Subject: THE Q-BALL THAT ROARED LT XXXXXXXXXXX CVW-5 LSO Unit 25117 FPO AP 96601-4403 25 February 1998 To: VADM John J. Mazach Commander, Naval Air Forces, U.S. Atlantic Fleet Sir, I am writing in response to your article published in the Winter 97 issue of THE HOOK. I would first like to thank you for addressing us through The Tailhook Organization. Tailhook continues to be the forum Junior Officers are most associated with and your support, I hope, will continue to reverse the damage done during the early 90’s. Please allow me a short paragraph to introduce myself. I am a YG 89 Prowler Pilot winged in May of 1990. After graduation from the RAG in October of 1991, I was detailed to VAQ-140 which had just left on cruise that month. After coming home from that cruise, CVW-7 was transferred to GW. After Shakedown and a year long workup on George, we cruised in May of 1994. That cruise brought two more trips through the Suez and a fair bit of B-H ops. I got home from that cruise at Thanksgiving and was ordered back out after refresher CQ the second week in January. Translanting two aircraft, we landed at Aviano and were incorporated into our new squadron, VAQ-130. After spending the next three months watching our boat sail off to yet another port call while we worked 69 days straight, I looked forward to going to the RAG. After just less than two years of RAG duty, I was detailed to CAG-5 as Airwing Paddles in July of 1997. I just passed 2000 hours and got my 431st trap on a good deal day hop two days ago. Your article struck home because I used those same comments when I sat down to figure out whether I should take the bonus in the Fall of 1995. I have never been in this job for the money, I do not think anyone does it for that reason. My decision to stay was based solely on the reasons you stated so well in your argument. Friends, Service, the advice of the greatest LSO of this generation, Sterling Gilliam, all played a part. The clincher though boiled down to one thing, the shear fun of flying. Things have changed in the Prowler community. Two years ago, while I was making my decision, I was still flying an aircraft that I felt had a future. We had a full up aircraft. We had a robust Defensive Tactics program. We had plenty of jets to fly. We had a robust Low Level Awareness and Tactics program. We had 5.5 'G' airframes. There was talk of lowering the 'G' limit in order to preserve FLE but after talking to VAQWINGPAC himself, he assured me that there was no way he would allow that to happen. How things change. In the last two years we in the Prowler Community have had a progressive reduction in Training that has adversely affected Combat Efficiency and everyday morale. You will not see a loss of Combat Efficiency due to the Navy's ability to cover its tracks. The Wing is currently involved with the rewrite of the T and R matrix in order to make us look like we are trained. We are not. What ever happened to "Train Like You Fight?" I have heard all the reasons and frankly, none hold water. "We will never go low." Why does every other community practice low levels? The answer is we train to it because we may still need to. Never say never in our business. We in the Prowler community have taken Low Levels very seriously. We had been flying Low levels at 200 ft for 25 years when NAVAIR bumped us up to 500 ft. 25 years without a MISHAP. Best damn Low Level record in Naval Aviation. The Marines loose one because of supervisory stupidity letting that kid with no experience go through LAT, and we pay the price. "You will never be able to defeat a Fourth Generation Fighter and you do not need to because you will always have a CAP. You don't need DEFTAC." Speaking from experience as a guy that has been targeted and declared in a combat environment without a CAP, I still need to know how to maneuver against missiles and to hold off the non-Fourth generation aircraft that compromise the vast majority of Combat aircraft around the world. I told the former VAQWINGPAC, while a RAG Instructor, that if we lowered the 'G' we were going to loose a jet. I was but one of the voices. Behold, it took less than a year and we started to crash jets. I helped train both those pilots that are now dead. I feel like a double failure. Having lost the battle to convince the higher-ups to leave us alone and let us train and loosing the battle to teach those two youngsters how to keep themselves alive. The accidents did not catch us operators off guard. We knew it was coming and we said so on many occasions. No one up the chain listened, but they were "shocked" when it happened. VAQWINGPAC promises us that these programs will be back when the jet situation improves. How is the jet situation going to improve? When Squadrons get back off cruise they are stripped of their assets, usually keeping one. One jet for pilots to maintain proficiency! One jet without parts I might add. There just are not any more jets out there. They are all in bags down in Florida awaiting new wings and SDLM. I am flying a jet in VAQ-136 that just failed its fifth ASPA. It passed its reinspection by the way. How can you pass a reinspection on the fifth ASPA? I flew a Tomcat that just got out of its Seventh ASPA so the problem is not limited to the Prowler community. "AIRPAC is pushing us to lower our flight time by use of trainers so this helps the effort." What effort is that? Increase in resignation letters? The jet situation will not improve without an effort by the Navy to help it out. For the last three years the Navy has budgeted exact zero dollars for the Prowler. (That's 0, zero, nada.) Any dollars we have gotten has been from Congressional plus -ups. The 500 million we got from the Air Force for taking on their commitments went to the F/A-18 E and F. [note: this comment probably referrs to the retirement of the AF EF-111 tactical jammer and the decision to have Navy EA-6Bs take on AF jamming commitments--if true, it is a typical example of how procurement takes precedence of over readiness