ASOG Article of the Month: June 2021
ASOG Author: Gary Micklethwaite
If you want to know what life is like as an ASO on an ASW aircraft, Gary Micklethwaite recalls his days as a crew member on a Canadian CP-140 Aurora. What's great about these types of articles there chalked with great professional examples and tips to compare with your ASO or professional world.
People have been asking what it was like to be part of an ASW crew on board a CP-140 Aurora (Canadas P-3). What was the job like, what tasks did you carry out? Where did you get to go?
To answer these questions, I added pen-to-paper and highlighted what life was like on a CP-140 Aurora.
First, some of those experiences and memories never leave you. The smell of a burnt CAD, the heat in the tac tube, no matter how cool we tried to keep it. Getting served a hot breakfast at 0400 in the North Atlantic by a buddy who decided to strip down to his underwear, putting on a ratty old wig and a pair of cat's eyeglasses, an apron with a girls bikini printed on it with his combat boots on…. Rest In Peace Steve, I miss you, buddy.
What It's Like to Be In The Tube
A crew was like a family. We did things together. Our families knew each other. We partied together and worked together as a team. We looked after each other. Of course, the old guys looked after the young guys and taught them the "tricks of the trade." We also fought and argued just like families do from time to time. But we all knew our jobs, and we all did them very well.
A Canadian Aurora crew was a minimum of 10 people. 2 Pilots, 1 FE, three dry sensor operators, two wet sensor operators, 1 TACCO, and 1 Navcomm. That is the minimum. Occasionally, an extra pilot or FE was assigned to the crew or an extra sensor operator, but generally, it was 10. Other than the flight deck, and unlike the American model of the P-3 layout, we all sat together in the Tac Tube. The equipment racks lined the starboard side of the tube as you looked forward, and everyone else sat in a sort of open square configuration on the port side. Two of the dry sensor guys faced forward at their station and sat side by side one one rail, the TACCO and Navcomm sat facing sideways on their rail, and the two wet sensor guys sat facing backward on their rail.
The aft part of the aircraft contained the ASW area where one of the sensor ops sat, carried out duties of a visual observer, and loaded sonobuoys into our launch tubes. Finally, the very aft of the aircraft was the galley and eating area.
If you were strictly a "Crew Dog," then the schedule was pretty good also. We worked 7 and 3. Usually, on your seven on, you would get a simulator or two, a day of ground training, and a couple of flights. One was usually a patrol of some sort, and one was a crew training flight. Front end and back end crews, back in the day, did their sim sessions separately. The cockpit crew did a flight deck Sim to practice "touch and goes" and emergencies, and the Tac Tube guys got an OMS (operational mission simulator), where we practiced our ASW/ASuW/AAW skills.
Getting the Job Done!
Every once in a while, we got to deploy to exotic places like Keflavik, Adak, and Shemya because the bad guys had sent a boat out into the Pacific or Atlantic. Hunting Submarines was an art back in the day, and you have to remember that by "back in the day," I mean the 80's and 90's. While it's still a bit of smoke and mirrors to find a submarine, the smoke isn't nearly as thick these days as it was back then. Of course, the advances in sensor and detection equipment make it a lot easier to find a sub now, even given the advances in submarine technology too…..
You could either be overt or covert, depending on the mission. There were times when we took off from Keflavik and never spoke to a soul for the entire duration of the flight. Even handing over to our relief was done on timings and altitudes and not on the radio. We met at a certain Lat/Long and a certain altitude at a certain time, and our relief was at a higher altitude. We passed each other going opposite directions, and once we had opening DME, we could commence a climb and RTB. Heck, we never even had any exterior lights on during the whole flight—dead silence.
Sometimes we were successful, sometimes not. If we were covert and just tracking a sub, then it was all done passively from medium altitude, so we didn't give the sub any indication we were there. If we were overt, we would tool around at 300 AGL, dropping sonos and running MAD patterns.
