McDonnell Douglas FA-18 Hornet (16-6901)

Another excellent capture, Gary! Why do you see some many squanders? 5 stars for sure!

5* again Gary! What a great spot you have....I used to live very close to NAS Oceana and got to see these close ups all the time.

Beautiful shot Gary! A quick question, we've seen a few Hornet's come through Tallahassee and some of them are painted like this (with colors), is this what you call a "CAG" bird? And what does CAG stand for?

David - CAG is an antiquated abbreviation meaning "Commander, Air Group." The same position is now officially the "Air Wing Commander," but the abbreviation CAG was retained because it sounds so much better than AWC. The CAG is the Commanding Officer of the Carrier Air Wing, and is an equivalent position to the Commanding Officer of the aircraft carrier to which the Air Wing is assigned.

Most fixed-wing squadrons will have one airframe "assigned" for CAG use - that airframe has a modex number ending in "00," just as this one's modex number is 400. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modex for more information on the modex numbers.

Cool! Thanks, I appreciate it Jeremy.

always great to see the guys and gals that keep SAFE