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Link Posted: 7/19/2005 12:32:58 PM EDT
[#1]
Link Posted: 7/19/2005 2:04:44 PM EDT
[#2]
I spent three years on the Nimitz with RVAH-6, The Smokers as we were known, as a photographers mate. I loaded all the cameras up before flight and unloaded them upon return. The hard points were used for infer-red lights when doing night flights. We also had a pan camera that shot horizon to horizon. Very nice photos came out of that one. I cannot tell you how many times I have crawled the length of the center tube just to check my circut breakers. I was there when RVAH-6 decommissioned and was transfered to RVAH-7 until they shipped me off someplace else. This was from 1977-80 in Key West Florida on the Bocha Chica Navel Air Base.
Any questions on the aircraft?
Link Posted: 7/19/2005 2:52:38 PM EDT
[#3]
It's been NAS Key West since 1940.  

Now it's Naval Air Facility Key West, Boca Chica Field, part of the Key West Naval Station Annex.


Quoted:
Key West Florida on the Bocha Chica Navel Air Base.

Link Posted: 7/19/2005 3:14:59 PM EDT
[#4]
That's the place. Mind you it has been 20 years or more since I was there so I may very well have mis-stated myself.
Besides that, I had a very intimate relationship with the bar owners there.
Link Posted: 7/24/2005 8:57:17 PM EDT
[#5]
Found two new photos:



Link Posted: 7/24/2005 11:21:06 PM EDT
[#6]
Beautiful pics! Thanks a bunch. Damn, that is one sexy bird...... Imagine F-22 engines in that airframe........
Link Posted: 8/17/2005 8:42:24 PM EDT
[#7]
The Vigilante is one of my all-time favorite USN aircraft & probably the most beautiful aircraft to operate off a carrier.  It's too bad we have such boring aircraft on the decks now especially since the F-14 is flying on vapors.

Actually all you would need would be a pair of P&W F100-229/232's or GE F110-129/132's plus new avionics, an AESA radar, a designator pod, and conformal bomb carriage for JDAMs and SDBs to turn the "Vigi" back into a world-beater especially since the strike mission has gone back to mid-high elevation.

It would give the USN a real long-range strike platform again vs. the huge & marginal compromise currently in service.

BTW, great Vigi pics!
Link Posted: 8/17/2005 8:52:24 PM EDT
[#8]
Sexy plane. Heard it was an absolute bitch to fly it from a carrier.
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