Bravo Zulu

Approach, Oct, 2002

The crew of Sun King 601 were preparing for deployment by conducting air-intercept-control training at NAS Fallon. The crew included: Ltjg. Jason Clendaniel, pilot, Lt. Corey Johnston, copilot and aircraft commander, LCdr. Brian Groff, combat-information-center officer, Lt. Chan Barry, aircraft-control officer and mission commander, and Ltjg. Jon Shepard, radar officer.

During climbout, the crew was unable to trim the rudder. While the crew was troubleshooting, the rudder-trim actuator failed, resulting in rudder trim completely running away to the right. Both pilots had to input left rudder to maintain directional control. The crew elected to take a field-arrested landing at NAS Fallon. To overcome controllability problems on the approach, the pilot had to provide significant left rudder while the aircraft commander was flying from the right seat. The aircrew's attention to detail, initiative, and management prevented a mishap.

The crew of Boomer 735, Lt. Ron Dowdell and Ens. E. P. Hadler, departed NAS Corpus Christi on a VMC day for a precision-aerobatic training mission. While flying a practice-emergency approach, they heard an unusually loud thump in the nosewheel well when the landing gear was lowered. Ens. Hadler told the instructor pilot, Lt. Dowdell, the landing-gear-position indicators displayed the nosewheel as unsafe.

Lt. Dowdell took the controls in the rear cockpit and entered the emergency-orbit delta pattern over Navy Corpus. The crew followed the NATOPS-pocket-checklist procedures for manually extending the landing gear. with negative results. Lt. Dowdell requested an in-flight inspection of his landing gear. Lt. Wayne Gunther joined his T-34 on Boomer 735, and confirmed the nosegear was down, but canted 45-degrees aft. Troubleshooting continued for 45 minutes, with Raytheon technicians and Lt. Ron Uhlig assisting over a maintenance frequency.

Out of options, Lt. Dowdell prepared to land knowing his nosegear would collapse on touchdown. On short final, he secured the engine and kept a nose-high attitude to slow the aircraft. He then gently lowered the nose to the deck before all lift was lost. The nosegear did collapse on landing, and the crew egressed without incident.

A coordinated effort averted a class A mishap. The engine and the reduction gearbox had no damage. Total damage to the T-34C was $16,000.

Combat aircrew (CAC) 11, with the Mad Foxes of VP-5, assisted in rescuing of a small fishing vessel off the east coast of Florida. While conducting combat-readiness training, CAC 11 received a distress call from a 28-foot, sport-fishing vessel. The boat rapidly was taking on water, and its three crewmen were trying to call the Coast Guard.

Lt. Zack Connelly, the patrol-plane commander, and LCdr. Matt Pregmon, the mission commander, responded to the call, talked with the skipper, and got their location. Lt. Connelly contacted the Coast Guard Station at Port Canaveral, told the dispatcher of the situation, and offered SAR assistance. With approval from Air Traffic Control, the crew headed 85 miles south at 300 knots to an area 25 miles east of St. Sebastian's Inlet.

CAC 11 identified the troubled boat using their advanced-imaging, multi-spectral-system camera. The flight-station crew noticed a few small fishing craft within five miles of the boat. Ltjg. Kristen Richards, the pilot at the controls, descended to 300 feet and circled the boat several times, flashing landing lights to tell the skipper that help had arrived. After establishing communications and marking their coordinates, the crew did low-altitude flybys and flashed their lights to get the attention of nearby vessels.

The skipper of another sport fisher contacted CAC 11 on maritime frequency channel 16 and offered to assist. The P-3 crew returned to the distressed boat, circled overhead, and vectored the supporting craft to the distressed boat's position. While orbiting the sinking boat and talking with the Coast Guard, the P-3 crew learned the skipper of the assisting boat was retired Navy and had served in VP-6.

Several members of the assisting-boat crew boarded the sinking fisher and helped bail the rising water. Unable to find and contain the source of flooding, the skipper of the sinking boat moved his crew to the safety of the other boat. Ten minutes later, the boat capsized.

CAC 11 remained on-top and directed a Coast Guard cutter to the scene. As the cutter crew took control of the situation, CAC 11 returned to NAS Jacksonville with a completed training mission and SAR under their belts. "Way to go Navy!" was the last radio call received from the skipper of the assisting sport fisher as the P-3C left the site.