This happened to me recently in that I was talking with the husband of one of my wife's friends. We were talking about what we do on our "off" time to keep us entertained and he was talking about how he likes to knit and crotchet, not something I'd have expected, but he said that it was something he took up while in the US Navy on board ships traversing the oceans. This started a conversation about what he did while he was in the Navy, and this is where my jaw hit the floor. He explained to me that he worked as a crew member on electronic warfare aircraft as a systems operator. I was in awe! He then told me about his first a/c he was assigned to was the EA-3B on board the USS Midway, then he transitioned to a ground station at Pensacola NAS with frequent trips to Alameda NAS. He was then transitioned to the ES-3A on board the USS Carl Vinson.
I,then started talking about how I build scale models, mostly aircraft, and that I typically build post-war era subjects and sometimes move into WWII aircraft and have looked at doing some armor kits. I then explained to him that I was currently getting ready to start building a 1/48 TA-3B from VQ-1, and that I also had a regular S-3A Viking that I had plans on building shortly after and I offered to share pictures of the construction and finished builds with him if he was interested. I was actually surprised that he would very much enjoy seeing that.
After we talked aircraft for a few hours, and our wives were bored with our conversation and moved away with wine in hand, he asked if I had any reference materials. I told him that I had followed a couple of blog posts about bomber and version differences of the A-3 aircraft and I'd looked at a Skywarrior webpage. He then told me that he might have something I could maybe use and he'd get them to me in the next few days.
Well fast forward those few days, and this is what he brought me:
Holy cow!!! This was not even close to what I was expecting him to bring me!!! I was maybe expecting a couple of personal photos that he'd taken from inside the aircraft. Maybe some squadron posters, or something like that, but to actually have in hand NATOPS manuals for the EA-3B/TA-3B and ES-3A?? Never in a million years!!!
