Mk I Mod 0 Civilian

Former Navy jet pilot, took the civilian offramp. What next?

[rogerwilkerson]

Santa Claus Visits The Moon Base, detail from cover of December 1954 Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine.

[mk1civilian]

The world is a dynamic mess of jiggling things.

Richard Feynman

[retrowar]

[mk1civilian]

Courtesy to Ladies: Naval Edition

(retrowar:)

[mk1civilian]

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

[mk1civilian]

Every aviator, even Santa Claus, needs engine-out proficiency training.

[mk1civilian]

Sunday Telegraph photographer Paul Grover and Sunday Telegraph journalist Nick Meo document life on board the USS John C Stennis, a $4.5 billion carrier, a 100,000-ton floating city with a crew of 5,000 headed for the Strait of Hormuz. Her mission: to keep some of the world's busiest shipping lanes open in its most combustible region; at any moment America's standoff with Iran could escalate into a crisis.

(via Life on board an American aircraft carrier off the coast of Iran - Telegraph)

[mk1civilian]

The highest art form of all is a human being in control of himself and his airplane in flight, urging the spirit of a machine to match his own.

Richard Bach

[navyhistory]

Big news today…Secretary of the Navy, the Honorable Ray Mabus, announced that the next Ford Class Carrier, CVN-80, will be named USS Enterprise during his speech at the inactivation ceremony for USS Enterprise CVN-65.

[mk1civilian]

Meet the next USS Enterprise (CVN 80), tenth ship to bear the name (if you count Continental navies and test orbiters):

[mk1civilian]

I owned the world that hour as I rode over it…. free of the earth, free of the mountains, free of the clouds, but how inseparably I was bound to them.

Charles Lindbergh

[retrowar]

[mk1civilian]

Aviation advice: Low banks ain't healthy

(via retrowar)

[mk1civilian]

Man must rise above the Earth—to the top of the atmosphere and beyond—for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.

Socrates

[mk1civilian]

I, for one, welcome our robotic Naval Aviation overlords...

[mk1civilian]

Blunt nose brothers - E/A-6B Prowler from VAQ-138 "Yellowjackets" leading a S-3B Viking from VS-33 "Screwbirds", low holding over the boat for a photo op. Assigned to USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), beating feet westbound to get into the fight after 9/11. Operation Enduring Freedom cruise, 2001-02.

Bird 701 is painted in the ferocious "tactical bovine" camouflage pattern intended to strike fear deep into the hearts of our enemies.

[mk1civilian]

Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs are men and women who have come alive.

Howard Thurman

[mk1civilian]

View up the angle, probably aboard USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70), sometime during WESTPAC 02-03.

Likely taken before FOD walkdown, with helos spotted on the angle for early launch.

[mk1civilian]

The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.

Robert A. Heinlein

[mk1civilian]

Shot of Jason 414, a F/A-18C Hornet assigned to VFA-147 "Argonauts", mission tanker hop somewhere in the Western Pacific. Taken from S-3B Viking after giving 414 a few thousand pounds of fuel.

Jason 414 looking like he's about to get some training on with "blue death" (practice bombs) hung on the left wing and an orange TACTS or LATR training instrumentation pod on the right wingtip.