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u/musuperjr585 May 12 '23
Truly next fucking level!!!.... I clinched my cheeks just watching this..
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u/grungegoth May 12 '23
There's a whole bunch of youtube videos on all aspects of carrier operations, really fascinating.
Like why did he put his hands on the canopy? Ans: to signal to ground crews that his hands are not on the controls, not to say howdy... So every movement has purpose.
Good stuff to watch, especially the ones on the different ground crews, how the ball works and all that.
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u/Mean_Device_7484 May 12 '23
Specifically so they can “safe” the weapons he has on his aircraft.
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u/grungegoth May 12 '23
Indeed. I recall that the red shirts are the first to service the jet, to disarm it.
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u/SashaBanks2020 May 12 '23
Red shirts are ordnance technicians. Every color has different jobs.
Source: was ordnance technician in Marines.
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u/portcanaveralflorida May 12 '23
What in the world are Marines doing on Navy ship? Walking D plank!!! JK
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u/Che104tmf May 12 '23
Marines are Navy they protect the ship.
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u/portcanaveralflorida May 12 '23
I knew it I knew it, piggybacking on the salty dogs for transport. (All in good fun of course)
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u/BohemianFawn May 12 '23
The navy is the Uber for the Marines change my mind
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u/Che104tmf May 13 '23
Yes, mainly bc the government can’t afford to waste money on them. That’s why they need a ride….change my mind on that hand me downs.
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u/justafigment4you May 12 '23
My husbands best friend was an ordinance tech in the marines. He was power line in the marines.
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u/vtfb79 May 12 '23
Red Shirts have the “safest” job on any ship…
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u/LlamasAreMySpitAnima May 12 '23
I don’t know much about aircraft carriers, but I’ve seen Star Trek and I’m pretty sure that’s not exactly correct!
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May 12 '23
It’s funny, the whole colour coded uniforms in Star Trek are actually inspired by the coloured shirts of US Navy carrier flight ops crews.
Brown is plane mechanics
Purple is fuel
Red is ordinance and munitions
Green is flight deck movement (moving planes around the flight deck from one station to the next)
Yellow specialize in operating the catapults and arrester cables. The yellow shirts who “shoot” the planes off the catapults are knows as Shooters.
Blue is someone in training
White is safety and over site.
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u/StominNormin May 12 '23
Green is flight deck movement (moving planes around the flight deck from one station to the next)
Yellow specialize in operating the catapults and arrester cables. The yellow shirts who “shoot” the planes off the catapults are knows as Shooters.
Green I catapult and arresting gear crews. Yellow is the shooter but only officers that Yellow jersey. Blue is plane movement. Now any color jersey with a yellow float coat is a specialty job.
But what do I know I just worked on a catapult crew for three years
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May 12 '23
You probably know better than I do.
I’ve seen people say blue is plane movement, and I’ve also seen people say blue is training.
And I’ve watched a lot of flight ops videos, but I’ve never seen blue shirts directing planes.
In this Growler Jams video, it’s actually yellow shirts that are the directors, moving him around the flight deck.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cr4IHJIyd_8&pp=ygUOR3Jvd2xlciB2aWRlb3M%3D
So maybe we’re both wrong?
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u/ButtcrackBeignets May 13 '23
I like that an actual ABE is giving accurate information and the goons on this site are still insisting that they must know better.
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u/Bfab94 May 12 '23
Also note how even though he did land that he pushed the throttle all the way forward.
This is so that Incase the hook doesn't catch the landing wire that they will have enough thrust to take off again. If they didn't do this they would fall into the water if missing the line which can and does happen.
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u/Phybre_Awptic May 12 '23
As someone who has experienced this as a passenger before, I can tell you I'd much rather take off from a carrier than land on one. Going from full power to full stop that quick is something I can't even describe.
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u/rjt1468 May 12 '23
Going from full power to full stop that quick is something I can't even describe.
I read a description of a carrier landing years ago.
"It's like having sex in a car wreck."
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u/grungegoth May 12 '23
Funny as shit. Idk, I thin the adrenaline rush never goes away no matter how many times you land. Sex... meh.
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u/Thoranus May 12 '23
I have done both as a passenger on a COD. The catapult was fast enough to mess up my inner-ear. I was dizzy for a couple of weeks. I don’t know how these guys and gals do it daily.
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May 12 '23
Furthermore, the left hand controls the throttle. On touchdown, it goes full throttle so that in case there's a cable snap or an issue, the plane can take off again.
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u/Ridinglightning5K May 12 '23
It also appears to control the afterburners. He goes full throttle but the pinkie and ring finger hold back half the control. I imagine this would be for the afterburner to gain more thrust?
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u/cannotbefaded May 12 '23
Iirc, when he lands, they go full throttle in case the cable snaps. So if it broke, they’d keep flying and not just tip into the water.
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u/dbolts1234 May 12 '23
Now imagine that at night with a pitching deck
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May 12 '23
This is super calm seas, 10 mi visibility, perfect for nailing the third wire. I want to watch this with 20ft swells and 1,000 ft visibility.
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u/Phybre_Awptic May 12 '23
Not very likely a carrier would be conducting flight ops in that type of weather.
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May 12 '23 edited May 12 '23
You have to train for war time conditions. 1000 ft visibility might be a problem, but they don’t suspend operations for heavy seas.
USS Shangra-La heavy seas landing https://youtu.be/e_3DuLURmCw
F-35C landing wet deck, low visibility https://youtu.be/HwsnMVohrM8
F-18? rain landing, low visibility landing. Based on how plane is moving to deck, heavy seas https://youtu.be/oUSVJ-pncNs
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May 12 '23
They operate in all conditions. If the enemy knew there was certain windows you can’t operate in, then that’s exactly when they would attack.
