Vern

TACAMO Herc 151891 Using JATO

After being in the hangar for a very long time, OLD TACAMO is about to takeoff with new content.  The origins of VQ-3 and VQ-4 are first up with pictures and artifacts from plankowners.

Please keep the circuit open.

Vern

“I found your website today while searching for VERDIN related information. 

I was attached to COMSUBRON SIXTEEN embarked on a submarine tender in Rota Spain in 1969. A VERDIN receive system had been installed aboard an old diesel boat – I think it was Sirago, but I’m not sure. Sirago was in port Rota for a few days, and I took a walk through to see what I could see. We had been receiving status reports on VERDIN testing results, and I asked if I could request a ride with VQ-4 to see the transmit side of the process.

I met the TACAMO crew and aircraft up in Torrejon outside of Madrid. I remember that it was July 20th 1969 because that was the day Apollo 11 landed on the moon. When I walked into the club at Torrejon AFB the moon landing astronauts were walking around on the moon!

Next morning we took off and headed out to a point in the ocean, and streamed the wire antenna. I got to sit and work each of the operating stations except the VLF transmit position. I asked – why the bank (20 degrees at the time) – and the effect on the antenna was explained. It got dark, and we began “race tracking”, making a big box in the sky – no bank.  I asked why we couldn’t fly in a bank after dark, and was told something about losing the “horizon”. The effect on the antenna was obvious. The received signal at the submarine would be adversely affected as a consequence. That’s what I put in my report. We landed in Rota.

Regards,

Mike Klein

RMCS(SS) USN RET

Alexandria, VA”

http://usnavymuseum.org/CentralHall.asp

It has many different ways to ‘visit’ virtually.  Thanks to Doctor Ed Marolda for sharing the link and advising that the gallery is now ‘hot’ on line.

Vern Lochausen

The T-Shirts/Patches page now properly contains the following new additions:  Naval Aviation, Hercules, Ironman, E-6 shield, NAS Bermuda, NAS Moffett, Travis AFB, TACAMO Flight Engineer, EC-130Q IP, CTSW-1, and CINCPAC.

Thanks AGAIN, Skipper!

Vern

THANKS to Master Blaster Bob Wicker for the addition.

Vern

If you see ANY TACAMO mention or items in a museum, please share the story and some good quality pictures with me at trcker@gmail.com and they will find their way to this new website page.

TACAMO SUNSET by Mark Romanowitz (Copyrighted Art Work)

Check out a new page on the website by the same name. If you know of or have some examples of other TACAMO Sailor created art work, please contact me so that I might post it.  I remember the Reel Op “Country” from the 80s in VQ-3 and AMS2 Herbert from the 70s in VQ-4 who had some fine work also.  If you have it or have contact with them, please hook us up.

Thanks!

Vern

As part of the responses to advertising for the 2011 TACAMO Reunion in Pax River, a VQ-4 plankowner from the pre-squadron commissioning days came forward.

In 1964, Clarence Mayberry was the #2 in the VR-1 TACAMO Detachment maintenance division.  He wrote a memo requesting an additional operator crew for the TACAMO II system he was supporting.  While not favored by VR-1 leadership, the request went forward to BUPERS.  Clarence happened to be at the Navy Annex visiting maintenance rate detailers sometime later and dropped in to talk to the TACAMO operator detailers.  He was asked about his request memo and he plainly told the truth:  2 crews left no real chance for Sailors to get sick or be on leave but 3 would do the trick.  The detailer had his Yeoman send a message back to VR-1 countering the initial rejection of the augment request, granting the three crew minimum.  As Clarence describes it, “The VR-1 leadership was none to pleased with me but we got what we needed.”  Sailors taking care of Sailors….it’s a time honored concept that worked way back then and still works today.

THANKS to Clarence for sharing his story from the infancy of TACAMO!

