willing to author this bill.”

Assemblymember Carter said, “Their payment, for a CAP volunteer, is in the personal reward of contributing countless hours of non-compensated time. But the California Wing of the Civil Air Patrol can’t be a consistent resource, unless they are fully supported for their patriotic service.”

Write a quick comment

A few weeks ago I posted an entry about an upcoming movie, Speed & Angels.  There’s a few more videos posted on iFilm’s War Zone for those of you that are interested.  Can’t wait for this movie to hit the street!

Technorati Tags: Cool Sites, Military, Movies, Video

Write a quick comment

For you aviation and Navy nuts out there, here’s a movie you won’t want to miss. For those of you living in San Francisco or visiting on August 17th, 2006 – you can get a sneak peek!

Speed and Angels is the true life story and feature-length action documentary about two navy officers chasing their dreams to become fighter pilots. The film follows them during the most dangerous parts of their training and as they go to war, where the realities of being a fighter pilot test their limits.

The film includes epic aerial footage in stunning HD—including the last ever F-14 Tomcat dogfights—and rare naval archival and wartime footage. Thanks to unprecedented access granted by the navy, Speed and Angels gives an inside look at people’s journeys as fighter pilots as it has never before been seen.

Based on the original concept of producer F.A.Chierici, Speed and Angels is directed by Peyton Wilson.

Looks like a great documentary and I am definitely getting the DVD.  What Navy airdale veteran wouldn’t want to add this to their collection? Brings back a whole boat-load of memories (no pun intended).    More information and goodies are available at the Speed & Angels website.

Technorati Tags: Aviation, NAVY, Military

Write a quick comment

Boy am I going to miss this plane.  I remember my days aboard the USS John F. Kennedy (I worked on A6 Intruders) and watching Tomcats being shot and trapped off the deck, what an amazing experience.  It will be a sad day in US Naval Aviation.  The newer, sexier F-18′s are great, but in my book, just the shear intimidation of the F-14′s looks are enough reason to keep it around.  I guess that’s why I am not working at the Pentagon making those “executive” decisions huh?

[ via Military.com ]

Aging F-14 Makes Final Bombing Runs :

The U.S. Navy’s F-14 Tomcat fighter, built as a Cold War defense against Soviet bombers and emblazoned on popular imagination as Tom Cruise’s plane in the 1986 movie Top Gun, is just weeks away from making its final combat sorties over Iraq before being retired for good.

A pair of Navy squadrons with the last 22 operational Tomcats are still flying bombing and strafing runs on insurgent targets in Iraq, jetting off the deck of the U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Persian Gulf.

But by next fall, Navy pilots will have completed their switch to the smaller, more reliable F-18 Hornet, said Commander Jim Howe, deputy commander of the Roosevelt’s F-14 squadrons.

Despite the dogfighting flash of Top Gun, in real life the Tomcat was so tough to fly and maintain that it became known as the “turkey,” said Howe, “because it doesn’t look like it should fly.”

The first squadron of Tomcats, a big two-seater with its signature retractable wings, screamed across the skies in 1971, after rolling off Grumman’s assembly line in Bethpage, New York.

Its final combat sorties are taking place in coming weeks, before the Roosevelt departs the Persian Gulf early next year, taking the last American F-14s to their retirement in the United States. Howe declined for security reasons to name the date of the Roosevelt’s departure for its base in Virginia.

Most remaining F-14s will be mothballed in the desert on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson, Arizona.

“It’s a bittersweet time for all the Tomcat people,” Howe, 38, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, told The Associated Press by telephone from aboard the Roosevelt. “The powers that be figured it was time to put it to rest.”

When it emerged 34 years ago, the Tomcat was considered a major coup in the U.S.-Soviet arms race. The F-14 carried up to six Phoenix air-to-air missiles that could be fired simultaneously and guided to six separate targets.

