I have heard that part of the modernization entails removing the SS-N-19 Shipwreck missiles and expanding the hanger.

That would be a stretch! (pun intended)

Really, I don’t think that is feasible given the distance between the current forward edge of the hangar and where the missile launchers are: the space in between would have to be cleared of all existing compartments across the full width of the ship and there is no alternate space where the functions that these compartments are for can be conducted.

Sigh… the Shipwrecks are removed… the compartments at the fore end of the hangar are relocated into the now vacant spaces further forward, and the hangar is now longer (expanded).

Simple, isn’t it?

:rolleyes:

Nothing Arkali106 said requires the hangar to be extended to include the shipwreck spaces in the hangar.

Here is the story of Brigadier General Jimmy Stewart’s Vietnam B-52 mission… it was hardly routine.

Early February 20, 1966, Captain Bob Amos was thumbing through the flight schedule in preparation for the mission he and his crew would fly the next day, and he was surprised to see that there was a “Brigadier General Stewart” listed as an extra pilot to fly with them. Figuring this Stewart was probably from Strategic Air Command (SAC) headquarters coming along as an observer, Amos nonchalantly asked his squadron commander, Lt. Col. Collins Mitchell, who the visitor was. “You know, Bob, it’s Brig. Gen. Jimmy Stewart, the actor! He’s over here on an active duty reserve tour, and we wanted him to fly with a young crew that would be reminiscent of the World War II crews he commanded while flying B-24 Liberators out of England, and to see how we were supporting the troops in Vietnam.”

Amos could hardly wait to break the news to his crew, a lead crew that had already flown 20 combat missions over South Vietnam. Strategic Air Command had been reluctant to contribute the B-52 to the war, but General William Westmoreland asked for the B-52 to hit known Viet Cong strongholds in the south. Amos’ crew was of the 736th Bomb Squadron, from the 454th Bomb Wing, under the command of the 3rd Air Division. Originating out of Andersen AFB, Guam, there were no short flights–missions generally took at least five hours just to reach their targets.

General Stewart and the 454th Bomb Wing commander, Colonel William Cumiskey, attended the special mission briefing late that afternoon. It would be a long, nonstop mission, requiring aerial tanker support. Captain Amos’ crew had prepared a series of extra maps and charts depicting the operation over South Vietnam, and Amos outlined the mission, air refueling and recovery procedures back at Guam. The sortie would be against a suspected VC stronghold and bivouac area northwest of Saigon, where the potential threat was from Cambodian-based MiG-17s.

Amos’ bomber would be designated Green-2 in a 30-ship bomber stream mission named New Car-1. Before leaving, Amos had his tail gunner, Tech. Sgt. Demp Johnson, go to the commissary and buy fresh eggs, bacon, bread and cheese so they could have scrambled eggs and bacon along with grilled cheese sandwiches on the long five-hour flight back to Guam. With the B-52’s large upper cockpit and power outlets, the crew had gotten accustomed to using an electric frying pan to prepare hot meals to supplement the standard in-flight lunches provided.

Now, 22 years and one day since he had earned his first Distinguished Flying Cross for his Liberator mission over Germany in 1944, General Stewart was going on another combat mission–to Vietnam–seated in a B-52 behind Captains Amos and Meyers. The pilots ran through the checklists, fired up the engines and departed Andersen field for the 5-plus hours flying time to their target. When it came time to refuel, some three hours later, Amos contacted the tanker’s boom operator while in the precontact position behind the KC-135. Amos had Stewart repeat the command: “Green-2 stabilized in the precontact position. Ready for contact?’ There was an unusually long pause before the tanker boom operator responded, as though he might have been trying to remember where he had heard that voice before. “Cleared for contact,” he finally said. At plug in, Stewart replied, “Contact?’ After refueling, Amos let the tanker know who the extra pilot was. The boom operator replied: “Thank you sir, it was our pleasure to serve you. Today we are giving double stamps?’ Stewart had a good laugh.

As they approached the coast of South Vietnam and were running their checklists, Stewart asked if they were at the Pre-Initial Point on the map. He then moved to the edge of his seat so he could view the bomb impacts of the aircraft ahead of them. Green-2 was at 33,500 feet, 500 feet above and two miles behind the lead bomber, Green-1. Green-3 was 500 feet above and two miles behind Green-2. The radar navigator, Captain Irby Terrell, found and tracked the bombing offset, and the Time to Go (TG) indicator started the countdown. At TG zero, they started the release of 51 M-117, 750-pound bombs. Each of the 30 B-52s had an individual bombing aim point so as to completely saturate the rectangular target box where the VC were reportedly located. The bombs were fused to penetrate the many caves and fortifications that were in the target area. When the strike camera film was processed back at Andersen, the crew learned that their bombs fell well within the desired Circular Error of Probability (CEP) that was required to hit the desired target.