despite official rhetoric that readiness is top prority.] That money was supposed to go to our bank to cure some of our problems. I am nursing around aircraft that have dwindling wing life (I've flown one with 121% FLE) and the best NAVAIR can do is buy five wings a year. We burn more up a year than that. Well, we use to burn more up when we could still fly the jets tactically. Now, we fly a Whale. I have yet to get a straight answer out of any person in my COC concerning the future of this platform. "This too shall pass. "We got ours and you guys are going to have to suck it up." These are common themes. Frankly, I feel betrayed by my leadership. This jet is no longer fun to fly. The Navy Leadership has made my passion into a job and I will never forgive them for it. I live in the Atsugi BOQ because it is just too hard to try and pay the bills in the cash only society that Japan is. Some Aviators, who live out in town, had to empty their bank accounts and borrow money for their first mess bill in order to pay their bills up front for a four month cruise. Why do they chose to do that? The Atsugi BOQ has the same rules as the Atsugi BEQ. No guests past 2200. If an E-3, married, wants to have a guest overnight, he is not even questioned. I, a 32 year old single LT, have less privileges than him due to my marriage status. That sir, is not right. Why can't we get this reversed? Believe me sir when I tell you we have tried. It boils down to "shut up and sit down." Our Navy at work for its people. The Landing Signal Officer Cross Train Program remains unfunded. We can not keep good Paddles in the Navy long enough to take over CAG LSO slots and this program remains unfunded for all but potential CAG LSOs. This program helps safety of operations immeasurably yet no one gives a damn. This is not an expensive program. I had to actually threaten to drop my paddles when they were detailing me to Japan before I was given orders to the Tomcat RAG for cross training. Even then I was given my BOQ room and nine dollars a day with no rental car. Thanks. I practically paid for the Program myself. It should not be that hard. Flying that jet for 27 glorious hours has made me a much better LSO. I will get this program back for CVW-5 Squadron LSOs if I have to use CAG TAD funds in order to do it. None of my Team Leaders have been through the Program and it will do more for morale, retention and safety than any ORM lecture the Navy has to offer. The LSO School continues to excel at training new Paddles and it is a testament to their work and the work of the CAG Paddles that our Landing Mishap rates have reached an all time low. Now, we just have to figure out a way to retain LSOs. We are down to two in each Airwing including mine that is required to have three by the LSO NATOPS. With our schedule, I am not looking at getting any leave until I get back to the States. Our other Paddles is married and I will not take leave until he has had his family time. I have seen too many divorces over the years to let that happen to another one of my friends. At year fourteen I take a 12 thousand dollar a year pay cut. My bonus is my retirement. If I stay till 20, I will only get 40% before taxes of my last year's base pay. That is not the retirement package you have. I hope the 401k goes through for us because that is a big sticking point for the younger guys with families. Leave. Don't get me started. What good is 30 days a year if you cannot use it? If I do not get a chance to use it, why does it go away? Why can't I get reimbursed for it? I do not know if you have seen the schedule for CAG-5 but let me tell you it is brutal. Not only do we average 185 days a year at sea, but throw into that an average of 30 days a year at Iwo Jima (you should only have to go there once in a lifetime) plus the dets we have to go on, and there is not a lot of time for leave. The ridiculous amount of paper required in the 90's Navy still has to be pushed. With the increasing amount of paper that we push, why doesn't BUPERS and all the other organizations, scrub their programs for currency every year. Relieve some of the pressure. The computer has simply allowed me to do three times as much paperwork in twice the time. I would just like to see one "high profile" report done away with because it does not help us do our mission. Dental Readiness jumps to mind. The Navy does not provide enough Dentists so readiness suffers. Questions? Yet we have it as a CNO Special Interest Program that some poor JO spends way too much time with, requiring the XO to spend way too much time on it and so on and so on. Get rid of it. One Aviator to another, I think, given the aforementioned reasons and a host of others, I may have made the biggest mistake of my life taking the bonus. Don't get me wrong, being a CAG Paddles has been the most demanding and at the same time most gratifying tour I could have asked for. I love this more than you'll ever know. I would not have been able to forgive myself if I had turned this tour down for personal reasons and someone hit the ramp because I was not there to keep them off it. I'm a damn good Paddles sir and I've had no landing mishaps on my watch (fourth cruise) to prove it. The best Skipper I ever had was a man by the name of T.C. Bennett. He told me on numerous occasions that if "you are not having fun, you aren't doing it right." I have been trying my damndest to do it right, but bottom line, I'm getting worked to death and flying a jet that is no longer fun to fly. Well sir, I've bent your ear enough. Thank you again for addressing us through Tailhook. I have been a proud member since the day after I landed on the LEX. With your help, we can shake the doldrums that have clouded the Organization for too long. I would be glad, if you have any questions, to talk at length about any of these or other subjects on the Tee Box at Whispering Pines or Torrie Pines, which ever coast you happen to be on. Hope to see you at Tailhook in Reno. Very respectfully, CAG-5 Paddles "No Trash"