Awards Ceremony 26 June

Families are highly encouraged to attend the Awards/Frocking Ceremony on June 26, 2009 at the Base Theater, starting at 0800. Please be in your seats and ready to go at 0750. This ceremony is to commemorate all awards not previously handed out from deployment. The uniform for those at the ceremony is summer whites for CPO's and above, summer whites or service uniform for E6 and below.

Taking a break

Right now the Skinny Dragons are in the middle of their post-deployment leave period. When everyone is back, they will begin getting ready for the next deployment. In the meantime, this blog is going to take a little holoholo. Tune in in mid-July for the next update and see how the men and women of VP-4 get ready for a deployment. Aloha a hui hou.

Lucky we live (in) Hawaii

There is a local saying that people who live in Hawaii use to describe their good fortune. No one understands the sentiment better than the Skinny Dragons. Having just returned from a seven-month combat deployment to Iraq, the members of Patrol Squadron FOUR and their families are out and about doing all of the things that they enjoyed before the deployment: hiking, surfing, scuba diving, etc. On a recent day, one family hiked the Olomana peak and took a panoramic shot of our home on the windward side of Oahu. Yes, we are "lucky we live Hawaii."

What people are saying

Several media outlets have picked up stories about the returning Skinny Dragons including a local news channel story (available here) which focused on a unique program used by one of the Skinny Dragons.

Each of these stories helped the returning squadron appreciate just how big of a deal their sacrifice has been to the folks at home.

Skinny Dragons get a surprise in Whidbey Island, Washington

Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington is very close to the Boeing facility which is building the P-8A aircraft, the replacement for the venerable P-3 which VP-4 currently flies. On the day that the Skinny Dragon P-3 passed thru, the second P-8 to be produced did a few approaches at NAS Whidbey. One of those passes was caught on film in these exclusive photos.

P-3 Time Update

The P-3 will arrive at 5:00pm on its final leg of travel to hangar 104.

Updated time for Airlift #3

The arrival time for the final airlift has been moved from 7:00 AM to 7:30 AM on Sunday, June 7th.

P-3 Homecoming

The P-3 bringing one of the last Skinny Dragon crews will be arriving at hanger 104 at 5:30 PM.

Update to remaining flights

The arrival of the final Skinny Dragons will be at hanger 105.  The P-3 is scheduled to arrive at 5:30 PM, Saturday, June 6th, and the third airlift is scheduled to arrive at 7:00 AM, Sunday, June 7th.  

Lift Delays

Unfortunately, all three remaining flights have been delayed as follows:

The Cargo Airlift was supposed to arrive at 9:00 PM, Monday, June 1st is now scheduled to arrive 10:00 AM, Tuesday, June 2nd.

The Third Airlift and the P-3 were supposed to arrive at 5:30 PM, Thursday, June 4th and are now scheduled to arrive 3:10 PM, Saturday, June 6th.

All of these flights are arriving at KANEOHE.

There are different reasons for each of the delays, but the bottom line is that the squadron is working very hard to get your Skinny Dragons back to you. Please stay tuned here or call the VP-4 Duty Office at 257-0612 x7138 or x7087 if you have any questions about the remaining flights.