Seasnake's Aviation Page

Introduction

I flew for the USN from 1979-1989 at the height of the cold war. I deployed to the Indian Ocean, Somalia, the North Arabian Sea, the South Pacific, the Bering Sea, and many other places off the beaten track. I rode ships from Frigates up to nuclear Aircraft Carriers, and made a five day trip aboard an SSN. I began my career as an S-3 "Viking" Plane Captain, inspecting and keeping S-3A BuNo 159747 ready to fly at all times. My deployments included a year in the Indian Ocean aboard USS Eisenhower, where I learned to fly in SH-3 "Sea King" helicopters in my off duty hours.

I went to AW "A" School in 1981, learning how to hunt submarines -- I was the first sailor to "challenge" the course, completing the 14 week school in 4 weeks with a 90.22 average. This got me command advanced to AW-3 and recommended for the next promotion cycle, so I went from E-3 to E-5 in a year. I volunteered for isolated duty and was assigned to the staff of Patrol Wing One on Diego Garcia in the center of the Indian Ocean, flying missions against the Soviets all around the IO and into Africa. I visited Mogadishu and Berbera Somalia, Djibouti, Oman, and a few other places no one ever heard of. In 1983, I did something that made a name for myself in the intel community, and I never had a regular job in the Navy after that. Part of my job on "Dodge" was to brief and debrief flight crews going out to intercept transiting Soviet Naval units, including their rare aircraft carriers and "Papa 046", a nuclear submarine that sank after we chased it around for half a year.

I returned to San Diego and learned how to crew the aging SH-2F "SeaSprite", a wonderful helicopter that became my favorite toy. For a couple years, I was assigned to HSL-33 at NAS North Island and also ran the intel library and taught Soviet tactics and threat recognition to pilots and aircrews.

During 1985, I was assigned to the USS Kirk as senior crewman on two SH-2F detachments, Det 3J and 3K (one relieved the other; I was left in place as a replacement for an aircrewman that quit his job in fear of our aging helicopter and its propensity for crashing). Detachments from HSL 33 "Seasnakes", 35 "Magicians", and 37 "Lamplighters" spent the mid-80s cycling through forward deployments to Atsugi Japan. When not assigned to trailing the USS Midway, these frigate-embarked SH-2F detachments occasionally were sent into the northern Pacific, Sea of Japan, and on rarer occasions, into the Sea of Ohkotsk. The Soviets met us at the door in all three of those places.

Our encounters with Hinds were usually limited to when we were in the Sea of O. Outside the Kurile Island chain, the Soviets sortied a wide variety of aircraft to investigate close approaches by USN units such as ours. The usual Tu 95 Bears were familiar to everyone, but we also met Tu 16 Badgers, Be 12 Mail seaplanes, and during one exciting afternoon, a force of 48 Tu 22 Blinders and Backfires coming out of Central Asia. Once inside the Sea of O, just about everything in the Soviet aerial inventory came out to harass and dog us including the very rare Mi 14 "Haze" (only time I saw them). Fighters, both modern and archaic, took turns radiating at us or thumping our 30 year old helicopter. On the same day, we'd get gravity-laced messages from "Sky King" announcing that "Suhkois are off the deck inbound from Ostrov Iterup." and "MiGs are active. Heads up."

One call always got our attention - "Rotary wing aircraft are inbound from the mainland." That meant Mi 24-Ds were coming out to intercept us. Always a pair; one high and 1/2 mile behind us, and one co-sharing our airspace. They came close enough we could hear them over the sound of our own helicopter. We could feel the vibration of their rotors through our own airframe. As an intimidation tool, more than once they brought their Hinds right up into closer than we flew to wingmen - on two occasions, they forced us to break away to avoid a collision as they just kept on coming at us. We flew with a "spook" or a dedicated photographer and we had spooks aboard our ship - the onboard spook was there to monitor radio traffic between the Soviet aircrews and ground control, to tell us when we had gone too far (either geographically or otherwise). Often it was a white faced plea - "We need to get out of here!"

