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

That is amazing!
I found myself holding my breath a few times on that one.

Big props to the guys that fly those things in such conditions.

You could always find a good year of single-malt "mouthwash" or some such concoction. Although, for blended refreshments, you have to make sure you time the blender with the cat stroke during launch or cable getting pulled out on a landing.

Jorge:

What is your take on the Kara Hultgren deal??

One of my coworkers has a son that is an F-18 pilot. He is currently completing his training and will be finished soon I understand. His father is a chemist at my company and his mother is a Commercial pilot. He's been flying since he was very young....

Rocky, I have to confess to an Air Force crime. Hope you weren't the victim.

I was a 2 striper at KI Sawyer in 79. I owned a genuine US Navy Flier's leather coat with the fur collar, unlike the plain collar USAF leather Jacket. One night I was out to dinner with my wife and there was an Air Force 1st Lt at the bar regaling a comely young lass with his flying prowess using the typical double handed gestures to simulate the platform he was flying which at the time was the F106 Delta Dart. Since a lot of Navy pukes landed at KI from time to time, I saw him eyeing my leather quite often.

When I got up to pay the bill, I stopped and looked the young gal in the eye and said: "Ma'am, I'm sure flying the Delta Dart is exciting, but until you've landed an F-4 on the pitching deck of an Air Craft Carrier in the middle of the night, you haven't experienced real excitement."

With that, I nodded to the LT and walked out into the night with my wife. Thankfully, I never ran into that LT while standing the gate in uniform or my demise would have been total.

Dan

Not I, Dan.

Hate to tell you guy, General order 99 is probably one of the most overlooked thing in the Navy, but only by high ranking officers. But, officially, other than beer days, you are correct.

Someone asked what the attrition rate is... the inputs into Primary flight training (T-34's) USED TO allow for about for about 14% I believe. Now, that is AFTER all the aptitude screening tests, physical,physical fitness tests,altitude chamber, swim quals, etc. Then in the jet pipeline when we flew T-2's and TA-4j's, it was about 7% at each of those two levels so as JorjeI said, I wouldn't be surprised if the total attrition rate from application to wings is around 90%. Those were the rates that were planned for with the inputs to ensure we got enough out the end with their wings to give the RAG's (Replacement Air Groups), now called FRS's (Fleet Replacement Squadrons) enough guys to fill the "fleet seats" they need to fill.

Things are a little different now that the "Jet/Strike pipeline" only consists of the T-45 but the object is still to get rid of weak students early because the cost of operating the aircraft at each level rises dramatically and passing them along usually just delays the invevitable and costs a lot of money.

A pitching deck, adds quite a bit to the pucker factor but especially so at night. When you're sitting in your jet during start and you can feel the jet slamming against the tie down chains as the ship rocks and rolls, you know it's not going to be fun getting aboard in 1 plus 30 or 45. The Midway was a little smaller than the current CV's and when we got into huge "rollers" off of Perth or in NorPac, it wasn't unusual (daytime) to roll into the groove and see the screws come out of the water when the bow went down and it looked like you were looking dead level with the landing area. Then a couple of seconds later it seemed like you were looking down from thirty degrees above when it pitched up. After you got aboard you were usually just happy you didn't break the jet. The adrenaline really hits after you're on deck and I'll be the first to admit it's tough trying to taxi around and control the nosewheel steering and/or brakes with legs that are shaking like a leaf on a tree. It could be a 0200 or 0300 recovery after you've been up all day and it would still take two or three hours to calm down enough to go to sleep. It was fun to talk about in the Ready Room...AFTER IT WAS OVER!!!

As a retired "Old Fart", I instruct in the T-45 visual trainers we have here at NAS Meridian which are really pretty good. We give the students several simulator flights before they go to the boat so they can see what the pattern looks like and learn to deal with various emergencies on/around the boat. If they're doing well in the day pattern, I'll turn the lights down and let them see what a night pass looks like. After it's over they usually have one of two reactions. 1-"That's pretty neat Sir" or, 2-"Holy S--t Sir". Now, to show you how intense night passes are, I've got over 200 night traps and it's been over 20 years since my last night pass but it STILL MAKES MY PALMS SWEAT, MY HEART RATE GO UP AND MY STOMACH TIGHTEN just looking over their shoulder! You can never forget that feeling!!!

I was in N-3/5 when that happened and I'm intimately familiar with her, Rosemay Mariner, and a host of others. The Navy first blamed it on the [bleep] F-14A engines but later retracted that and correctly admitted pilot error. Bottom line, the Navy killed her on the altar of political correctness. She had no business flying Tomcats or for that matter ANY carrier based platform. jorge

Jorge

I don't see what was wrong with the women you hate so bad in the military, and her other dude in there watching teh scope and rooting for the pilots.

