Saturday, February 10, 2007

February Comments Post


F-35C

Dave C. sent this link to an SU-30 performance video circa 1997. His comments ended with the hope that China did not have that aircraft - well they do. Our vectored thrust 'competitors' are the USAF F/A-22 Raptor and the F-35C (Joint Strike Fighter variant) shown above.

VS-23 History Project

Update: The Navy Historical folks advise that historical reports were not required in the missing time frame, below. They suggest a source of info may be ship's logs; hence, if any of you can supply the name of the carriers and approximate VS-23 deployment dates during the '53-'56 period, I'll try to get some info that way.

More:
USS Bairoko: Jan 53 - Aug 53
USS Princeton Nov 54 - June 55
USS Boxer July '56 - Jan '57


I found some historical data on the squadron which I apparently downloaded in 2000. It's missing the time period 1/53 - 6/57 and I have written the Navy Historical folks in hopes of getting the whole story. Meanwhile here's some of the info and I hope to be able to come up with more for a narrative (the pre-S2F ops were a bit hairy to say the least):

1947 April VA-3E Commissioned NAAS Oceana
1948 September Redesignated VC-23
1950 April Redesignated VS-23
1950 June Arrived NAS San Diego
1951 February NAS Atsugi
1951 August NAS San Diego
1953 - 1957 Missing Information
1954 November Black Cat Insignia (S2F's)
1957 February NAS Los Alamitos
1958 June WestPac (USS Princeton)
1958 December NAS Los Alamitos
1962 March NAS North Island
1968 September VS-23 Dis-established

Aircraft Carriers (Qualification and Deployment)


USS Sicily
USS Mindoro
USS Philippine Sea
USS Bataan
USS Bairoko
USS Rendova
USS Badoeng Strait
USS Boxer
USS Princeton
USS Yorktown
USS Kearsage
USS Hornet

I had forgotten this tidbit which I extracted from one of the records:
"During the 1958 WESTPAC cruise, VS23 set a precedent for continuous operations by flying around the clock for 30 days while protecting units of the Seventh Fleet engaged in the [second] Tachen Islands evacuation."