The weather didn't seem to matter either. I have flown in some terrible stuff over the years. It was nothing to be out in 50-knot winds and sea state six bouncing around at 300 feet prosecuting a sub. Sometimes it got so bad that the sonos would get wash over and the signal degraded, or the waves were so high that it would snap the sono transducer wire when the wave rose so fast the springs couldn't keep up.
Crew Dog Life
Deployments like this were where a crew could really coalesce. Everyone knew their job, and everyone did their job. If we had the luxury of bringing a few technicians with us getting back on the ground was great, we would tell them the snags, what we needed for the next mission, and "toss them the keys." And we always knew that the plane would be ready to roll when we showed up - Professionals all.
If we didn't bring techs with us, it was up to us to get the plane ready for the next mission. Usually, just a skeleton crew went back for debrief and to turn in crypto and tapes, and the rest of the guys pitched in. The FE was basically in charge of the plane then, and he would direct someone to fuel, someone else to empty the garbage and the toilet while he did all of the after flight checks on the engines and airframe. After that, it was up to the lead wet sensor guy to figure out what he needed for a sonobuoy loadout for the next mission, and then we would head for the sono locker to get it ready. This was about a two hour process of getting the plane ready to go, so after a 2 hour brief and a 10-12 hour flight, it made for some extended days.
After everyone was done, there was the crew debrief, always with beers in someone's room. Beer in Kef and places like that were pretty cheap, so someone would by a case and host the debrief in their room each day. It didn't matter if you were an officer or NCO. That's how crew life was. While we were at home, it was Capt this or Sgt that when we spoke to each other, but when you were away, it was Bob and Doug. If you had a Major as a crew commander, it was Maj or Boss.
Most of our deployments were anywhere from a week to 10 days long, with occasional longer ones up to a month or so. We were on Per Diem when we went away, so everyone was responsible for their meals. I don't know how many geedunk meals I have eaten over the years, but I know that I have had some pretty empty calories. Every once in a while, we all pitched a few bucks and went out and bought real food for the flight. The galley contained a convection oven along with a toaster and coffee pot, and most crews kept a box in their crew room with things like electric fry pans or waffle irons in it for when they deployed.
I have had many really good meals prepared in the galley of the Aurora by some crewmate while we were rocking and rolling at 300 feet above the Atlantic. Of course, the best meal was always breakfast. Sausage, waffles, and omelets, usually as the galley was sparse for equipment unless we brought our own.
We would eventually get time off when deployed. Depending on where you were would depend on what you did… In Adak and Kef, there wasn't a lot to do. You could go bowling, stroll the PX aisles looking for deals or, in the case of Kef, you could get off base and do the tourist thing in Reykjavik or hit the blue lagoon for a swim. In ADAK, you were pretty much stuck with bowling.
If you were in a sunny place, quite a few guys packed their golf club with them or brought snorkeling gear. There was always some beach time to be had. A LOT of shopping took place when we were also deployed. I have seen guys have to measure the width of the door on the Aurora because he wasn't sure if the new speakers he saw at the PX would fit through it. I have seen another guy ask the FE if it was OK to bring some power tools back with him and strap them down in the back. When the FE said yes, he went out and bought a 7-inch metal cutting band saw weighing 300 pounds…..It was hilarious when he pitched up to the plane with it, and the FE just about hit the roof. All he said was, "hey. You said I could bring some power tools back". The FE was grumbling to himself but shrugged and went to re-jig his weight and balance. The downside of it was that it took three of us to manhandle it up the stairs as the box was 50 inches by 40 inches by 18 inches large……
Time to Move On
Like all things, military crew life has to end eventually. People rotate in and out, promotions and posting take place. Some get an office gig in the same squadron, usually Ops or Training, and it comes to an end. My crew time came to an end when I was posted across the parking lot to the OTU to become an instructor, a job I really enjoyed a lot but will never match the experience of being on a crew. However, the memories will last a lifetime.
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