Quote:
Originally Posted by Spaghetti Legs
Was it still called the “Desert Duck” then? That’s what we called the H3 making rounds in the 90’s. The helo crew had a game of stamping duck feet on the flight deck and the flight deck crew would retaliate with a ship’s sticker slapped on the side of the aircraft.
Yeah figuring out and maneuvering for a desired wind envelope isn’t that hard, unless you’re dodging oil tankers or platforms. I did work alongside some pretty thick JO’s however.
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We used to catch a Sea Stallion out of Sig every morning during Iraqi Freedom. We were the night carrier so we started launching airstrikes at 7pm and would catch the last plane at 7:30. At 8:30 we'd get the Sea Stallion (CH-53) with 10,000 pounds of mail and parts. We'd list half a degree to port with that one. For such a large aircraft, it was kind of touchy on the wind envelope and usually after it lifted off the deck about 30', I'd turn the ship away from it. We caught the same helicopter for three months but sadly it was lost with all hands on the way back to base about a week before we left the Med.