Combat Training

Many years ago there was a Navy flight crew that had launched on a very important mission.   Right after takeoff the inertial navigation system experienced a seemingly catastrophic failure.  It looked like all was lost until the gnarly old Master Chief Flight Engineer went back to the Navigator's station to investigate.  After a couple of minutes he made the following comment to the Navigator:  "You know these inertial navigation systems are really smart.  But you have to tell them where they are before you tell them where to go!"  You see the Navigator had aligned the system using the destination coordinates instead of the coordinates for their point of origin.  We, too, as believers must know where we are before we can know how and where to go. read more ...

A long, long time ago in a far away galaxy there was a Navy flight crew that was heading home after a long deployment to Naval Air Station Home Port from a certain island on the Pacific Rim.   They used the very in-vogue computer-generated flight plan -- the state of the art for the day, to determine their route of flight and fuel requirements.  The weather along their route of flight was notorious for the ability to change without warning.  I guess the forces of nature have never been really big on following what the forecaster predicts.  Instead we usually find that the weather does pretty much what it pleases.  In this case nature delivered a very healthy thunderstorm about the size of Australia.  Consequently, the flight crew, suffering from an extreme case of get-home-itis, attempted to climb the aircraft to the maximum attainable altitude in an effort  to get over the weather rather than make a pit stop.  To accomplish this amazing feat of aviation they turned off the engine and propeller anti-ice systems to squeeze out the last available Bernoulli (pound of thrust).  About twenty minutes later the grand silence befell them as three of the four engines flamed out (quit running).  After losing twenty thousand feet of altitude they were able to stir the languishing horses back to life and finished their journey to Home Port after making an unplanned fuel stop at the island home of the famous Albatross (Gooney Bird). read more ...

This old and barnacled sailor, perhaps like many of you, has spent many years being evaluated from almost every conceivable aspect.  I have experienced personnel inspections, operational readiness inspections,  promotion exams, in-flight check rides, etc.  The reason for all of these was to determine how I measured up to a given standard.  In each case it was fairly easy for me to see what was expected and how I would be able to meet those expectations. read more ...

Many years ago, when I possessed the bravery of my youth, I was an aircraft navigator on the Douglas A-3D Skywarrior.  It was a monster of an aircraft that weighed in at around 78,000 pounds -- pretty big to be crashing (making arrested landings) aboard aircraft carriers.  Perhaps that is why it eventually was referred to  by its nickname, "Whale."  The Whale was large because one of the original design considerations was that it would be capable of carrying a nuclear weapon.  In those days the weapons were still quite rotund. read more ...

Have you ever met a new believer who had such energy and exuberance that you would swear they must be plugged into an electrical outlet?  Then a few weeks or months down the road you begin to observe the energy begin to fade and their daily life no longer seems to shine as it once did.  In the Navy we would say that person is all hawse pipe and no keel or all chrome and no steel. read more ...

I remember, in the early days of my naval career, learning a very valuable lesson at someone else's expense. A combat aircrew returned to Naval Air Station Home Port from a routine training flight. As soon as they had shut down the engines and exited the aircraft they were swiftly captured by a security team and whisked away for a little impromptu survival training. For two days they would have to survive in the wilderness with only the equipment contained in the survival vest they were wearing. By the time they finished they fully comprehended the importance of each item and the potential effect if absent or damaged. read more ...

There once was a revelation from nature that slapped me upside the head one autumn day while looking at the trees in my back yard.  The leaves that were once on the trees were now on the ground! Perhaps that is why the other name for autumn is fall (Duh!).  This was my first experience at watching the seasons come and go.  I had spent my life on the West Coast where the seasons are but two.  I noticed that in the span of a few days the apple tree in my back yard had gone from robust and full of greenery to something stark and bare. The leaves, that were once a blessing of shade to me, were now withered and lay motionless on the lawn. Where once they soared to and fro in the cool mountain breeze, they were now strewn about in heaps as if huddled in helplessness. read more ...

In times gone past I do recall an occasion when what my eyes beheld as something solid in fact was not.  It probably would not have been as shocking had I discovered this lack of rigidity in another place and time.  However, I had discovered it on the wing of the airplane I was about to use to leap into the sky.  I had been inspecting the top of the wing and had found my boot sticking through a hole where I had just stepped on what I thought was solid aluminum.  Right there in the here and now was an example of, what was later to be identified as, inter-granular corrosion.  It occurs because the aluminum alloy itself is, by its nature, unstable and starts the corrosion process as soon as it is manufactured.  You could say that it possesses an inherent defect.  Fortunately an x-ray of the spot in question revealed that the defect was localized and could be repaired. read more ...