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No Foreign Object Damage Today!

Remember those days of the ritual FOD Walkdown before flight operations, both on land and at sea? It was a time when the squadron and/or ship’s air department personnel came together for the common good of protecting our Navy aircraft from Foreign-Object-Damage, a goal we all shared in the RECCENET Community; searching for and collecting bits and pieces of anything that could get sucked into an aircraft intake and thereby ruin a jet engine and valuable piece of government property.

RVAH-6 was one of ten Reconnaissance Heavy Attack Squadrons who took this responsibility very seriously, in every shop and department. Their operational record of safety and combat readiness was unsurpassed in the Vigilante Community.

During the squadron’s 1975 Western Pacific cruise, they achieved an outstanding record of 4000 FOD Free Flight Hours while deployed on USS Kitty Hawk, CV-63. This was actually a cumulative record from 1974 when the squadron was deployed to the Mediterranean onboard the USS Forrestal, CVA-59, an achievement that continued to build throughout the following year, and in June, 1976 the squadron surpassed 51 months and 5,100 flight hours without incurring any foreign object engine damage attributable to maintenance error.

It was during Heavy Six’s 1975 WestPAC cruise that ADJ3 Steve Weaver, working in the Power/Plants shop was asked to design a patch to commemorate the 4000 FOD Free Flight Hours.

At that time only a precious few of these patches were contracted and produced for purchase by the squadron personnel. It has become a rare collectible because of the limited edition, but Steve Weaver decided to have them remade to celebrate the upcoming 50^th anniversary of that deployment and achievement in 2025. He is offering a very limited number for sale at $10.00 apiece plus $2.00 shipping & handling while supplies last. He can be contacted through his personal email: AIP1953@comcast.net to order your collectible H-6 FOD Free embroidered patch.

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Steve Weaver July 18, 2023 at 10:13am

No Foreign Object Damage Today!

Remember those days of the ritual FOD Walkdown before flight operations, both on land and at sea? It was a time when the squadron and/or ship’s air department personnel came together for the common good of protecting our Navy aircraft from Foreign-Object-Damage, a goal we all shared in the RECCENET Community; searching for and collecting bits and pieces of anything that could get sucked into an aircraft intake and thereby ruin a jet engine and valuable piece of government property.

RVAH-6 was one of ten Reconnaissance Heavy Attack Squadrons who took this responsibility very seriously, in every shop and department. Their operational record of safety and combat readiness was unsurpassed in the Vigilante Community.

During the squadron’s 1975 Western Pacific cruise, they achieved an outstanding record of 4000 FOD Free Flight Hours while deployed on USS Kitty Hawk, CV-63. This was actually a cumulative record from 1974 when the squadron was deployed to the Mediterranean onboard the USS Forrestal, CVA-59, an achievement that continued to build throughout the following year, and in June, 1976 the squadron surpassed 51 months and 5,100 flight hours without incurring any foreign object engine damage attributable to maintenance error.

It was during Heavy Six’s 1975 WestPAC cruise that ADJ3 Steve Weaver, working in the Power/Plants shop was asked to design a patch to commemorate the 4000 FOD Free Flight Hours.

At that time only a precious few of these patches were contracted and produced for purchase by the squadron personnel. It has become a rare collectible because of the limited edition, but Steve Weaver decided to have them remade to celebrate the upcoming 50^th anniversary of that deployment and achievement in 2025. He is offering a very limited number for sale at $10.00 apiece plus $2.00 shipping & handling while supplies last. He can be contacted through his personal email: AIP1953@comcast.net to order your collectible H-6 FOD Free embroidered patch.
Steven R. Ewing July 17, 2023 at 3:15pm

Steve Weaver,

Your requested event addition will have to be declined. That's not the purpose of the Event section.

You can post all that information as a status on your own page and create a post in the Forums (I'd suggest the General Conversation as the place to post it).

Steve Ewing
RVAh Navy Roster PO

This reply was deleted.