Did Someone Say Snark?

Steeljaw Scribe (aka ―sometimes― as “Some Squid”) cherry-picked a couple of movie sequences in a vain attempt to convince the world at large the Navy knows a lil sumthin about airpower. So…he puts up this video of a couple of F9Fs being landed…oh-so-poorly…on the deck of an aircraft carrier and contrasts them with the venerable F-86, shown on a ramp as the credits to “The Hunters” roll. (BTW: those F9Fs were from one of the best war movies of all time, and the source of the famous quote “Where do we get such men?”)

Now the F9F is a pretty airplane, don’t get me wrong. “Pretty,” as far as those lil toy aircraft go. You know, the kind of airplanes that require an industrial strength sling-shot to get airborne most of the time and sporting some sort of vestigial appendage called a “booty-hook.” Or something like that. Anyway, the mere existence of these booty-hook thingies have been known to make grown men get all weepy with remembrance. They have strange powers, those vestigial appendages. But I digress.

The plain (or plane) fact, Gentle Reader, is REAL Men (REAL Women, too) fly BIG-ASS airplanes. Like these:

A single B-52 brings as much force to the party…any party…as an entire squadron of sea-going toy airplanes. And the B-52 has been doing so for well over 50 years now...in Vietnam, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and conflicts yet to come.

It’s a matter of fact, Gentle Reader, that those F9Fs depicted in SJS’ post were in service at the same time as the B-52. Read another way…the service life of those two airframes overlapped, however briefly. The F9F is but a memory. The B-52, on the other hand, is a sterling example of your United States Air Force: firepower and staying power. Your United States Air Force puts both firepower and staying power on target, on demand. World-wide.

For another historical example of famous USAF Big-Ass airplanes, see Mike. And while I’m at it, credit where credit is due: SJS posted a danged good treatise on the BUFF in the near way-back. Which sorta proves the point: even squids know the good stuff when they see it.

Oh…and no offense meant to fighter types, especially the air superiority guys…USAF, USN, or USMC. Someone needs to prep the battle space, and for that the Big Iron guys are eternally grateful.