Investigators determined pilot error caused the 6 April 2011 crash of a US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet near Lemoore Naval Air Station, California. Both the pilot and the backseat NFO were killed.
The pilot, Lt. Matthew I. Lowe, 33, of Plantation, Fla., and the plane’s weapons officer, Lt. Nathan H. “Beefcake” Williams, 28, of Oswego, N.Y., were Read more
The Navy Times notes US Naval aviators (not pilots; pilots are the guys that drive the boats) are “chafing” at fairly new rules on the wear of their flight suits.
The January policy required black T-shirts be worn with green suits and brown T-shirts be worn with tan suits. It also relegated graduate-level aircrew training patches to the right shoulder and required garrison caps to be stuffed into either leg pocket with the zipper open and cap exposed.
One aviator summarized this as all of the bad parts of the Air Force rules (which also recently changed) and none of the good: Read more