What am I missing there?

Jeff

I had a buddy that was an IP at Saufley Field when the very first females came through. He said they had an "all instructor meeting" before the women got there and they were told the women would be treated "just like the guys". Well when they showed up they had BLUE flight suits!!! and the Vietnam style flight jackets that were getting hard to find!

If I remember correctly they didn't have to climb over the eight (?) foot wall that washed out a lot of guys on the obstacle course; they got to go around it.

I believe what got Hultgren was she was trying to use a lot of left rudder to avoid overshooting centerline in the groove, thereby blanking the left intake which caused a compressor stall on the left engine. Then, in trying to add power to go around, the assymetric thrust of the right engine caused the a/c to yaw hard and depart to the left. Splash. I think the LSO's had railed on her about doing that in the past but there are a lot of other, earlier parts to the story like how she got through Carquals in the RAG, etc.

Undoubtedly she wasn't the first nor last naval aviator to fail carrier qualification the first time around (see below excerpt from her Wikipedia article), but you can bet there were people at the highest levels of the government who were going to make sure she was going to pass one way or another regardless of whose lives were put in danger. As it turns out, I'm glad her RIO didn't die for her fatal mistake (and the mistakes of those who put her in a position to kill herself and possibly others).

from Wikipedia-----------
While with Fleet Replacement Squadron VF-124, Hultgreen failed her first attempt at carrier qualification. Hultgreen successfully carrier-qualified during a second period aboard USS Constellation (CV-64) in the summer of 1994, becoming the first "combat qualified" female Naval Aviator.[2]
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I need a paper sack I can breathe into.

They weren't rooting, they were critiquing the pass and offering corrections. At least you pegged my views on females..

Spot on and the obstacle course was removed in 2005 allthogether because it was a "safety hazard"..

Wykie is wrong (again) there were others before her, like Capt Rosemary Mariner..

I never understood why the Navy stuck with the unreliable TF-30s in the F14s when the Pratt F100 was available and flying in the F-15 and F-16 only a few years later. But, maybe there is more to retro-fitting an engine than this mere mortal can comprehend.

Anyway, they got it right when the Pentagon decreed engine commonality for the F-14, F-15, and F-16 by going to the G.E. F110. But by then Cheney had already laid plans to kill the F-14D, so very few of them were ever built.

The Navy was STUCK thanks to Jimmy Carter. Hey! another democrap [bleep] up the armed forces!

Rosemary Mariner's wikipedia article doesn't state that she was "combat qualified," whatever that means. Perhaps she was and the article just doesn't mention it. Here's an excerpt:

from wikipedia:------------
Mariner was among the first female military aviators to fly tactical jet aircraft, the A-4E/L Skyhawk, in 1975. In 1976, she converted to the A-7E Corsair II, the first woman to fly a front-line light attack aircraft.

In 1990 Mariner became the first military woman to command an operational aviation squadron and was selected for major aviation shore command. During Operation Desert Storm, she commanded Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron Thirty Four (VAQ-34).[4] Mariner was president of the Women Military Aviators organization from 1991 to 1993.[5]
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Long long ago in the Vietnam era, we kept flying until the tending destroyer could no longer keep up. Flight ops could have kept going, but they needed to have someone behind the ship to pick up pieces. I felt especially sorry for the destroyer crew, as everthing but the tower would disappear when they plunged into the waves. We were close enough to shore though that folks could go to the beach if fuel got low.

We got everyone one down and quit for about 10 hrs until the seas settled. Guys were coming out of the cockpits completely soaked in perspiration, white as a sheet, and shaking like they had just IVed a quadruple shot of meth. We only damaged one plane that night when he caught the cable before the wheels hit the deck. He bounced about 20 ft in the air and dragged the starboard wing tip as the plane slammed down. It took about a day to replace the wing section and he was back up. Once they were parked, we had 24 chains holding each craft on the deck. As one tightens up the chains, the struts get compressed, and it's quite an adventure just breaking the chains loose when it's time to roll again. Most definitely scary at night, and one does not screw up on the low side. Gets the heart up just watching the video.

Every flight deck member more than deserves his pay check, especially the tail hook man. He's got to race out there, duck the engine blasts, wrestle the cable off the hook, and get out of the way before the next one comes in. Hiding on the deck behind a 3 ft high tractor and watching planes go by about 20 yds away is not for the faint of heart. There are no adjectives capable of describing the flight deck. One has to experience it.