But the inside story of how an EA-18G Growler jet crew drew a penis across the clear blue skies of Washington state in 2017 has never been told. Until now.
It was the work of two junior officers with the “Zappers” of Electronic Attack Squadron 130, who had sky time to kill and noticed that the white contrails their jet produced were particularly robust that afternoon. But they never counted on those contrails lingering long enough for folks on the ground to see their phallic rendering.
A mother who lives in Okanogan, WA who took pictures of the drawings reached out to the local television station to complain about the images, saying she was upset she might have to explain to her young children what the drawings were.
Nervous squadron commanders sent an alert to their chain of command, which eventually reached the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. “Aircrew maneuvered an EA-18G aircraft in a pattern that resulted in contrails depicting an obscene symbol when viewed from the ground,” it warned. “Media attention is expected.”
The squadron’s commanding officer would later praise the imaginative pilot as a shy introvert and “a ‘whiz kid’ who managed the squadron's training and readiness with higher efficiency and effectiveness than anyone else he had ever seen in a squadron.” His cockpit partner that day, an electronic warfare officer, or EWO, was “my best junior officer,” the CO noted.
What discipline the Zapper 21 duo faced remains unknown. Citing privacy regulations, officials declined to provide such records, and all names are redacted in the report released to the public.
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