Military Pics & Videos

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F-22 Raptor from the 95th Fighter Squadron,

325th Fighter Wing, Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida . .

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Marines with Lima Company, Battalion Landing Team 3/1, 13th MEU,

fast-rope out of an MV-22B Osprey

[Schmidt Meister]

 

[Schmidt Meister]

Minenräumer - Kubinka Tank Museum.

[Schmidt Meister]

Here's one more clip showing the mid-air collision at the Dallas Air Show on the 12th. This one was taken by someone who was only about a block +/- away from the impact.

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_rl9e9l6PL21ztr0v0.mp4

[Schmidt Meister]

USAF C-47's and C-123's spray Defoliant Chemical Agent Orange in South Vietnam - Operation Ranch Hand - June 17, 1966

[GT4494]

1 hour ago, Schmidt Meister said:

USAF C-47's and C-123's spray Defoliant Chemical Agent Orange in South Vietnam - Operation Ranch Hand - June 17, 1966

Dad was involved in that when we were in Japan circa 1968.  Since he was technically not part of the flight crew and would load, fly and return in one day he had no records of flying orders.  When he came down with Lymphoma there were no records.  Plus the fire in the record storage in Kansas? destroyed all the rest of his records..

 

[Schmidt Meister]

5 minutes ago, GT4494 said:

Dad was involved in that when we were in Japan circa 1968.  Since he was technically not part of the flight crew and would load, fly and return in one day he had no records of flying orders.  When he came down with Lymphoma there were no records.  Plus the fire in the record storage in Kansas? destroyed all the rest of his records..

 

Veterans who came down with ANY medical condition that served in those theaters should be entitled to full VA Medical services.

Salute to your dad and my heartfelt sympathy for him serving his country and getting left out as far as medical services.

[Schmidt Meister]

