Seen this posted on Fb
...........
Christmas, 1977. 160390 sits on the Grumman ramp at the Calverton Airport. The 326th Tomcat to come off the line, she is arguably the newest, shiniest, most powerful and most sophisticated air superiority asset in the world. She was number 326 of an eventual 712 F-14 Tomcats produced by the famed Grumman Aerospace Corporation.
An F-14A-95-GR, she was 62 feet long, had an unswept wingspan of 64 feet and stood 14 feet at the tip of her twin vertical stabilizers. She weighed in at a lean 40,000 pounds empty, and at $30 million a copy, cost the taxpayers an economical $750 per pound.
As she crouched in slumbering repose on the Iron Works flight line, the holidays passed, and passersby had little idea what history had in store for the big fighter.
The new year had barely begun when a pair of crinkle-eyed fighter jocks showed up to take possession of the jet. They did an inspection, signed for the plane, then "lit the fires" and roared out over the Atlantic, headed for Virginia Beach. Following an uneventful flight, the big fighter breezed in over the fence and touched down just past the three board on runway five right. She taxied on fumes to the Hangar 500 ramp, where swarms of Fighting-84 maintenance troops stood by to greet the new arrival. Before very many days had passed, the jet wore VF-84 colors; gloss haze gray, black vertical stabilizers trimmed with a yellow flash and stark white skull and crossbones, and a bold yellow-bordered black diagonal stripe on the fuselage, adorned with stylized yellow victory vees. The ventral stabs read VF-84, and the nose wore a proud squadron number. Victory 207 was the newest Jolly Roger.
Her paint was barely dry when Hollywood called, and 207 and her sisters were soon performing for the camera in The Final Countdown. Supporting actors were the likes of Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen and Katherine Ross, but Victory 207 and her sisters were the stars.
Time sped by, and 160390 made a pair of deployments aboard Nimitz, flying from Gonzo Station in the Indian Ocean in support of efforts to end the Iranian hostage crisis.
Shortly after the hostages came home, Nimitz was steaming in the Caribbean Sea, working her airwing hard in preparation for a deployment to the Mediterranean. In the late evening of May 26, 1981, 207 was parked aft of the junkyard when an EA-6B Prowler crashed on deck trying to land. In the chain reaction that followed, 14 sailors died, while a pair of VF-41 Tomcats burned to ash. Nimitz steamed into Norfolk for repairs and the airwing scrambled to replace aircraft. In the ensuing shuffle, 207 was shifted to the Black Aces to replace one of their lost jets, and she became Fast Eagle 107.
The ship and airwing deployed to the Med, where tensions were high in the Gulf of Sidra. On Aug. 19, 1981, 160390, aka AJ-107, crewed by Lieutenants Larry "Music" Muczynski and Jim "Amos" Anderson, shot down one of a pair of Libyan SU-22's sent over the gulf to teach the yankee imperialist pigs a lesson. Fast Eagle 102, just six months younger than 107, bagged the other Fitter, with Fighting-41 Skipper Cdr. Henry "Hank" Kleeman and Lt. Dave Venlet at the controls.
The years passed, and 160390 made many more deployments, first on Nimitz, then on Roosevelt. In 1990, in another squadron swap, she got a new home and new name. As Black Lion 103, she deployed with Fighting-213 on Enterprise, then on the spanking new Abraham Lincoln.
October 25, 1994 found the Tomcat preparing to land on Lincoln during airwing carrier quals. Crossing the wake and configured for landing, 160390’s left engine failed her. In AB on the right engine, the jet's big rudders deflected hard right to combat left yaw. She leveled off and began to climb. For a moment, it looked like she would survive, but the nose kept coming up. At 20 units Alfa, she shuddered and fell off to the left, out of options. The RIO, seated behind the pilot, pulled the handle on his Martin Baker GRU-7A ejection seat. The canopy blew off, followed by the RIO, then the pilot. 160390 buried her nose in the restless Pacific 50 miles west of San Diego. The back seater was plucked unharmed from the waves within four minutes, but the pilot was rocketed straight down, hitting the water at more than 160 mph.
Kara Hultgreen was killed instantly, and the history packed 16-year existence of 160390 came to an end.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2008, 10:12:42 AM by Shaun Evertson »
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