Sunday, June 9, 2019

Hey! The ONE thing I was good at in the Navy.



I was the only Navy guy, and officer, in my dunker runs.  The rest was enlisted Marine aircrew.  In one of the dunks you wear goggles that are blacked out to simulate darkness, but it's all in a well lit (indoor, for me) pool with safety divers, as you see.

There is a trick to staying oriented, and I am comfortable and calm in the water.  Even blind and upside down, with my sinuses and ears full of water.  (It's top heavy, the UH-46 is, so it flips) The Marines?  Some of them, not so much.  If I didn't want to get a panicky kick in the face leaving I had to wait them out.  So I was fine.

You wear, well we wore, flight gear, boots, helmet, gloves. Not bike helmets or what have you. Well, these aren't really aircrew types, I don't think. It is disorienting.

Their fake helicopter has much bigger hatches than mine did.

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