The Fulton surface-to-air recovery system (STARS) is a system used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), United States Air Force and United States Navy for retrieving persons on the ground using aircraft such as the MC-130E Combat Talon I and Boeing B-17. It involves using an overall-type harness and a self-inflating balloon with an attached lift line. An MC-130E engages the line with its V-shaped yoke and the person is reeled on board. Red flags on the lift line guide the pilot during daylight recoveries; lights on the lift line are used for night recoveries. Recovery kits were designed for one and two-man retrievals.
This system was developed by inventor Robert Edison Fulton, Jr., for the Central Intelligence Agency in the early 1950s. It was an evolution from a similar system that was used during World War II by American and British forces to retrieve both personnel and downed assault gliders following airborne operations. The earlier system did not use a balloon, but a line stretched between a pair of poles set in the ground on either side of the person to be retrieved. An aircraft, usually a C-47 Skytrain, trailed a grappling hook that engaged the line, which was attached to the person to be retrieved.
Development of the recovery system
Experiments with the recovery system began in 1950 by the CIA and Air Force. Using a weather balloon, nylon line, and weights of 10 to 15 pounds (4.5 to 6.8 kg), Fulton made numerous pickup attempts as he sought to develop a reliable procedure. Successful at last, Fulton took photographs and sent them to Admiral Luis de Florez, who had become the director of technical research at the CIA. Believing that the program could best be handled by the military, de Florez put Fulton in touch with the Office of Naval Research (ONR), where he obtained a development contract from ONR's Air Programs Division.
Over the next few years, Fulton refined the air and ground equipment for the pickup system. Based at El Centro, California, he conducted numerous flights over the Colorado Desert using a Navy P2V Neptune. He gradually increased the weight of the pickup until the line began to break. A braided nylon line with a test strength of 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg) solved the problem. A major problem was the design of the locking device, or sky anchor, that secured the line to the aircraft. Fulton considered the solution of this issue the most demanding part of the entire developmental process.
Further tests were conducted at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, from 1 August 1959, using RB-69A, 54-4307, a CIA P2V-7U, according to an agency document.
After experiments with instrumented dummies, Fulton continued to experiment with live pigs, as pigs have a nervous system close to humans. Lifted off the ground, the pig began to spin as it flew through the air at 125 miles per hour (200 km/h). It arrived on board uninjured, but in a disoriented state. When it recovered, it attacked the crew.
By 1958, the Fulton aerial retrieval system, or "Skyhook", was finished. The ground system could be dropped from an aircraft and contained the necessary equipment for a pickup, including a harness, for cargo or a person, attached to 500 feet (150 m) of high-strength, braided nylon line and a dirigible-shaped balloon inflated by a helium bottle.
The pickup aircraft was equipped with two tubular steel "horns", 30 feet (9 m) long and spread at a 70° angle from its nose. The aircraft flew into the line, aiming at a bright mylar marker placed at the 425 foot (130 m) level. As the line was caught between the forks on the nose of the aircraft, the balloon was released and a spring-loaded trigger mechanism (sky anchor) secured the line to the aircraft. After the initial pickup, the line was snared by the pickup crew using a J-hook and attached to a powered winch and the person or cargo pulled on board. To prevent the pickup line from interfering with the aircraft's propellers in the case of an unsuccessful catch, the aircraft had deflector cables strung from the nose to the wingtips.
Later the US Navy tested the Fulton system fitted to modified S-2 Tracker carrier-based antisubmarine patrol aircraft for use in rescuing downed pilots. It is unknown whether a Fulton equipped S-2 was ever used on a combat mission.
First human pickups
The CIA had secretly trained Special Activities Division paramilitary officers to use a predecessor system for human pickups as early as 1952. The first human recovery mission authorized for operational use of this "all American system" took place in Manchuria on 29 November 1952. CIA C-47 pilots Norman Schwartz and Robert Snoddy were trained in the aerial pickup technique towards the end of 1952. CIA paramilitary officers John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecteau, themselves hurriedly trained in the procedure during the week of 24 November, were to recover a courier who was in contact with anti-communist sympathizers in the area. The mission failed when Chinese forces downed the aircraft with small arms fire, capturing survivors Downey and Fecteau. The British allegedly also used the American system for personnel.
The first human pickup using Fulton's STARS took place on 12 August 1958, when Staff Sergeant Levi W. Woods of the U.S. Marine Corps was winched on board the Neptune. Because of the geometry involved, the person being picked up experienced less of a shock than during a parachute opening. After the initial contact, which was described by one individual as similar to "a kick in the pants", the person rose vertically at a slow rate to about 100 ft (30 m), then began to streamline behind the aircraft. Extension of arms and legs prevented spinning as the individual was winched on board. The process took about six minutes.
In August 1960, Capt. Edward A. Rodgers, commander of the Naval Air Development Unit, flew a Skyhook-equipped P2V to Point Barrow, Alaska, to conduct pickup tests under the direction of Dr. Max Brewer, head of the Navy's Arctic Research Laboratory. With Fulton on board to monitor the equipment, the Neptune picked up mail from Floating Ice Island T-3, also known as Fletcher's Ice Island, retrieved artifacts, including mastodon tusks, from an archaeological party on the tundra, and secured geological samples from Peters Lake Camp. The high point of the trials came when the P2V dropped a rescue package near the icebreaker USS Burton Island. Retrieved by a ship's boat, the package was brought on deck, the balloon inflated, and the pickup accomplished.
Project COLDFEET
The first operational use of Skyhook was Project COLDFEET, an examination of the Soviet drift station NP-8, abandoned on 19 March 1962. Two agents parachuted to station NP 8 on 28 May 1962. After 72 hours at the site, on 1 June 1962, a pick-up was made of the Soviet equipment and both men. The mission yielded information on the Soviet Union's Arctic research activities, including evidence of advanced research on acoustical systems to detect under-ice submarines and efforts to develop Arctic anti-submarine warfare techniques.
Later use
The Fulton system was used from 1965 to 1996 on several variants of the C-130 Hercules including the MC-130s and HC-130s. It was also used on the C-123 Provider.
Despite the apparent high-risk nature of the system, only one fatal accident occurred in 17 years of use. On 26 April 1982, SFC Clifford Wilson Strickland was picked up by a Lockheed MC-130 Combat Talon of the 7th Special Operations Squadron at CFB Lahr, Germany, during Flintlock 82 exercise, using the Fulton STARS recovery system, but fell to his death due to a failed bushing at the top of the left yoke pivot bolt.
The increased availability of long-range helicopters such as the MH-53 Pave Low, HH-60 Pave Hawk and MH-47 Chinook, and the MV-22 Osprey and CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, all with aerial refueling capability, caused this system to be used less often. In September 1996, the Air Force Special Operations Command ceased maintaining the capability to deploy this system.

Fulton Skyhook - 1:30
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=fulton+skyhook&&view=detail&mid=DDC9D0D74CCA1AE70CE4DDC9D0D74CCA1AE70CE4&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dfulton%2Bskyhook%26FORM%3DHDRSC3

#2 - :57
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=fulton+skyhook&ru=%2fvideos%2fsearch%3fq%3dfulton%2bskyhook%26FORM%3dHDRSC3&view=detail&mid=B6076AF8EC7119F7CADEB6076AF8EC7119F7CADE&&FORM=VDRVSR

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[Schmidt Meister]

Five B-24s, the largest underwater aviation discovery Project Recovery has made to date, resulted in positive identification of three of the bombers, which are associated with 23 crew members who have been MIA since World War II.
Project Recover in partnership with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of California-San Diego, the University of Delaware, and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, searched a 24 square mile area near Croatia, in August 2022
The wrecks of an estimated 30 U.S. warplanes are believed to lie submerged in what was a frequent “ditching area” for crippled warplanes in the vicinity of the search area in the Adriatic Sea, which lies between Italy and the Balkans.
“Most of those aircraft took off from Italy and would bomb Europe,” Moline said. “Then, if they were attacked and limping and couldn't make it back to Italy, they didn't go directly back across the Adriatic.”
Instead, the pilots flew down the coast of what was then Yugoslavia – now Croatia – and ditched the aircraft in waters not controlled by the Nazis, Moline said.
The wrecks were found in waters roughly 300 feet deep, which is near the safe maximum depth for divers, Moline said.
Searchers were surprised to find the aircraft with largely intact engine cowlings, propellers and wings.
DPAA sponsored the mission, which was part of the agency’s larger innovation effort to develop new technologies for locating the sites of submerged wrecks, Moline said.
This was the first mission in which Project Recover integrated a suite of instruments that included a side-scan sonar, magnetometer and a high-resolution video camera onto a single autonomous vehicle, Moline said.

