Society for Aviation
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Past
2005 Nor
Cal Chapter AAHS General Meetings and Tours
December 3, 2005:
Space
Shuttle Operations with
Astronaut Dr. Janice Voss
An overflow audience of 83 members and guests filled the Radisson Hotel in San Mateo to hear Dr. Janice Voss describe her experiences as a Space shuttle Astronaut in the final chapter meeting of 2005. Dr. Voss nearly missed the meeting due to a small mix-up in location. A change of venue apparently did not get communicated to her, after driving to the wrong hotel, and not finding our group she was forced to use the internet and some deductive reasoning to find the correct location. Arriving a bit late, Dr. Voss demonstrated the type of fortitude that makes an astronaut a problem solver and went on with her presentation. (See the latest newsletter for the rest of this report)
SPACE FLIGHT EXPERIENCE: Dr. Voss first flew on STS-57 (June 21
to July 1, 1993). Mission highlights included retrieval of the European
Retrievable Carrier (EURECA) with the Shuttle’s robotic arm, a spacewalk by two
crew members, and an assortment of experiments in the first flight of the
Spacehab middeck augmentation module. She next flew on STS-63 (February 3-11,
1995). Mission highlights included the rendezvous with the Russian Space
Station, Mir, the deployment and retrieval of Spartan 204, and the
third flight of Spacehab. She also flew as payload commander on STS-83 (Apr 4-8,
1997). The STS-83 Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL-1) Spacelab mission was
cut short because of problems with one of the Shuttle’s three fuel cell power
generation units. The entire crew and payload reflew on STS-94 (July 1-17,
1997). The STS-94 MSL-1 Spacelab mission focused on materials and combustion
science research in microgravity. Most recently she served on STS-99 (February
11-22, 2000). This was an 11-day flight during which the international crew
aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour worked dual shifts to support radar
mapping operations. The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission mapped more than 47
million miles of the Earth’s land surface.
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In other meeting activity, Roger Cain (NC 148) produced a typically difficult trivia contest; Ben Donahue (NC 29) described a book about the Ploesti Raid (titled Black Sunday by Michael Hill). Tom Johnson (NC 493) presented a bit of personal research on airline safety, and Alice Hendricks (NC 365) presented the election results for the 2006 AAHS Board.
October 8, 2005:
F-111
Panel Discussion and Open Cockpit Tour
at Castle Air Museum
Price McConnell, Bill Erickson and Larry Rinek
On
Saturday, Oct. 8th, 44 chapter members and guests gathered at the Castle Air Museum in
Atwater, Calif., for its F-111 panel discussion. Chapter member Larry
Rinek provided an overview of the aircraft and its operational history,
which was followed by crew members who related what it was like to
fly the F-111 for the U.S. Air Force. Aside from keeping the peace during
the Cold War, F-111s were involved in the attacks on Libya and in the first
Gulf War.
The banquet room at the museum was opened at 11:30, and the meeting started
at 11:45. After lunch, we had our trivia contest, followed by the presentation. Following the talks, we enjoyed our own
private open cockpit tours. Aircraft that were open for our inspection:
FB-111, B-36, and the KC-97 (shown below). In addition, the museum had its
KC-135 open for tours as well. The majority of our members and guests stayed until closing time, viewing, photographing, and speaking with the docents about the other 45 aircraft on the museums grounds.
June 25, 2005
USS Hornet Tour
We toured the U.S.S. Hornet (CV-12) at the former Alameda Naval Air Station. This ship
participated in World War II, and its air wings downed 1,410 Japanese aircraft - a record
bettered only by the U.S.S. Essex. In 1969, the ship was chosen to be the prime recovery
ship for Apollo 11 and 12. For this meeting wel toured the 900-foot long, 41,600 ton ship
from the bridge down to the crew's quarters. On the flight and hangar deck, we got to inspect
a TBM Avenger, F9F Panther, F-8 Crusader, S-2 Tracker, and an Apollo capsule.
Fifty-nine members met at 10 a.m. on the pier, before we entered the ship. We split into three groups for the tour, and had lunch in the Chief Petty Officer's mess at 1 p.m. We had a few words from our chapter
president, a trivia contest, door prizes, and then members and guests continued exploring the ship and the gift shop.
