Fully retired .Working around the house doing HONEY DO's.Spending more time with kids and grandkids.Trying to locate old friends from the military and school.Learning how to operate this computer.Taking trips back to Crete Greece to visit the wife's family members there..Above all haveing a good time in my old age.
PLAYING WITH SKYPE. My SKYPE name is garymac000
OCT 17 2012:
Just returned from a 5 week stay with the wife's family on the Greek island of Crete Greece.Took many photos and a couple videos.Much is on my Facebook page .LONG flying trip but well worth it.Love the beaches.Visited the closed USAFSS base there and cried again.What a mess.Was the best little base in the USAF..Working on my Photo History web site on that closed Intelligence base www.papoumac.shutterfly.com
Other Comments:
Joined the Marine Corps reserve in 1956.Went full time in 1957 until 1960.Joined the USAF in 1960.Stationed at Camp Pendelton Ca,Mare Island CA,MC CHORD AFB Wa,Crete Greece (2 tours USAFSS),Viet-Nam(x2),IRAN(MAAG),Mt.Home AFB ID,Tokyo Japan(AFRTS),Travis AFB.DUTIES: Armorer,PMI,Supply,Military advisor..Spent 16 years out of my 23 overseas.Saw much of the world on leave, and TDY as well as duty stations.Member of a small group of USAFSS people that tested and started the 1st EC47 unit in Nam.Advisory duty in Isfahan Iran was with the Navy F-14 Tomcat.The team was both Navy and USAF.
Retired from the military in 1979.Worked for World Airways in Oakland CA for a while..Odd jobs then went into law enforcement in 1981.Worked with Drug ID,County Gangs Task Force,Auto crashes,WMD instructor school,and trained police Aides in fire arms.Retired fufully in 2005....Member of small and big bore base shooting teams in the Marines and Air Force..Spent most of my young life in Yakima Washington.
My 1st trip to Viet-Nam was mainly due to my getting engaged to a Greek nurse from Crete in 1965.I had to leave Crete and while in TX I worked hard to get back.No such luck.Then the General (KLOCKO) (sp). told me if I volenteried to go to Nam and help test the EC47 program that all that went can go to what ever USAFSS base they wish.So off I went .True to his word I went back to Crete upon my return to TX.I still don't let the wife forget that I went to WAR so we could be married.Don't work very good anymore.LOL.
Aircraft/Missile Information
The first real use of the AIM-7 Sparrow occured in the Vietnam conflict, where it was heavily used by USAF and U.S. Navy F-4 Phantoms. The first engagement happened on June 7th 1965 when a U.S. Navy F-4B shot down 2 North Vietnamese MiG-17's. Although the missile was standard equipment on F-4's and used almost every day, the results were poor. Because of the absence of a reliable IFF system on the aircraft, the lang-range capacities of the AIM-7 could not be used, resulting in the missile being nothing more than a short-range radar guide missile. Kill-ratio of the first missiles never exceeded 10%.
Therefore a new missile was developed very quickly to overcome this shortfalls. This became the AIM-7E-2. With the introduction of the new missile overall effectiveness was improved and kill-ratios started to improve as well. With the ending of the conflict the total of confirmed kills stood at more than 50.
The last (up to now) operational use of the AIM-7 was in operation Desert Storm in 1991. The missile was used extensively by F-15 and F-16 aircraft. At the end of the war 22 Iraqi aircraft and 3 helicopters were downed by a AIM-7 missile.
The use of the missile will continue with different airforces around the world and will certainly stay in service aboard different naval vessels in the Sea Sparrow variant. However, the development of the missile has ceased in favor of the introduction of the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile. Although the AIM-7 was a splendid missile, it has one major disadvantage. Once it is fired, the aircraft must continue to illuminate the target untill impact, limiting that aircraft to straight and level flight.
For this reason the missile will slowly lose it's overall effectiveness and will be replaced completely with the AIM-120 AMRAAM or other medium to long range fire-and-forget missiles.
Specifications Primary Function Air-to-air guided missile Contractor Raytheon Co. Power Plant Hercules MK-58 solid-propellant rocket motor Thrust Classified Speed Classified Range approximately 30 nm Length 12 feet (3.64 meters) Diameter 8 inches (0.20 meters) Wingspan 3 feet, 4 inches (1 meter) Warhead Annular blast fragmentation warhead 88 lbs high explosive for AIM-9H Launch Weight Approximately 500 pounds (225 kilograms) Guidance System Raytheon semiactive on either continuous wave or pulsed Doppler radar energy Date Deployed 1976 Aircraft Platforms Navy: F-14 and F/A-18; Air Force: F-4, F-15, and F-16; Marine Corps: F-4 and F/A-18
