Fort Rucker Alabama, Army Aviation Museum

Our last stop, before heading home.  Cliff attended flight school at Fort Rucker in 1969.  He started his fixed wing training at Fort Stewart, then finished fixed wing at Fort Rucker where he graduated.  He then transitioned into rotary (helicopter).  After getting his wings, we were sent to Hunter Army Air Field in Savannah for Cobra training.  All pilot trainees were on orders for Viet Nam as soon as their schooling was complete.

 

The famous Bird Dog was what the Army used when Cliff finished his fixed wing training. 

Hueys were used extensively in Viet Nam.  Cliff flew them for a short time after he arrived in Viet Nam and then transitioned into the LOH  (low observation helicopter).
He trained in the Cobra below, but never flew them in Viet Nam.

This OH 13 Bell helicopter was used for the first phase of rotary training.

During the last 9 months (of the year to the day) Cliff was in Nam he flew the LOH below.

 

 

USS Alabama in Mobile

 USS Alabama was commissioned August 16, 1942.  She earned 9 Battle Stars, and shot down 22 enemy airplanes during World War II.   It is moored on the Bay of Mobile with a beautiful veiw of downtown and the bay.

 

From the museums records:

" Operations July 10- Aug 15, 1945.  Assigned to duty with the Royal Navy as they shelled factories and steel mills only a few miles from Tokyo.  In early August, one final Kamikaze plane struck the destroyer Borie and the Alabama sent a medical party to care for the wounded.  On Aug 6, 1945 the 1st atomic bomb decimated the Japanese City of Hiroshima.  Surrender followed 8 days later.  The war was over."

 I counted 11 flights of steps we climbed.  The museum has done such a nice job with furnishing the different rooms of the ship as it was when it was operating.  It's like a little city with operating rooms, laundry, ship store, dentist, brigs, etc. and of course several mess halls depending on your rank. 

Pensacola Naval Air Museum

 As you can see the guns on this plane were mounted in front of the cock pit.  When they were fired, bullet holes would be made in the propeller.  So they covered the area on the propellers with metal.  That did not work, because the bullets then ricocheted back toward the pilot.  They finally came up with a design that timed the firing of the bullets so that they did not hit the propeller.  Funny story about trial and error.

This plane was fished out of the Pacific Ocean.  It cleaned up very nicely.  The pilot Col Robert Galer was called and told they found the plane that he crashed into the Pacific.  He asked "which one?"  He crashed four of them.

 The Blue Angels are now grounded due to the Federal Government cut backs.  What a shame.  One of the Blue Angel pilots came and looked at this display after the museum got these planes mounted from the ceiling.  He said  "this isn't right.  They aren't close enough."

 

USA in the 1940's at the height of WW II.

 Below is the helicopter that carried Nixon from the White House after his resignation.

 

This was an interesting story about the evacuation in 1975 of a South Vietnam Air Force Major and his family.  He flew a bird dog (small Cessna) from a Vietnamese island to the Midway.  This is the plane that Cliff started his flight training in at Fort Rucker.

Below is the note that the Major threw down to the carrier.

Only in New Orleans

Voodoo shop was a popular stop for our group.

French Market in downtown has just about everything.   

 

 

View of the Mississippi from Mardi Gras World

The World of Mardi Gras.  We learned all about making floats.  This company has been designing and building floats for over 50 years.  As soon as one Mardi Gras is over, the process starts over for the next year.

The famous Jackson Square.

The French Quarter Music Festival was going on, during one trip to New Orleans.  There were 20 stages with different performers.