Quote:
Originally Posted by svandamme
Holy crap, that was close
|
Wow.
Another Quick Sea Story.
I was the NATOPS Instructor at my second squadron, VX-1 here in Patuxent River. In that capacity, I gave check rides, qual rides, etc...easy, really, all the pilots and aircrew were all very experienced.
The Navy was shifting from carrier based H-3's to SH-60F's and I was qual'ing, because I had a lot of hours in the SH-60B flying of of small ships, the H-3 folks in the F...I was was an aircraft commander in both T/M/S.
Great flight with a LCDR, beautiful day, CAVU, 60 degrees, the whole nine yards of aviation goodness. We land near the hot fuel pit at Pax to refuel since the aircraft was scheduled for a hot crew swap.
Coming out of the fuel pits we start taxiing (ground taxi) back to VX-1. I start cleaning up my notes on the flight so I am head down.
Stupid.
Double stupid is I really wasn't paying much attention to the radio: The LCDR I was flying with was excellent and we had done this taxi routinely.
Ground instructs: "Juliet Alpha, hold short of the active for P-3 on take-off..." Something to that effect, I was busy being stupid.
The LCDR hears something completely different and begins to cross the departure end of the active.
Two things: Very long runway, P-3 takes some time on take-off roll so we clear the active with probably just over a 1/4 mile separation...sounds like a lot but it really isn't. I am in deep kimchi since I was the Aircraft Commander...
Ground freaks out a little bit but doesn't write us up. After the crew swap, I go see my XO, former Huey pilot in Vietnam flying Special Ops, to let him know what just happened.
I am in the last 6 months in the squadron, have been NATOPS, Instrument Instructor pilot, NVG Instructor pilot, etc. Captain Bob looks at me like I am a tick on his arm and then smiles: "On Monday, Ace, you get to brief your little episode to the whole wardroom."
I would have rather been grounded but I did.