dad

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VA-22 and the USS Coral Sea

I’ve been trying to get info from my dad about his time flying A-7s on the USS Coral Sea, flying adversary for Top Gun, etc. Sadly, I know so little. But every now and then he emails me photos with tidbits about his Naval career. Here’s some photos that he took during his time on the USS Coral Sea circa 1973. His attack squadron was VA-22 The Fighting Red Cocks.

He found the photo below on Wikipedia of (what he thinks is) his A-7E airplane.

An in-flight left side view of a Vought A-7E ”Corsair II” aircraft, from attack squadron VA-22 ”Fighting Redcocks”, assigned to ”Carrier Air Wing 15 (CVW-15)” embarked aboard the aircraft carrier ”USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63)” in 1981. The aircraft carr. (via)

In my dad’s words:

This is the airplane I jumped out of (Maybe). This one is Beefeater 314, or NL-314, pronounced November lima 314 with the identical paint scheme & markings. The star on the top of the LH wing blocks the 6-digit Bureau Number (BuNo) that would have been painted on the lower portion of the aft fuselage right in front of the horizontal stabilizer. Mine was BuNo 156846, ..( I think). When a unit/squadron sustains a loss, they get another one, different BuNo, & they paint it with the Unit number sequence, etc.
I stumbled upon this photo while searching through my email. The photo was taken by my Dad. It was in an email with six other images. (I posted one previously.) The photos move me. Partly because all I knew of him was my dad. But he had a crazy, dangerous lifestyle prior to my being born including hot shot A-7 pilot, Top Gun adversary, Washington, DC based NTSB investigator (major airline crashes), and FAA safety inspector, which is what I am most familiar with. It’s seeing these photos and hearing his stories that makes me want to carry on and get my pilot’s license. He wrote a small explanation for the photos saying: Ole’ (young) Dad took the A-7 Images using my Mamiya 35mm after I had developed the skill & confidence to use a hand held while flying formation & modulating the jet thrust – a trick. WE USED STILLS TO PHOTO DOCUMENT Russian freighters going in & out of Haiphong harbor. I think the film was Ecktachrome – too much blue! High-res

I stumbled upon this photo while searching through my email. The photo was taken by my Dad. It was in an email with six other images. (I posted one previously.) The photos move me. Partly because all I knew of him was my dad. But he had a crazy, dangerous lifestyle prior to my being born including hot shot A-7 pilot, Top Gun adversary, Washington, DC based NTSB investigator (major airline crashes), and FAA safety inspector, which is what I am most familiar with. It’s seeing these photos and hearing his stories that makes me want to carry on and get my pilot’s license. He wrote a small explanation for the photos saying:

Ole’ (young) Dad took the A-7 Images using my Mamiya 35mm after I had developed the skill & confidence to use a hand held while flying formation & modulating the jet thrust – a trick. WE USED STILLS TO PHOTO DOCUMENT Russian freighters going in & out of Haiphong harbor. I think the film was Ecktachrome – too much blue!