I've recently chatted with a buddy who initially wanted to fly but then became a navigator. He also joined at the same time as me and he informed that the contract for navigators is shorter, only 4 years. So he is almost done his required duty and now must decide if he will stay longer.
He mentioned a cool story from a few weeks ago in the Caribbean. They were awaken at night by the alarm bell and a repeating message "flying station", "flying station", while asleep on the ship. There was a fast boat detected by Aurora aircraft, moving at 50 miles per hour. Assistance from the Sea King crew was requested. They were just off the cost of Nicaragua.
My buddy's job as a navigator was to plot the location of the boat on the map and direct the pilots to it. They flew on night vision goggles and soon found the culprit who was still moving fast. At the same time an American Law Enforcement boat (part of US Cost Guard) was sent to their location. While awaiting support they followed the boat at 1000 ft (lights off and on night vision). However, when the support got closer they turned on the high power spot light (he was the one controlling it) and surprised the drug runners. They in turn stopped the boat and started dumping 500 kilos of drugs over board. Next they all raised their arms.
I can't imagine the adrenaline rush during such an operation. Not to mention the required skills to be able to navigate and find a moving target at night. Unfortunately he didn't have any photos but I found a cool video on a very similar chase but during day light
Drug bust - over 2 tons of marijuana and $8 million worth of other drugs
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