When safely outbound off the coast of South Vietnam, Captain Kenny Rahn plugged in the electric frying pan and prepared the planned meal for the crew. “You all really know how to top off a successful bomb run,” Stewart said as he enjoyed his scrambled eggs, bacon and grilled cheese sandwich.

The flight back was uneventful until they began their approach to Guam. It had been nearly 12 hours since Captain Bob Amos had taken off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam on a B-52 bombing mission to strike targets near Saigon. As he piloted his Stratofortress into its approach for landing back at Andersen, slowing to 220 knots and lowering the flaps, his co-pilot, Captain Lee Meyers, shouted out, “The flaps are splitting !” Amos ordered Meyers to raise the flaps as he corrected a rolling moment to the left, and then declared an emergency as he pulled out of the bomber stream and climbed to gain altitude. What had been an uneventful flight was now getting hairy, all the more so because of the man who was seated behind Amos in the instructor pilot seat. Visions of screaming newspaper headlines hitting doorsteps across America raced through his head: “Jimmy Stewart Killed in Bomber Accident with Bob Amos Piloting!”

Thinking his flaps were damaged, Amos knew that a “flaps-up” landing in the B-52 was possible, but he had only practiced it in training down to an altitude of 500 feet above the runway and no actual touchdowns were ever made. The B-52’s attitude during the approach to landing is dramatically different in a flaps-up approach and landing: The normal nose-down attitude becomes a nose-up attitude and requires a different technique in flaring and controlling the sink rate of the aircraft for touchdown with its bicycle-type landing gear.

Now in an emergency situation, Maj. Gen. William J. Crumm, 3rd Air Division commander, came on the radio and asked if they could verify that the flaps had actually split. Amos radioed back: “There was a mild rolling moment to the left, but it wasn’t severe and could have been from the B-52 in front of us …. By the time the tail gunner got a view of the flaps, both of them were back in the up position.” Crumm then asked Amos’ thoughts about trying the flap extension again, after moving General Stewart down to the instructor navigator position in case of a possible bailout should the aircraft become uncontrollable. Amos gave the thumbs up to Meyers, who concurred.

“I’m going to extend the flaps again,” Amos told Crumm. “With a 20-degree flap differential, we should have experienced a more severe rolling moment.” General Crumm agreed, and they proceeded to the planned bailout area north of the base where ground-and water-based survival support was on alert.

As Amos flew into the abort area north of Andersen, the crew started to calculate the flaps-up landing data: airspeed plus-35 knots; landing roll–longer; if drag chute failure–50 percent longer. He then escorted Stewart to the instructor navigator position on the plane’s lower deck. “If I lose control of the aircraft,” Amos said, “I will call out over the intercom ‘bailout’ three times and activate the bailout light. The navigator will be the first to go, creating a large hole by his downward ejection seat.” Amos reassured Stewart that he would do everything he could to regain control of the bomber and would be the last to leave the aircraft.

“Do you understand, General Stewart?” Amos asked.

“Yes, Captain Amos, I understand,” Stewart very calmly answered in his familiar granular voice.

Amos verified that everyone was prepared for a possible bailout, and they began their approach in the abort area. “Lower the flaps,” Amos ordered to Meyers. The gauge again indicated a splitting condition, but both left and right flaps were extending normally without any rolling moment! Amos informed the command post: “It was a bad flap gauge, not a flap malfunction…our previous rolling moment was probably turbulence from the B-52 ahead of us in the bomber stream.” A relieved General Crumm told them “to bring her in”

In the meantime, everyone knew that Jimmy Stewart was aboard the Green-2, and the airfield was abuzz with emergency equipment and several staff VIPs and aircrews awaiting the flaps-up landing. Later, Amos would recall: “We popped over the horizon heading westerly to the Andersen runway with flaps down. There was to be no flaps-up landing that day!”

The official time in the air for the mission was 12 hours and 50 minutes. After taxiing in, the plane was greeted by a number of VIPs, and Stewart suggested a photo of himself and the flight crew to commemorate the mission and successful landing. While the crew proceeded to the mission debriefing area, the general was escorted to the famous “Beer Barrel” area to lift a few with the flight and maintenance crews, swapping World War II and Arc Light stories. Amos’ crew joined the Beer Barrel celebration later.

The following morning as Amos and his crew were planning for the next mission, an announcement came over the loudspeaker that the wing commander wanted Captain Amos to meet him in front of the building immediately. As he rushed outside, he found General Stewart seated in the CO’s car. Stewart told Amos, “I wanted to thank you for a successful combat mission and your professionalism during the in-flight emergency.” Stewart then presented the captain with a set of personalized autographed photos, taken after they landed, for each member of the crew, and he wished all of them good luck. For the general, it was his last combat mission.

