Photo by Robert Burroughs

FOD walkdown: They start at the back of their hangar and pick up every pebble, every scrap of string, wire, metal, cloth, plastic, anything lying between the wall of the hangar and the far end of the flight line.

Wing Men

On June 15, 1988, they headed north to the Aleutians, where the F-14s played their usual games with Russian MiGs and bombers: VF-51 pilots shot excellent video of the Soviet planes on patrol while their Russian counterparts took pictures of the Tomcats (The Russian pilots probably never imagined that these pictures would eventually be shown at squadron parties in San Diego before the throngs of young women who gravitate to the American fighter jocks).

By Neal Matthews, April 13, 1989 | Read full article

Commander Bob Willard: “It performs well without a fly-by-wire system.:

Photo by Robert Burroughs

The F-14: a bad bird?

Five F-14s, four of them based at Miramar, crashed in a single month last September. The crash of a Miramar-based F-14 in Arizona on January 27 of this year, which killed the pilot and RIO, destroyed the 102nd Tomcat of the 576 built since Grumman started producing the plane in 1971.

By Neal Matthews, April 13, 1989 | Read full article

Gordon Cooke's compass checker is designed to surround the compass completely in a magnetic field, thereby overcoming any other magnetic distortions generated by the ship.

The Eureka Factor

An aircraft carrier is tooling along the coast of Lebanon and one of the flight deck sailors has a momentary lapse of attention, and then boom — an F-14 Tomcat, festooned with Phoenix missiles, rolls off the deck and sinks in the deep blue Mediterranean. It's a safe bet that certain powers other than the U.S. might be interested in that plane and its payload. It's deep, maybe as much as 10,000 feet down. What now?

By Neal Matthews, Feb. 2, 1984 | Read full article

Recruiter Al Corpuz, Jr. As we passed Mission Valley into the verdancy of Balboa Park, Al suggested I try to get into the nuclear field.

Photo by Dave Allen

Between You, Me and the Navy

“You should be a lieutenant in the Navy in five years. As soon as you get into the Navy, you get through basic training, go through your school, pass the officers’ test, and you’re going to be an officer in the Navy.” I’d have a head start because of my college degree, Robert said. I’d begin an E3 and make about $1000 a month, $200 more than a recruit with just a high school education.

By Ernie Grimm, April 18, 1996 | Read full article

We hop in her bright yellow Datsun Z, head out for 32nd Street Station, only to be stopped cold at the gate 'cause she hasn’t prearranged my pass. Since Libya this is the one base (lots of ships berthed here) where civilians are treated as potential saboteurs. “C’mon!! — he's got an i.d.”

Stephen Vance

Richard Meltzer’s Navy

So they’ve still got companies, which have still got commanders, not to be confused with literal Commanders, commissioned officer folk figuring rankwise between Lieutenants, actually Lieutenant Commanders and Captains, themselves not to be confused with the captains of ships, i.e., commanding officers of sea units whose rank could be Lieutenant, Captain, Commander... whatever. Navy jargon for rank (and role) can be confusing — company commanders are specially chosen enlisted persons.

By Richard Meltzer, July 10, 1986 | Part 1 | Part 2

On the dance floor, twelve hundred gyrating bodies were corralled by a loose perimeter of wooden columns.

Don’t Go on Thursday, Friday's the Night. It'll Be a Real Zoo Then.

On the dance floor, twelve hundred gyrating bodies were corralled by a loose perimeter of wooden columns. A sprinkling of tables and chairs dotted the territory beyond. Table candles shed a watery light across the faces of couples shouting in conversation. Around the border of the dance floor roamed restless herds of stray dancers seeking mates. Overseeing the entire spectacle was a large painting of a World War I doughboy. He stared impassively at some unknown vision.

By Jerry Corrigan, Nov. 23, 1972 | Read full article

In May of 1978, Convair test-fired a Tomahawk missile that traveled 403 miles from its launch site to a mock “enemy airfield” at the Utah test-and-training range.

The Birds of War

Convair, a division of General Dynamics, is San Diego’s largest industrial employer, with some 8400 workers involved in its aerospace and defense programs, including about 2000 people working on the Pentagon's seven-billion-dollar Tomahawk cruise missile project. Part of this work is carried out in building five at Kearny Mesa, next door to where they build the big Atlas/Centaur rocket boosters used for military and communications satellites, and as part of the space shuttle program.

By David Helvarg, Jan. 7, 1982 | Read full article