Carrier Landings, difference between Day & Night

All chopped up to prevent the Iranians from getting any spare parts.

 

Unfortunately I witnessed some of that when I visited the boneyard while stationed at Ft Huachuca. Sad thing to see.

 

An extremely stupid reason to chop up any aircraft. They're on a military base - just make sure that security is what it should be anyway.

As for the C-130 on a carrier, the main problem was the limited clearance between the wingtip and the island. Since the Nimitz class carrier islands are further aft than on the Forrestal, that clearance now would probably be even less.

 

What most people don't know is that carriers are photo reactive. They shrink at night. That is why people fall over board at night.

Landing at night can be tough but at Keaton you can usually see the lights on the way in, unless it is a 200' overcast layer and you break out with less than 20 sec to go. Real fun is a cat shot on a no moon overcast night. No horizon and suddenly, you are 60' over the water and your spatial orientation is all screwed up from the g forces of the cat shot. Fun, fun, fun.

I was an NFO (Naval Flight Officer) in A-6E Intruders and EA-6B Prowlers. Total of 485 traps.

 

Correct.......

I was never really comfortable in an aircraft all throughout my time in the training command. They did that by design. Every time you figured out a portion of what you were learning, they moved you on. Every hour in training was highly productive. I studied from wake up to bedtime.

I was told "no", "you suck" and "your not doing this right" about every day. That was a highly motivating way to learn Looking back on it, I'm so glad they did. They knew what I was about to do.....I didn't have a clue. None of us wanted to be seen that "we couldn't cut it".

Steve is right....I really didn't like night cats with no moon. They left me 45' above a black ocean, 15 knots excess, zero horizon, with really no control of how I got there....kinda along for the ride. At least on a trap, I could control something.....is that OCD?

Dogdish

 

It was much worse in the old days.



Underpowered cats and jets that took forever to spool up and make power. It was not unusual to lose aviators on each and every cruise.


The boat ? Toss a 6 inch ruler in the middle of the room and imagine entering the landing pattern. (I am just passing on what I have heard and read from books) !

 

You bring back my days of instruction when I couldn't do anything right in any and every lesson. Nothing that I did was right on or smooth enough . I was a clumsy three-footed oaf and I would never make it. Lesson after lesson was fraught with mistakes and imperfection and yet we stumbled on from one session to the next. Nothing was seemed to be good and what I wanted it to be. On the last accuracy landing after a hour and a half check ride there was a black squall at the far end of the runway and heavy rain was coming. Just as I started to arrest the final approach and flare, the bottom fell out and it was all foot pumping and a hope to walk it down. We hit on the left main and tail wheel and I swerved into the rough. As the heavy rain hit, I could hardly hear the examiner chewing me out for my excursion into the grass. I was happy that we got down in an upright position and I was getting reprimanded for a bit of a deviation, typical of everything else that had preceded in my training. The examiner condescended to pass me but a week later my instructor told me that he had ben complimented on one of his trainee's doing a good job in handling an airplane in squall conditions. Nothing was said to me, I never received a compliment from anyone during my training, only stern criticism and I'm glad that I was constantly pushed. I think that carrier operation is the epitome of flying and I wish that I could have tried it. My instructors were ex-Navy aviators.

 

Ha. I had a flight instructor just like this. He would jump all over you if you did anything wrong. I had to turn the landing light on and off while taxing into the ramp. When he was quiet you were doing well.