Captain Amos went on to fly a total of 34 combat missions in the B-52F over South Vietnam and later 126 missions in the F-105D, including 100 missions over North Vietnam. He retired as a colonel from the U.S. Air Force in 1984, after 26-plus years with a total of 5,094 flying hours. In his last flying assignment, as the director of operations of the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., he commanded two B-52H Squadrons, and a K-135A and RC-135 Squadron.

Amos still fondly recalls the B-52 mission and close call he had with Jimmy Stewart. “It was a great experience and an honor to have Brig. Gen. Stewart fly with us. He was truly the same gentleman in person as he had portrayed in his many films!”

Years ago I saw a magazine article about Michael Dorn (who played the Klingon Worf in Star Trek) owning and flying an F-86 Sabre.

Up next for Worf (see quotation below)?

Michael Dorn acquired his F-86 Sabre from the South African Air Force. He had it for about four years and flew it across the country a few times before selling it in 1998.

Shortly after getting his license (in a Cessna 172), Dorn purchased an Aerospatiale-Socata Trinidad TB-20.

“It has retractable gear, so I went from a 172 to a ‘complex’ airplane,” he said. “After that, I progressed rather quickly.”

From the Trinidad, Dorn upgraded to a Cessna 310 and then to a Cessna 340. An encounter with the Blue Angels forever changed the way he looked at flying.

“The Blue Angels had contacted Woody Harrelson from ‘Cheers’ to go down and do one of their media flights, and he bailed at the last minute,” he said. “Somebody told them I flew, and they called me.”

Dorn flew to El Centro, Calif., in his 340. His ride with the Blue Angels was magnificent, but the knowledge he gained was even better.

“Flying with them ruined me,” he said. “It was over, because I love jets. Then I realized that someone could own an ex-military jet. That started me down a different road.”

The first military jet Dorn bought was a CASA jet.

“It was a tiny, twin-engine jet, but it got me acclimated to jet operations—how jets work and the speed and thinking way ahead,” he said. “With the 340, you start coming down 15 or 20 miles away. With the jet, you have to be thinking 30 and 40 miles out, ‘OK, I’ve got to start coming down.'”

With his knowledge about military aircraft, Dorn decided he wanted to go through the jet process Air Force cadets had undergone.

“In the old days, they went from T-28s to T-33s, and then on into F-86s or something else,” he said. “I wanted to have that experience. All my instructors were ex-Air Force, and that’s what they flew on.”

Dorn moved up to a T-33 Shooting Star.

“It was a good experience, because the T-33 is built like a tank,” he said. “You can bounce it off the runway, and make hard landings. It’s also an old airplane, so the response on the jet engine is very slow. You come in for a landing, and if you’re slow and have to give it full power to go around, it’s going to take probably five or six seconds. That’s time you don’t want to waste. That gave me a real sense of what these old jets were about.”

Dorn had his T-33 for three years. He also tried his hand at a Mitsubishi MU-2, before acquiring an F-86 Sabre.

“It was a dream to fly,” he said. “You really have to work at screwing up.”

Dorn laughs and says his jets were fairly benign, and that the most “excitement he’s had” was with a nose-gear problem with a twin-engine Cessna.

“I had to land on the nose,” he said.

As he did with his past aircraft, Dorn based his F-86 at Van Nuys Airport and flew it across the country a few times in the four years he had it, before selling it in 1998 and acquiring a North American Sabreliner.

“I thought I was done with military flying,” he said. “It’s kind of complicated, and you have to email the FAA to tell them where you’re going to go. It’s a little bit of a hassle, just because of the nature of the beast. I just wanted to be able to jump into my airplane and fly.”

As it turned out, the Sabreliner didn’t make that happen.

“It was a bad choice, because with those corporate jets, you need a copilot,” he said. “Then, you’re at the mercy of your copilots.”

Dorn said the Sabreliner was “a fantastic plane,” but didn’t offer much excitement.

“I was bored out of my skull,” he said. “You take off, and you have your arms crossed for two hours.”

He also said that it’s cheaper to fly a military jet than a corporate jet.

“The corporate jets are current, flying airplanes,” he said. “A screw, even though it’s just a metal screw, is 10 times the price of a regular screw. With military jets, it’s so different. I remember we found two engines in Florida for the F-86. My mechanic went out there, and he was drooling over them, they were in such good shape. They were $25,000 for both of them. A Sabreliner engine is upwards of $300,000. We found brake parts—this guy had enough brake parts for several sets of brakes for us, which we got for $200, because they were just sitting in his garage.”

Dorn eventually sold the Sabreliner and again began searching for a military jet. As time went on, and he didn’t find exactly what he was searching for, he opted to keep “his head in the air” by acquiring a Beech Baron E55 prop from a friend. The plane, however, isn’t satisfying his need for speed.

