I swear I pushed the select jettison button, and had that image in my head. We found a stretch of ocean that was clear of any traffic, and after going over it once he emphasized to me, "Look at the station you selected and read it off to me." After telling him it was number 4, he finished with, "Now make sure you use select jettison and not the salvo button." I pushed the select jettison button and looked in my mirror to see the fuel tank drop away from the wing, and quickly looking in my left mirror caught the buddy store falling away as well. The maintenance officer got on the radio and we went over the NATOPS procedures for jettisoning the fuel tank. On my last rendezvous the buddy store failed to finish transferring all the fuel in my drop tank on pylon 4 and so I said goodbye to the aircraft on my wing and called maintenance to discuss the problem. I had a buddy store on pylon 3 and a drop tank on pylon 4. Fuel tanks were not too expensive, but the buddy store had all sorts of hardware and electronics it. The slug of fuel would shoot forward, and the tank might be ripped off the pylon. You couldn't take a trap with a partially full fuel tank. Tanker DutyĪt times the buddy store would malfunction, and stop transferring with 500 pounds of fuel sloshing around in one of the tanks on the aircraft. It looked like an aircraft had ditched, but an A6 had gone off just prior to me and used the salvo jettison getting rid of all his stores. It was as big as an aircraft and persistent, just kind of staying there without dissipating. Well, I looked down over the water as I was heading out and saw that kind of footprint. You know what it looks like when you take a big stone and throw it in a pond? It disappears but leaves a foot print of turbulence and bubbles on the surface of the water. As I was cleaning up the aircraft and heading to the squadron's rendezvous point I saw something in the ocean. I came off Cat 2 one day and made my clearing turn. If you had a catapult shot that didn't give you enough airspeed off the bow this was an option to buy some immediate lift. The salvo jettison was a big red button close to the middle of the instrument panel, and did not discriminate. One was the select jettison, which allowed you to pick a location under the wing, and then jettison that store. There were 2 buttons available to jettison stores attached to the pylons under the wing. No questions.Įvery catapult shot I took from that day on I practiced his advice. If you don't have 175 knots by the end of the cat stroke eject. Salute and come back inside to look at the airspeed indicator.Reach out look at and touch the salvo jettison button.He asked, "Salt, what do you do after your take-off checklist while under tension, and right before you salute for the catapult shot?" He went on to describe what he thinks and does. I didn't have an answer, but started practicing that flight until I left the Navy. I was in a brief with my Skipper for a night hop, and he asked me perhaps the best question any one ever asked me in a brief. Below you will find a description of some of these scenarios. There were typical scenarios that would require us to either jettison fuel, ordinance, or other stores. I have experience flying the A7-E Corsair off the USS Nimitz in the mid-1980's.
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