The Pentagon envisioned the F-14 defending U.S. carrier groups against fleets of Soviet bombers, said Rear Admiral John W. Miller, a former Tomcat radar operator who is deputy commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain.

“It was a phenomenal capability when it was developed,” Miller said. “It’s one of the planes that helped us win the Cold War.”

The Tomcat’s wartime debut in April 1975 was a humble one: providing cover for the U.S. evacuation of Saigon just before the city fell to the North Vietnamese.

Tomcats didn’t see combat until six years later, in 1981, when a squadron flying near Libya’s Mediterranean coast shot down a pair of SU-22 Fitter fighters after one of the Libyan pilots fired a missile at the U.S. jets – and missed.

In 1989, Tomcats downed a pair of Libyan MiG-23 fighters, after apparently deeming the Libyans had displayed “hostile intent.”

The Tomcat had an even longer adversarial relationship with Iraq.

In the only known export of the plane, the United States sold 80 F-14s to Iran in 1974, while the country was a U.S. ally under the shah. During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, Iranian Tomcats – now defending Iran’s Islamic revolution – downed three Iraqi fighter jets. Saddam Hussein’s air force is also thought to have downed a handful of Iranian F-14s.

Ironically, the last flying Tomcats may be Tehran’s.

U.S. intelligence assessments say five or six of Iran’s early model Tomcats can probably still fly, but do so rarely, given the U.S. embargo on the Islamic Republic and the prodigious maintenance and parts the F-14s need, Howe said.

“I have almost no doubt that their F-14s are in such poor shape that I would not call them operational,” Howe said.

In the Gulf War in 1990, U.S. Tomcat pilots took on the Iraqi air force – losing one plane to an Iraqi missile and shooting down one helicopter – but the dogfights were over in three days, when the Iraqi air force was destroyed or fled. After that, the air-to-air equipped F-14s were of little use.

Soon after, carrier-based F-14s began enforcing the no-fly zone over southern Iraq under Operation Southern Watch. They’ve flown over Iraq ever since.

Upon the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Tomcat’s dogfighting prowess became an anachronism. The Navy retooled it as a ground-attack jet, with capabilities to drop guided bombs.

Tomcats joined the air war over Bosnia and Kosovo in the late 1990s, dropping laser-guided bombs for the first time.

The pair of squadrons on board the Roosevelt fly daily over Iraq, giving air cover to U.S. ground troops fighting guerrillas in Baghdad and north of the capital, Howe said.

They haven’t seen as much action as Air Force and Marine F-18s and AV-8 Harriers, which have been engaged in increasingly intense bombings of rebel positions in western Iraq.

Still, the Tomcats have proven useful.

One night last month, Howe said his pair of F-14s flew low over Baghdad’s airport to investigate reports of U.S. C-130 cargo planes taking rebel anti-aircraft fire. The insurgents also opened fire on the Tomcats, giving away their position. Howe said he radioed the rebel coordinates and U.S. ground troops captured the men and their anti-aircraft gun.

The Navy’s Tomcat pilots will be retrained to fly two versions of the Hornet, the two-seat F-18F and the one-seat F-18E, Howe said.

The Tomcat isn’t the oldest combat jet still active in the U.S. arsenal. The B-52 Stratofortress bomber, which entered service in 1954 and still blasts targets in Afghanistan wins that honor. Also going strong in Afghanistan is the Air Force’s A-10 Warthog, which debuted in 1972.

The F-14 became notorious for the painstaking maintenance it needs: 40 shop hours for each hour in the air, four times the tinkering needed by its F-18 replacement.

“It’s been flying on the backs of the maintainers for a long time,” Howe said.

The F-18s are also easier to fly, Howe said. But the Tomcat has a few qualities that pilots will miss. Howe, who will move to a one-seat F-18E, said he’ll miss having a companion in the cockpit.

“I’m a fan of the two-seat concept,” Howe said. “You get a synergistic effect that pays dividends when people start shooting at you.”

Write a quick comment

Write a quick comment