Special Tour was:
Fort Barry Nike Missile Site Tour
Saturday
May 21st 2005
The tour will began at 3 p.m. Located immediately north of
the Golden Gate Bridge, Nike Site SF-88, was one of 12 Nike Ajax sites built in
the San Francisco Bay Area. This site was opened in March 1954, with the
principal objective of protecting key military targets from Soviet bomber
aircraft. The tour visited Radar vans, the fueling area, and the
missile magazine.
April 9, 2005
Wild Weasels in Vietnam:
Col. Joseph Shriber
Col. Joseph D. Shriber (left) and Norm Jukes
April’s speaker was Col. Joseph D. Shriber, who
was commissioned as a second lieutenant in June 1966. He attended Undergraduate Navigator School at Mather AFB near Sacramento, Calif., from
October 1966 through August 1967, followed by Electronic Warfare Officer School at the same base
from August 1967 through April 1968. He then attended Electronic Counter
Measures and Wild Weasel School at Nellis AFB after completion of the F-105 RTU at McConnell AFB Kansas. Upon graduation of the Wild Weasel course,
Col. Shriber was assigned to Korat Royal Thai Air Base in Thailand,
assigned to the 6010th (later 17th) WWS, 388th
Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW), staying there until Dec 1969. He was then reassigned
to Davis Monthan AFB, Ariz., for F-4C RTU and then assigned to Holloman AFB, NM.
In
April 1972, the 49th Tactical Fighter Wing deployed to Takhli Royal
Thai Air Base during Operation Linebacker flying F-4Ds. Col. Shriber was soon
reassigned to the 67th TFS, 18th TFW at Kadena AB, Okinawa,
returning to the Wild Weasel mission. The squadron deployed to Korat, Thailand,
supplementing the F-105s during Linebacker II until January 1973. He remained
at Kadena until August 1974.
Col.
Shirber was reassigned to the 31st TFW at Homestead AFB, Fla., in 1974 until
1976. He was then transferred to HQ United States European Command in Stuttgart, Germany,
remaining there until March 1979. At that time he resigned his regular
commission to avoid another remote tour to either Icelandor Korea
Col.
Shriber moved to San Jose, Calif.,
in April 1979 for employment with Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. He has been with Lockheed Martin ever since
as a Strategic Planner.
Col.
Shriber transferred to the USAF Reserves in 1979 and entered the Intelligence
career field. He had annual tours at the Pentagon with Defense Intelligence
Agency until 1988. In 1989, he transferred to HQ Pacific Command at Camp Smith, Hawaii,
until his retirement in 1995. Col. Shriber was recalled to active duty for
Operation Desert Shield in August 1990 and again in March 1991 for Operation
Desert Storm. He was Commander of Detachment 48, Air Force Intelligence Command
from 1988 –1991. Col. Shriber is married
to the former Jill Alley of Castro
Valley, Calif.
February 5, 2005
Aerial
Gunnery in Action
(Taigh Ramey with NCC AAHS chapter president Norm Jukes)
The first meeting of
the new year took NorCal AAHS members to the
Stockton Field Aviation Museum (SFAM) to see
aerial gunnery in action. SFAM boasts one of the
most unique collections of gun turrets with
almost 15 different types on display (B-17 tail
turret, B-29 tail turret, Martin top turret,
etc.), as well as a collection of gun sights, a
B-29 nose section, an A-26 bombardier’s
compartment, and a .30 cal., .50 cal. and 20mm
gun comparison display.
For our tour,
members will got to see an actual, fully
functioning B-17/B-24 ball turret in operation,
and hear what it was like to fly combat missions
from this position. SFAM founder Taigh Ramey discussed the history of aerial gunnery, and demonstrated his General Electric turret B-29/A-26 fire
control system. This
system enabled the gunners to be seated remotely
from the turret in pressurized cabins, and
SFAM’s unit shows how the sight controlled
the turret and the maze of electrical boxes and
state-of-the-art (for its time) computers it took
to run the sight.
After a break for an excellent BBQ Tri-Tip lunch, Ramey discussed the operation of the Sperry ball turret. Along with museum volunteers, he has replicated a training stand for the turret that he saw at the National Air & Space Museum. This turret is fully operational, and rotates and traverses at the same speed as those suspended from the bellies of world war II B-17s and B-24's. Past chapter president Nick Veronico had the pleasure of climbing in and demonstrating it's operation.
There is a four page write-up on this meeting in our newsletter, along withmore pictures.
Some of the planes on display for our meeting included John Ward's B-25 and Terry Tarditi's P-51.
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our past meetings, click below
2004 meetings
2003 and earlier
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