We flew two five hour cycles using whatever daylight was available. Due to the risk of collision and the absence of any SAR effort if we went down, there were no night flights. That meant we were really hopping during the day. Once we launched, the Soviets sent someone out to intercept. It soon became apparent that they were sending one particular airman out frequently - whichever Hind was assigned "close escort" to us, almost every day, the forward / gunner's cockpit was crewed by a pleasant man we (for obvious reasons) called Ivan. Ivan had a broad black mustache and a ready smile. He was like the neighbor that waved at us from over the hedge each day.

Judging by things they did, it was clear we were not seen as any sort of threat and after the intial period of aggression, the Hind crews played with us. Our landing gear malfunctioned routinely due to the cold temps so we left them down and pinned when it was at its coldest. OAT simply didn't register and we joked that we needed an OAT guage that measured in Kelvin. When the Commie rat bastards realized that the Yankee Air Pirates couldn't raise and lower their gear, they flew alongside of us with big smiles, cycling their gear up and down. Other times, the crewmen in the cargo stations put signs up in the windows with our call numbers on them. In this balmy period of the Cold War, they came right out and played games with us, like a well-armed cat slapping around an unarmed mouse. We frequently raced them, either starting from a hover or from a 'flying start'. The only contest we ever won was hovering - often, the Hinds could only manage to hold a slow creep and it was clear they were too heavily loaded

After weeks of watching us end our flights by flying approaches to our ship with recognizable 'gates', our "high escort" broke away from following us one day and made several _perfect_ approaches to our ship, as if it intended to land. After the first, the flight deck crew realized we might have a "Red October" situation on our hands, so they hurriedly made a sign in Russian saying, "Go ahead and land!" (See? This is why you need Spooks on your ship - to make posters.) We made a video tape of the event - sadly, CDR Fondren now has the only copy. The plan was to allow the Hind to land, quickly cut off its blades and tail pylon, then shut the hangar over the top of it. That wouldn't leave any room for our trusty old POS Seasprite, so we were told that if push came to shove, we were to ditch alongside the ship. Seriously. We wore "elephant asshole" anti-exposure suits but I still wasn't looking forward to a dunking in the 29-degree Sea of O.

After I left HSL-33, I was selected to work for Admiral Rich at COMASWWINGPAC, back at North Island. I served as the aircrew reprsentative for all West Coast "Sea Sprite" squadrons. My best success was pushing through fleet introduction of the HEEDS or Helicopter Emergency Escape Device. With this little air bottle, victims of a crashed helicopter that find themselves underwater in a sinking helicopter have the precious gift of an extra five minutes of life to use while escaping the wreck. If I had been able to do it years earlier, at least some of the 31 friends I lost in Naval Aviation mishaps might have survived. I succeeded too late to help my own friends, but in later years, dozens of airmen got that extra chance.

My swan song was a twilight tour as an instructor at SWATS, a Navy war college for ship-sinking airmen. "Sea-based Weapons and Advanced Tactics School" was one of the first to fully incorporate computers into training aircrews. We taught folks how to shoot to kill with Harpoon anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, and bombs. I was one of very few enlisted instructors and I had a blast, developing my own classes and teaching up to 60 officers and enlisted aircrewmen at a time.

In 1988, I earned the honor of Sailor of the Year for the 22 squadrons and units assigned to Admiral Adams' command. At the same time, I self-destructed following the loss of two more comrades and the loss of the love of my life, Christine Cardenas. I couldn't keep doing my job and left the service that I loved just as my country lost its 50-year opponent as the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight. By the New Year 1990, I left the Navy and all of my wonderful experiences behind me.

These days, I raise my two children Alexander and Jenna in a world that will rapidly forget what we did during the Cold War. The rise of terrorism and the shooting wars that followed have made our sacrifices dim memories, even for those of us that lived them. Bob is preserving my memoirs here, before they are gone forever. On behalf of my friends, particularly those that never came home, I thank him for his efforts.


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Gordon Permann
SAR AIRCREW
 

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Last Modified: Tuesday November 14, 2006