Roosevelt Roads: Paul Poudrier, Me, And The “Connie”

When I was in my Navy Electronics School training, I wanted to have the best chance possible to be selected for Aircrew.  One of my roommates, Paul Poudrier, also wanted to be Aircrew, so we did the quals together in hopes of being selected.  Paul was an “AT”, which is an Aviation Electronics Technician.  I was an “AX” which is an Aviation Anti-Submarine Warfare Technician.  In reality, we both had the same basic training, and we worked on the same things on the aircraft.  There is no real appreciable difference between the jobs, and a few years back the Navy merged all of the Aviation Electronics type people into a single “Rate” or job description.

Paul was selected for Aircrew and I was sent to the Fleet because of a manpower shortage in my Rate.  I eventually did accomplish my goal of flying in Navy Aircraft.  Every now and then, Paul and I would run across each other out in the Fleet.  In fact, one time I was out on the Ship and Paul flew into Jacksonville where I was stationed.  He and Chris hooked up and Chris had dinner with 13 Aircrew guys from Paul’s squadron who were all part of his crew.  I hope she eventually writes that story!

The “Connie”

Another time we ran into each other was at Naval Air Station Roosevelt Roads Puerto Rico.  Paul was an aircrewman on a C-121 Constellation with VAQ-33.  In fact it was the only one in the Navy that was still flying.  My squadron and Paul’s squadron both happened to be at Roosey Roads to be what the Navy calls “Orange Air”.  In other words, we were simulating enemy forces and would fly out to attack the Aircraft Carrier, or let the ship’s aircraft practice intercepting us.  The C-121 could hold many people, and Paul asked if I wanted to go on a flight with them.  Heck yeah!!!!  We made the arrangements through our commands and that’s how Paul and I went flying together for the first and only time in our Navy careers.

I went over to Paul’s squadron for the flight brief and the pilot assigned me an actual task for this flight.  I had trained on a completely different aircraft and so did not know how to operate anything on a C-121.  Fortunately I was a quick learner and it was an old aircraft with some equipment being operated mechanically.  I was designated as the “Chaff Chucker”.  Chaff is basically strips of tin foil packaged in small cardboard boxes, about the size of a mac & cheese box.  It’s used to confuse or blind radar systems.  Instead of the radar seeing a nice blip on the screen, they just see a great big blob, so they cannot tell where you actually are.

Chaff Chucker 101

In the rear of the “Connie” (nickname for the C-121) was a small metal chute that stuck out the bottom of the aircraft and a stack of chaff boxes.  The tube had a metal flip top lid that you opened, then tossed the whole box of chaff down it.  Our mission was to simulate a Russian bomber trying to bomb the carrier.  Obviously the carrier would be trying to stop us.  I was told that at the appropriate time the other aircrew would yell back at me to start and my job was to chuck the chaff as fast as I could.  I definitively answered the question; How much chaff could a chaff chucker chuck, when chucking chaff?  The answer is a LOT!!  I kept chucking until they said to stop.

I don’t think it was very effective because shortly after I stopped chucking, we had two F-14 fighters fly up on either side of our aircraft.  Basically they were telling us we were long dead if it had been a real event.  We exchanged waves with the pilots and then they showed off by lighting their afterburners and zorching through the sky.  That reminds me of a story I read about pilots.  It goes like this:

Air Force “Sea Story”…

An Air Force C-130 was flying on a mission when a cocky F-16 pilot flew up next to him.  The fighter jock told the C-130 pilot, “watch this!” and promptly went into a barrel roll followed by a steep climb. He then finished with a sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier.  The F-16 pilot asked the C-130 pilot what he thought of that.

The C-130 pilot said, “That was impressive, but watch this!”  The C-130 droned along for about 10 minutes, and then the C-130 pilot came back on and said “What did you think of that?”

Puzzled, the F-16 pilot asked, “What did you do?”

The C-130 pilot chuckled, “I stood up, stretched my legs, went to the back, relieved myself, then got a cup of coffee and a sweet roll.”

Ahhh The Memories

While I did not get a sweet roll, I did have a sweet flight, and I enjoyed it immensely.  Aircrews have a close comradery and it was awesome to experience that with a good friend.  As we were landing the pilot invited me up to the cockpit.  He told me that I could watch the landing from up there.  I stood behind his seat as we came over the airfield, then went into the landing pattern.  Because of the cross winds, it looked like we were flying sideways as we approached the runway.  At the last moment, the pilot straightened out the aircraft and we successfully landed.  Pretty awesome!