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Navy MATS


bobdaley
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Saw an interesting list of Navy MATS Herks yesterday.

On the West Coast at Moffett the Navy MATS units were VR-7 and 22, Flying squadrons, and VR-8 which owned the aircraft and did the maintenance but did not fly.

In 1966 when MAC came in into being, Navy MATS went away. By 1967, all the Navy C-130E's were returned to the USAF.

Moffett had 36 E's. They lost 63-7785 in 1966 so they returned 35 aircraft.

62-1850

63-7782,783,786,787,789,790,791,792,793,807,808,809,810,811,812,813,814,815,836,845,849,850,851,852,853,854,855, 856,862,870,871

64-0503,569,570

We got 26 at Langley

Sewart got 3 64-0503,569,570

Dyess got 4 7811, 7812, 7813, 7852

Pope got 2 7836,and 7856

I have not seen anything on East Coast Navy MATS yet but I'll keep looking.

Bob

BTW with 5 Navy VR squadrons flying C-130's and 5 VR squadrons flying 737's they have more airlift now than they had when Navy MATS went away

Edited by bobdaley
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I was fortunate to know an old shop guy at Rhein Main that got a job with the Marines (Navy) as an equipment specialist, pretty much the same as an AFETS, but in Navy speak. The unit was VMGR-352 at El Toro MCAS. Designated the RAIDERS, they were supported by the LA Raiders football program and had Raiderette cheerleaders at annual airshows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMGR-352

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  • 7 months later...

When I first got to McGuire AFB in the winter of 65, I was assigned to the 1613 OMS. We did all the maintenance on USAF marked C-130Es that were flown by the Navy. It was not a good combination. The Navy air crews beat the air planes up pretty bad. Upon return to McGuire the Navy crews just parked the C-130 and walked away, most didn't fill out the 781 logs. Most of their missions were to England or France. We later became the 438 OMS and as Vietnam geared up more and more air force flight crews started flying our C-130Es to Vietnam.

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When I first got to McGuire AFB in the winter of 65, I was assigned to the 1613 OMS. We did all the maintenance on USAF marked C-130Es that were flown by the Navy. It was not a good combination. The Navy air crews beat the air planes up pretty bad. Upon return to McGuire the Navy crews just parked the C-130 and walked away, most didn't fill out the 781 logs. Most of their missions were to England or France. We later became the 438 OMS and as Vietnam geared up more and more air force flight crews started flying our C-130Es to Vietnam.

​Romeo Delta,

I, too, was at McGuire the same time as you. I was the Asst. on 63-7872 assigned to the 1613 OMS MATS(later 438th OMS MAC). You sure spoke the truth about the Navy crews. They came out of Lakehurst NAS, NJ which was the site of the 1937 LZ 129 Hindenburg airship disaster.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was also at McGuire in the 1613th Oms dock 36.the navy was bad about taking an acft wit h red X open on them because they never read the 781's.I was there from the start of the 1613th when we had no acft and roll call 4 times a day.Col Hester was an ass.

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I was crew chief on 63-7846 at McGuire. Hated the Navy FE's. I helped launch 63-7835 one morning. The Navy FE found fuel fumes in a dry bay. Nobody else could smell them. Finally they took the airplane. They took that beauty down to Ft. Polk and landed so hard they broke the wing off.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It smelled like a dry bay without fuel fumes. The only thing that got hurt was the airplane. There was an army guy in the tower taking movies. The right wing flexed down and when it flexed up it kept going up and broke just outboard of #4 engine. Lockheed put a new wing on and flew it back to the factory. They kept it for a couple of months fixing all the other stuff that was broken or bent. The crew that broke it went down to Lockheed and picked it up. The same crew took it to Europe for 30 days. Nobody else flew it . I guess it was punishment.

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In 1965 at my Shepard Loadmaster class was a Navy guy.  We drove to California together after we finished and he was going to be stationed at Moffett NAS flying Hercs.  I was jealous because I lived about 10 miles from there and I was heading back to Dyess after leave.

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At McGuire AFB I worked in Dock 36 doing Post and PE inspections. Later the Air Force switched to Phase Inspections. We started off working 5 days a week but when support for Vietnam started we worked 7 days a week around the clock, 12 hour days. I remember pushing an aircraft out of the dock at the end of the shift only to have the flight line pull one into the dock as soon as the aircraft we were towing was down the taxie way headed to the back line. Really long fun days.

The Navy had terrible fight crews and as I found out later terrible maintenance crews. When I came back from Vietnam I was stationed at El Centro NAF assigned to the Navy/Air Force Joint Parachute Testing Group. The Navy supported the group with aircraft as did the Air Force. For the next 10 months, my aircraft flew 2 to 3 times a day supporting the group because the Navy planes were always broke down. So my experience with Naval Aviation is "beware".

Edited by RomeoDelta
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  • 2 years later...
On 5/31/2015 at 5:20 PM, RomeoDelta said:

When I first got to McGuire AFB in the winter of 65, I was assigned to the 1613 OMS. We did all the maintenance on USAF marked C-130Es that were flown by the Navy. It was not a good combination. The Navy air crews beat the air planes up pretty bad. Upon return to McGuire the Navy crews just parked the C-130 and walked away, most didn't fill out the 781 logs. Most of their missions were to England or France. We later became the 438 OMS and as Vietnam geared up more and more air force flight crews started flying our C-130Es to Vietnam.

Howdy !!  Got to McGuire in 1963 and was assigned to the 1613 OMS but we didn't have any airplanes yet. For six months we spent eight hours a day in a nose dock reading Tech Orders (boy talk about exciting) anyway after a year of that joke I transferred to FMS, paint stripping C-118's that were being replaced by C-135's. Left McGuire in 1965 for a year in CCK.

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