Can you reverse it and blow the ied's in their face when they hook it up? I know this is primarily AF and Army, but think about the effect of this new Prowler use combined with some Marine/Navy type close air support if we could get our hands on some A10's. Bad news for the bad guys... Suiside by ied.
Originally posted by JIMMC62: Can you reverse it and blow the ied's in their face when they hook it up? I know this is primarily AF and Army, but think about the effect of this new Prowler use combined with some Marine/Navy type close air support if we could get our hands on some A10's. Bad news for the bad guys... Suiside by ied.
the prowler already causes fear on them just by the sound of them 2 loud jet engines, once the whole jamming system is tested, it will be able to detonate remotely operated ied from a safe distance for our boots on the ground.
iggyiggy, when were you in VAQ-132. I was in the outfit from 1974 to 1976. I was an AD3 and AD2 back then. We had a damn fine squadron during that time frame. I think the best one I ever was in during my whole 20 year career. We had some good people and some real "characters" back then.
i was from october 2003 to august 2006, went in as an ADAA and go out as AD3.indeed, it was a great squadron and i had a great time working with those guys
I miss the Prowler too. It was a very much better aircraft than the standard A-6, even the A-6D and E. The CSDs/Generators were one hundred percent better than the ones on the bombers. More reliable and half the weight. One problem we had were the fuel cell liners and the bolts that held the armor plate in place over the top of them. Half back on both sides Grumman stopped putting a spacer piece between the airframe flange and the armorplate anchor nut. The bolt were then too long and rubbed holes in the aft fuel cell liner. God! that was a dumb move! All that work they caused the fleet on down time and new cell costs was criminal! Did you ever hear the story about the mechs and Trons in VAQ-137 finding the cache of tools in the tail of one of their birds? We had one of our Prowlers come back from NARF and the crews kept griping the plane that it ratlled. We A799'ed the gripe several times until my AT QAR was inspecting an ALQ-100 rack in the aft equipment bay in the tail. He came in and told me he could see something shiny back towards the tail. We went out and crawled back in there and found sixteen different hand tools and a roll of .032 safety wire! Up until that time NARF civilian workers weren't required to inventory their toolboxes. Not so after that! The crews were right the plane DID rattle. I was PP supervisor and QAR in 137 from 79 to 82. That was my last tour at Whidbey and in Prowlers.
i think i've heard of that from the maintenance chiefs when i was in 132, we had a couple of problem with the civilian mechanics also, i remember one of our planes came straight from depot to fallon,nv where we were detached, next day when it turned on it started leaking fuel from the right wing trailing edge, after 3 hours of troubleshooting, we found most of the fuel lines in the trailing edge were hand tighten.
Christ! Some things never change! That's really disheartening to hear that. We had something of the same nature happen to one of our Prowlers like that. It had had a fuel leak down the one of the wire bundle tubes in the starboard main landing gear well. The techs had checked the plane out with our metalsmiths and QA and found out there was a flange that needed tightening, the joil bolts had worked loose from the landing gear stresses. Our skipper went to the wing and got the wing commander's endorsement to fix this bird at NARF. Paperwork with the Commodore's signature went with the packet. We got the plane back while we were in Fallon, too. It taxiied in, the Maint Material Control Officer, the Maint Senior Chief and I went out flashed a flashlight up into the wheel well and saw FUEL still seeping out of the tube!! They contacted NARF and they said it would have cost too much to fix it! The Commodore had already sent the authorization for the repair money. They just didn't want to do it. This was when I was in VAQ-137. The skipper called the Commodore, who called COMNAVAIRPAC and the plane left Fallon two days later, back to NARF. We never did get it back, we got a replacement aircraft. Makes me wonder if they ever really fixed it or just pawned it off on somebody else with the same problem?
most likely they fixed the problem,and since you guys had a replacement bird, they just gave it away to some other squadron, that is done a lot with some airlines, when they have extensive repairs, they get a replacement plane and once the damaged plane is fixed, its sent for storage on standby to substitute another plane going for maintenance