“It’s a fairly slow airplane, and it doesn’t go very high,” he said. “It will basically go to 10,000 feet, but it’s a 9,000-foot airplane.”

He’s also had the chance to fly other aircraft he didn’t own. In the mid-1990s, he went up with the Thunderbirds for a flight he said was “even better” than his previous one with the Blue Angels.

“We were up in Northern California,” he explained. “We took off out of Travis and went out towards the coast. We were doing all the maneuvers and then we started flying around the San Francisco Bay at 2,500 feet. It was one of those beautiful days, and we’re in a Thunderbird jet, flying low over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was spectacular.”

Of his 1,600 hours total time, Dorn has almost 10 hours in F-16s and eight hours in F-18s.

“I went on an aircraft carrier in the back of an F-18,” he said. “We did air operations. I think we did four traps and three cat shots. I did dogfighting in F-16s with the ‘Okies’ (465 Fighter Squadron, Tinker AFB, Okla.) and with the Fresno Air National Guard.”

He also has about six hours in the B-17 and has flown left seat in the B-1 Lancer. One airplane Dorn missed actually flying was the P-51, although he came close to flying one for “Red Tail Reborn,” the story of the Tuskegee Airmen.

“About 10 years ago, I was contacted because they were looking for pilots to fly the P-51,” he recalled. “We started to make the contacts and they were arranging for me to get training, but it fell through.”

The involvement of one of Dorn’s friends, Brad Lang, in the project, led to Dorn narrating the 2007 PBS documentary film.

Over the last few years, Dorn has considered acquiring a T-38, F-5 or F-8 Crusader. Although the T-38 is “affordable right now,” and has two engines, which he says is “always a good thing,” at the time he’s most interested in the Crusader. He’d like to “resurrect one” to participate in Heritage Flights.

There are several airplanes out there, but I’m being patient this time and trying to find the correct one,” he said.

While I was disagreeing “vigorously” with Wanshan, I find he is at least worth debating with.

A poster, who comes in with a grade-school board-name like “ipfreely”, and immediately begins calling names & telling people to shut up…

All I can say is:

And for us all (myself included)…

To further what Imsbtn said in post #7 above…

RN flag (bat) frame = square

USN flag (paddles) frame = round.

….If the bats in my earlier post photo (#4) (Korean Panther recovery).. are round , then one of us should have gone to ‘Specs*vers’…;)

Aaaaggghhh!!!

Missed that shot, bms44… oops! :p:p

Money spent on Gorshkov akin to price of similar warships

NEW DELHI (PTI): Government said the USD 1,783 million to be spent for refurbishing and repairing the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier “compares well” with the price of similar warships built in other countries.

“The repair and refurbishing cost of about USD 1,783 million (USD 1.78 billion) of the ship compares well with the cost of other aircraft carriers of similar capabilities being built elsewhere in the world,” Defence Minister A K Antony said in written reply to a Rajya Sabha query Friday.

India and Russia recently signed a fresh deal worth USD 2.33 billion dollars for the Gorshkov, which was originally to be procured at a cost of USD 974 millions under a 2004 agreement.

Pointing out the reasons behind procuring the Russian-built aircraft carrier, he said,” requirement of two operational aircraft carriers for the Navy has been considered essential to perform its mandated tasks. Further, aircraft carriers are not easily available.”

Antony added, after taking these aspects into consideration, the induction of the aircraft carrier was finalised to enhance the combat capability of the Navy.

Source

Their point would be true IF Gorshkov was a new-build ship… which it is NOT.

What it is, is a 23-year-old ship that saw 10 years of service before being poorly stored for 8 years, and which has been highly modified (resulting, as all such major modifications do, in a less-efficient utilization of space & layout than a new-build ship would provide).

She will have a shorter service life than one of the new carriers Defence Minister A K Antony is comparing her to, and thus her cost (per year of service) will be more than those new carriers cost would be.

To further what Imsbtn said in post #7 above…

RN flag (bat) frame = square

USN flag (paddles) frame = round.

So this is the replacement of the shuttle for the USAF? did not they had enough with all the shuttle’s headaches?

I still don’t understand it..why a spaceplane, they really want to capture russian/chinese satellites?

No… it is NOT “the replacement of the shuttle”.

If you read any of what is available on the X-37B, you would find it is an unmanned spacecraft designed to carry moderate-sized cargo (payload bay 7′ long by 4′ diameter* in its early design), and to spend up to 9 months per mission in space.

Shuttle payload bay is 60′ long by 15 ‘ diameter… you can fit 4 of the X-37B inside the shuttle payload bay (X-37B is 29’ 3″ long)!