Playmate on Russian plane

This picture is from the sample pics aboard the computer. I have not reloaded any pictures yet. Bummer...

Today's exciting Adventure....

I went aboard the Aircraft Carrier the USS Independence CVA62 as a seaman. I was assigned to the IOIC (Integrated operational Intelligence Center). I was an IBM repairman or Customer Engineer. My job was processing and coding intelligence data brought aboard by the RA5-C spy planes and repairing the equipment if it went down.

The RA5 was a big airplane but much faster than the u-2. She carried aboard equipment to record frequencies of radar, take pictures of things on the surface and also was equipped with UF (Ultra violet penetration). There was a strange understanding between pilots. There was a respect and mutual understanding with the Russian Spy planes labeled Bearspy and Beaverspy. This was the Cold war. We all knew they were over flying us and we were over flying them. Naturally when we legally could, we shot down their planes and they ours. Gary Powers was the Highest profile pilot to be shot down. He was supposed to commit suicide but decided against it, I find it hard to fault him there.
There was couple times when the film came thru, that an ‘out of breathe pilot’ would come back to S&R, where I worked, and asked, “have you seen my film yet?” Usually I had not, it was still with the spy types the PT‘s(Photo intelligence). “I need a couple prints of the guys flying that BEAR. One had a Playboy Mag he held up so I could see it. I wqant to check the date.” Now he was asking me to breach security. But he knew and I knew I could isolate those photos and give them to him, and not endanger anyone. Did I? One never knows does one.

Navy pilots are the best in the world. They land a plane on a postage stamp that is sometimes moving in three directions. We all got a kick out of the pilots at briefings. They have every good luck charm imaginable hanging on their flight suits. Rabbits feet, four leaf clovers, etc.

Sure enough when the film was printed, there was a Pilot holding a playboy center-fold up to his window and waving. Sometimes the military is strange. You cannot shoot a guy down who is smiling a you and showing you a centerfold. The film was taken in international waters so they had as much right to be there as we did. We are not the ‘Kill-em all’ people, that much of the world, and some of our own people, want to think.

I had seen many pictures of the pilots as they waved at each other, but that was the first Playboy I had seen in a Russian Cockpit. Of course we were able to blow the photo up and read the date, it was that month's Playboy.

A dear friend of mine, Vickie, is a mechanic on commercial planes at Orlando, she said the name Cockpit was gender discrimination. It is now called the flight deck. I had never thought of it that way. But I guess it is true.
Old boomer Woody has some great plane pics on his site

http://oldboomerwoodys.blogspot.com/
Nite Shipslog
PS:
Thanks for dropping by the log. This computer has been to Irving, TX and back this week. It came back empty, I am tryinjg to put some stuff back in it. I did lose everything that was aboard at the crash!

Making a 'living' is not the same thing as making a 'life..'

Fortunately life sometimes gives you a second chance.