16-6434 —

A pair of first-appearance photos for FA's gallery.
The CAG bird of the VFA-14 "Tophatters" ("The Oldest And The Boldest"), an F-18E Super Hornet, is captured here for its first-time post in the gallery as it taxies along NAS Fallon's taxiway Alpha. This Superbug, assigned to USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) when at sea and home ported at NAS Lemoore, was part of a massive midafternoon training exercise launch.
This day of spotting at Fallon will always be a memorable one for me. The air temperature at this moment was 103 degrees. Standing in the open and being bathed in the hot exhaust from 30+ passing Navy jets meant the temperature at this location was well above 103.