Day and Night…

The first video is from an S-3 back in the late 90’s doing Carrier Quals (CQs) off San Diego…

The same landing pattern merged to show a day trap and a night trap, flown by the same pilot in good weather!

The next video is not so pretty… It’s 16 minutes extracted from an hour long video on carrier operations in the South Pacific enroute to Australia.

At the end of the video, the comments about not doing it again are made by the Squadron CO, who kicked a lesser trained pilot out of the seat due to safety considerations. This was his last cruise, as he was turning over the squadron shortly after the video was completed.

This is why good pilots wash out of primary if they can’t land on the boat…

Comments

Day and Night… — 9 Comments

  1. That was a great 10 hour series, and it is no wonder those jet jockeys are so cocky. I also had thoughts of the helmsman of the boat. Having done that on a tin can, I know how stead a hand he has to be, too. There is nothing like a Navy crew at work on the open sea.

  2. I learned early on that tin cans in a carrier task force are reminded – often – that carriers WILL NOT change course during flight ops. That’s how said destroyers get smooshed (a technical term). Having said that, it cannot be any fun trying to land on an undulating surface, no matter how steady the heading. Those pilots have always had my respect.

    • Rev. Paul, that is exactly what happen to my ship, USS Frank E Evans DD754 on 3 June 1969. Workin a SEATO op with the HMAS Melbourn, ordered to plane guard, error on bridge between zig zag and base course, turned right instead of left. Saw they were on a collision course, hard right rudder that would have brought her down the port side of the carrier, but carrier did hard left rudder because Capt. pannicked, ramed her amidships, front half went down in 3 min taking 74 shipmates with it (incliding my best friend from when I was on her). So, yes, you are right.

  3. CP- Yep, it IS a team effort!

    Rev- +/-30 foot changes on the flight deck DO make it a bit interesting… And no, once FOX CORPEN is set, it’s not changing until everybody is off, or back aboard. 😀

  4. OMG, Senior told me once about landing on the JFK, thats when he was with the admiral and she was his flag ship for the exercise they were doing. Then he got stuck with bunk under the #4 cable thing.. He still talks about that with much joy.