Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Night Carrier Landings in Rough Seas

My apologies if its been posted before... I"m flatly AMAZED and HUMBLED watching these clips.. first gives a link to the second.. second is well worth watching for sure. I think its a total of 20 minutes but it seemed like it flew by.. no pun intended.

http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/carrier1.html

Jeff

That was impressive!

Just another day at the factory.

Balls of brass.

+1

Awesome video, thanks

Birdwatcher

Seen it before but still something else. +2

It is blocked for me, not allowed to view it up here.

A shame you can't see it in BC. I'm still impressed today.

Great video. Couple guys there are friends. Did that south of Australia, where they have the long period swells, don't want to do it again.

WTF, over? Why is it not allowed?

Does anyone know what the washout rate is for carrier pilot/naval aviator candidates from start to finish? It's got to be way up there for the overall process. Considering what the the basic physical and mental requirements probably are to even be considered for training I've got to believe very few people can do that.

Incredible!

The main reason why I went Air Force. Landing a jet on a fixed runway at night and bad weather is tense enough.

In my second book, I describe what it's like to land a blacked-out plane on a blacked-out runway, on a moonless night, while taking ground fire. Black hole doesn't begin to describe it.

Back in the 60s the navy wanted me to fly. Back them some of the pilots died learning to fly in Pensacola. bunch more died learning how to take off and land on the carriers. I thought about it and decided there was way too much chance to die before they started shooting at me and passed. I was really glad after I saw a bunch of them crash and we never got one back alive. Flying an F4 would have been a rush, but those things were as aerodynamic as a stone at low speed. I never regretted that decision for even a second.

I'd have to do something less nerve wracking, like EOD.

In 63 the Marines offered me flight school, because of my size they said transport or helicopter but I'd have to sign on for 6 years. Being 18 it just didn't sound good so I passed.
Well ya'll know what happened starting about 1964.
One of the few times I was right in some of my choices.

It USED to be around a 90% washout rate, that is from walking in the hatch at the recruiting office to reporting to your first operational squadron and most of that came in the initial reporting, Aviation Officer Candidate School with USMC DI's living in your ass, lots of PT, etc, followed by a very rigorous and equally intimidating process through flight training. Then came the women and a female admiral head the Navy's training operations that had no clue, so she significantly reduced the pressure points going in, and all that did was move the attrition rate to the right, meaning at much higer cost to the taxpayer. My last job in the Navy was Director of the Aviation Training School and that a a low atrition rate ~ 10% or so, then it spiked up in Primary, REALLY spiked up in intermediate, then settled down again until you reported to the FRS (essentially "Type" school).

Loved the video, especially watching those "Hud Cripple" Hornet pukes boltering, then whinning about a 700 mile Blue Water Ops. Piece of cake in the ol' Viking
Oh yeah, and I about threw a shoe at the screen when I heard that non-flying bitch and that other dude "critiquing" the landings. I would have loved to have taken those two up in those conditions and watched as they slowly sucked up the seat cushion in those Marti-Baker (or in my case ESCAPAC) seats! :::SIGH::: now I'm depressed... One more thing, hey Bristoe you worthless puke, the only "affirmative action" there is called the ramp-strike... jorge

I always thought those pilots were just supermen with balls of brass, or just plain fricking nuts. Probably both.


Back on board with a nice single malt scotch and some private time with Ensign Clapp (The red head) would take the edge off. Might want to make a few traps right there.

Not a drop aboard those steel airports, crosshair. ANOTHER reason I went AF! There are times when you do need a stiff one - and I'm not referring to that (probably) appropriately named ensign.

After '64 the army in particular came calling every week looking for people who wanted to fly helicopters. That would have been about the only job possible that was lees appealing than anything else they had to offer from turd inspector on up. Not only "no thank you sir" but also "please don't waste your time asking me again"