https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2022/october/project-recover-missing-b-24-bomber-aircraft-adriatic-sea-croatia/

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KA-3B Skywarrior (AKA 'Whale') refueling an RA-5C Vigilante

above the USS Ranger in the South China Sea (Circa 1965)

[Schmidt Meister]

HH-60G Pavehawk W/.50 Cal HMG

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USS Iowa (BB-61) in floating dry-dock ABSD-2, 12.28.1944

[Schmidt Meister]

I was going through all the photos on the AF site that has the most recently released pics and for some reason, when you get older you're mind wanders to the strangest places, and I was remembering going through basic training when we were doing swimming in our boots and uniforms, and I remembered what the Army called it ... Drown Proofing ... rofl.

U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers Assigned To Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., And Four U.S. Air Force A-10C Thunderbolt II's Assigned To Moody Air Force Base, Ga. - Joint Formation During A Bomber Task Force Mission Over The Pacific Ocean - 11.9.2022

[Schmidt Meister]

U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons From The 51st Fighter Wing Join With South Korea F-35A Lightning II's  Escort 2 U.S. B-1B Strategic Bombers Entering Korean Air Defense Identification Zone - Flight Over South Korea - 11.19.2022

[Schmidt Meister]

U.S. Air Force Aircraft On The Runway During A Capabilities Demonstration - Kadena Air Base, Japan - 11.22.2022

[Schmidt Meister]

This photo was taken at the height of the Cold War, the confrontation that dominated the second half of the 20th century.
Taken above the Gulf of Mexico by LIFE photographer J. R. Eyerman, the photo shows the various types of aircraft operational in the U.S. Air Force (USAF) in 1956 flying in a single formation over Choctawhatchee Bay on the Gulf Coast, Florida, near Eglin AFB. 1956.
By the numbers:

1. Lockheed F-94C Starfire
2. Northrop F-89H Scorpion
3. North American QF-80A
4. North American T-33 Trainer
5. Republic F-84F Thunderstreak
6. North American F-86H Sabre
7. North American F-100A Super Sabre
8. Convair F-102A Delta Dagger
9. Republic RF-84F Thunderflash
10. Republic F-84G Thunderjet
11. North American F-86D Sabre Dog
12. Boeing B-52 Stratofortress
13. Convair C-131 Samaritan
14. Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar
15. Douglas C-124 Globemaster II
16. Martin B-57 Canberra
17. Douglas B-66 Destroyer
18. North American B-45 Tornado
19. Lockheed RC-121C
20. Boeing KC-97 Stratotanker
21. Boeing B-47 Stratojet
22. Convair B-36 Peacemaker

[Schmidt Meister]

[Schmidt Meister]

This is the '2021 General Motors EV Military Concept Vehicle.' I guess they plan on carrying the extra electricity in the jerry cans on the vehicle ... or they'll have to haul a gasoline powered generator behind each EV to keep them going under normal combat operations.

I love the look of the vehicle but the EV concept is stupendously stupid. This is going to be a huge disaster of massive proportions.

How are tanks going to haul a generator large enough to recharge a tank? Can't happen. And the enemy forces wont have to use as much ammo because they can just target the generators in the field.

An electrically propelled military is just another extremely asinine idea that will never be implemented even after wasting billions of American taxpayer money.

[Schmidt Meister]

During the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, Japanese B5N “Kate” bombers scored five torpedo hits on the USS Oklahoma’s port side. The massive damage to this aged battleship prompted her to begin listing to port. Within minutes, she had turned turtle, trapping hundreds of sailors in her hull. In the hours and days after the attack, civilian shipyard workers and other sailors worked furiously to cut openings in the Oklahoma’s exposed keel in order to rescue the men still alive inside the ship. The effort saved thirty-two men. Stephen Young, one of those rescued, later wrote a gripping account of what he and his fellow sailors endured during those horrific hours after the ship turned turtle.

Find his book here:
http://www.amazon.com/Trapped-Pearl-Harbor-Battleship-Bluejacket/dp/1557509921

Pearl Harbor - Righting the Oklahoma took almost 3 months - The wreck of the Arizona, still leaking fuel is seen in the foreground. May 1943.

[Schmidt Meister]

The famous photo of the USS Shaw explosion. Pearl Harbor. Dec. 7, 1941

[Schmidt Meister]

US 101st Airborne Paratroopers, with their hair cut in a Mohawk, being briefed for the next day’s jump across the Rhine, Arras, France. 3.23.1945.

(The day that I was getting on a plane to PCS to Germany, to show my morale and to let them know where I was coming from, I decided to have my hair cut in a Mohawk, just a symbol of my pride in the 101st. I came within a frog's hair of getting an Art. 15 for not getting permission first from my Japanese 1st Sgt. Fortunately, my Battalion Commander understood my motivation and squelched it before it could get started.)

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