For Every Flight Hour.....

One of the bloggers that I love to read every so often is Neptunus Lex. He is an ex-F18 jockey, Top Gun student, Top Gun instructor, and XO of a carrier. Now he is living the life of luxury in San Dog, trying to finish off a masters in something that is way above my head. One of his the subjects he blogs about every so often is something he calls "Plane p0rn". An example of which is here.
I will admit that I love airplanes too, but also hate them. Simply because I am now in the business of maintaining them. So for every flight hour some one like Lex, Jake Grafton, Harry Brubaker, "Spig" Wead, Buzz Sawyer, and Steve Canyon are up there living the dream. There is someone turning wrenches well into the early dawn trying to give them the best airplane out there. Whether that is a Sopwith Camel, Boeing F4B, Douglas SBD Dauntless, Douglas A-1 Skyraider, Mcdonnell F2H Banshee, Grumman A-6 Intruder, Grumman EA-6B Prowler, or even the MacAir F-18 Hornet. Why do we do it? Well beyond the job, for some of us there is some job satisfaction to see an airplane you poured sweat, blood, curse words, angry punches, and tears into leave the pointy end of a carrier deck. Then an hour and forty-five minutes later it comes back home over the broad end. The aircrew get out, come down to maintenance and tell the maintainer that the plane was 5.0 and the only gripe was the relief tube was too short or the seat cushion might need to be washed. So here are some shots that I have gathered over my life time or taken myself of those framers, tweaks, light bulb changers, stitch bitch, mech, or line rat doing thier part to ready an airplane for the next day's dawn patrol, close air support, combat air patrol, tanker package, or early warning mission.

Oh and bonus points to those of you old enough to know who Jake Grafton, Harry Brubaker, Steve Canyon, Buzz Sawyer, and "Spig" Wead are. Also I know that it is now Boeing F-18, but I am old and remember when Boeing made bombers and the F-18 was a MacAir product.