Vern

by Vern Lochausen

The idea began in 1992 when a famous VQ-3 Herc, 161223, the first of the new Qs that came to the squadron in about 1981 was sent for evaluation at Cherry Point.  After  she had first been assigned to VQ-3 which had just relocated to NAS Barbers Point, Hawaii from NAS Agana, Guam, 223 was joined by a whole group of 161 series new Hercs, distinctively different due to a lack of lower cockpit windows at the pilots’ feet, so characteristic of all the other Hercs before them. 223 was at the Herc depot maintenance site at MCAS Cherry Point, NC at that time, for evaluation of remaining service life.  223 was the queen of flight in VQ-3 in the early days, racking up several hundred flight hours per months.  There was a pool going in maintenance control for the date the first 223 mission would have to be cancelled due to unscheduled maintenance.  Her combination of new environmental control systems, intertial navigation, and improved radios made her much easier to operate and popular with crews and maintenace teams. Eventually she was transferred to VQ-4 at NAS Patuxent River, MD.  Whenwe heard that she was at Cherry Point for evaluation and depot repair, I contacted their engineering team and made a play to have her transferred to the TACAMO Wing if she was found to have insufficient service life to return to fleet duty. In the end she was striken from the Navy Aviation inventory and likely scrapped at Cherry Point.  So much for 223 coming to Tinker.

Commander Mike Duvall, a pilot with mostly P-3 experience, was part of VQ-3 in the early days in Hawaii and continued to be a key TACAMO player at headquarters Naval Air Forces Pacific in San Diego from the late 1980s to 1990. Mike was innovative and hard working. He was the leader who managed the TACAMO operating budgets and began the work to move TACAMO to Tinker AFB as directed by higher headquarters.  He was selected for aviation command and reported to VXE-6, the Navy Antarctic Development Squadron, as NAS Point Mugu, California in late 1990. Mike’s duties there would follow the VXE-6 tradition where the new CO would be Ops Boss for a season, then XO, and then CO.  I replaced Mike in his CNAP role and picked up the TACAMO and VXE-6 requirements officer job, having just left VQ-3 as the CO.  In 1992, Mike had the idea that VXE-6 could use the best conditioned TACAMO Hercs as they were replaced by E-6s in the two squadrons. They would be converted to cargo hauling configurations and supplement the ski-equipped Hercs already in service there. They could land on the annual ice runway and deliver better payloads per mile due to less drag and lower empty weight than the ski birds.  Mike and I worked and obtained all the headquarters approvals, including the sometimes skeptical National Science Foundation leaders who were sure this scheme wouldn’t cost them more than it delivered.  At the same time, the TACAMO wing was standing up and Mike and I agreed we would look for the opportunity to ‘retire’ one of the former TACAMO, now VXE-6 Hercs to the Wing’s custody.  We had worked a number of headquarters issues over the years he was at CNAP and I was in VQ-3 in command and before that at Naval Air Systems Command in the E-6/EC-130 TACAMO program office. In 1995, Mike advised that one of those now-VXE-6, then TACAMO Hercs, 159348 was not going to be needed for another season and together we started the process to get all the approvals to bring her to Tinker. VXE-6 delivered the aircraft in 1996 and for many months the E-6 line had a resident Herc!

CWO Tony Hill and SCPO Chris Peeples were asked to go work the details by then Wing Maintenance Officer LCDR Bud Biddle.  They found that the Oklahoma Air National Guard at Will Rogers World Airport in OKC would be willing to perform much of the component removals and the wing Sailors did the pack and ship of items on the ’save list’, including the engines. A method to stabilize the props was found, wing tip pods were located, and Rockwell Collins helped with info and some fabrication to make the long wire drogue nest and short wire exit fairing as well as HF dog leg antenna look  alikes. Each squadron wardroom was given a seat from the flight deck. The Tinker Civil Engineering department approved and executed via a contractor the site prep and the Tinker ALC commander approved the placement of a static display outside of his planned museum park now adjacent to the Tinker Main Gate.

In May 1998, the aircraft was completed, painted and moved to the current space in what was then being called Herc Park. The wing ops boss advised that perhaps I had flown this Herc in VQ-4 in my first tour in the 70s.  After a log book review the facts came out. I located and invited my Aircraft Commander, now Delta Captain Frank Caruso, to come for the  Herc Park dedication and he agreed.  We found that 348 had been one we had taken on her first deployment as TACAMO Herc in VQ-4 in 1976.

The documents in this page tell more.

Vern Lochausen

Captain, USN Retired