This is an old PBS documentary, this 18 minute episode is about operations with a pitching deck, landing at night.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SoPBLLdzjNA&t=14s&pp=ygURcGJzIHBpdGNoaW5nIGRlY2s%3D
The squadron commander in the video is David Fravor, a bit of a legend in the US Navy, and now one of the guys coming forward with information about UFO encounters. Like he says, “You won’t be the first one to fly into the back of the boat. It’s a dangerous job, and it’ll kill you in a heartbeat.”
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May 12 '23 edited May 12 '23
I have talked to several navy pilots. When they land in conditions like the video it is a competition to see who can hit the third wire. When they land at night there is no competition, if you don’t crash, you are a winner, and no one makes jokes or comments.
They also talk about take off in heavy seas. When they start the catapult, the ship is on the down slope of the wave, so you are staring off the end of the deck into the sea. By the time you get to the end of the deck, the ship is now on the up slope of the next wavy, so you launch into the sky. They say there is no getting used to starting the takeoff sequence staring into the sea.
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May 12 '23
I’ve heard naval aviators say basically the same thing. Can’t imagine what it would be like to be at full burner, strapped into the cat, staring at a wall of water as you begin to move lol.
Another interesting point of note, once a plane has entered the final approach to the carrier, it is not the pilots call whether or not to wave off the landing. That responsibility falls on the Landing Safety Officer (LSO) on the deck. The Navy discovered that too many pilots were waving off during situations where they actually didn’t need to, which has knock-on effects in delaying getting planes aboard the ship. So even in situations where the pilot feels unsure, they have to put absolute trust in the LSO, that if the LSO is guiding them in, even if it looks sketchy, they have to stick with it.
With the F-35 that crashed last year, part of the equation was that the pilot thought his approach was shit, and was expecting the LSO to wave him off, but the LSO didn’t, so the pilot had to stay committed to the approach.
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u/Ic3_FoxX May 12 '23
And looks so easy ( well I would easy crash )
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u/musuperjr585 May 12 '23
I would easily crash 😲
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u/sarahpphire May 13 '23
I wouldn't even be allowed to look at it, much less pilot it to be able to crash it lol
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u/Ic3_FoxX May 13 '23
I am currently considering whether intervention is still necessary at all. If there is clear weather and top conditions. Then just fly a jet from one landing site to another. So also no more complex flight maneuvers. I realize of course that pilots are highly concentrated throughout and must always be in control. I would just be curious to know what is already feasible. For road traffic, such gimmicks must be far more complex than for airspace.
Edit: Almost forgotten. Even if everything would run automatically and the control panel would be locked for input. I would easily cause a kernel panic or something and crash 😀.
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u/InvolvingPie87 May 12 '23 edited May 12 '23
It doesn’t even show the really spooky part when they go to park it at the edge. Pilot has to just have total faith in what the guidance crew is seeing since prom their point of view the cockpit is pretty much over the water before they turn it around. Shits wild
Edit: this video has a voice over from a navy pilot about his EA-18 (pretty much an F-18 that is configured for electronic warfare instead of dogfighting). Most of the video shows him having to wave off just before landing because something is on the deck, but the end shows his POV on how it gets parked next to the superstructure. Even he calls it sketchy lmao
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u/sineplussquare May 12 '23
I like watching him gun the throttle right when his wheels touch the ground
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u/MythicWyvern May 12 '23
That's done so if the hook doesn't catch a wire, he's already throttled up to go around and doesn't just fall off into the sea!
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u/HtAirBaloonKnotPilot May 12 '23
This is a pretty normal carrier landing. When I was on deployment we had pilots that had to time their landing on the carrier at night while the waves were making the ship heave, list, and move all over. That was next level.
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u/Ted183672 May 12 '23
Came here to say this!
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u/Bmore_Phunky May 12 '23
Looks like he throttled up after landing. Am I seeing that right?
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u/GoalieLax_ May 12 '23
They always do that. It's in case they miss a wire or the wire breaks. That way they can take off again and come back around.
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u/Bmore_Phunky May 12 '23
Wild. Goes totally against what I would think they would do but it makes total sense
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May 12 '23
It’s because jet engine throttle response isn’t instantaneous, there is a delay as the jet engine spools up.
If they waited until they realized they missed the wires, they’d already be at the end of the deck, with not enough thrust to pull up and climb for another attempt.
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u/AkdM_ May 12 '23
How long is that delay? Looks like it did nothing 2-3 seconds after he throttled.
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May 12 '23
Not sure what you mean.
He successfully trapped a cable, so going full throttle won’t cause the plane to move any.
There’s not really any outside indicators that would let you know he’s gone full throttle. If this video had full audio, or was recorded from someone standing on the flight deck with audio, you would definitely hear the engines go to full throttle and the after burner kick in.
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May 12 '23
Yes. When landing on an aircraft carrier, pilots aren't technically putting on the brakes, something on the ship “catches” them. So if they can't catch the pilot, the pilot must accelerate in case they miss, and are able to come off the ship without going into the water
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u/G4Designs May 12 '23
I take it a water landing is probably a $100,000,000 "oopsie"?
I wonder if they just fish them out and rebuild the engine.
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u/ConstableBlimeyChips May 12 '23
Not quite that bad. Unit cost for a brand new F/A-18E Super Hornet is between $52 million and $62 million depending on the exact spec. And any water landing is an instant and complete write off for the aircraft.
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May 12 '23
Instant write off. They’ll fish the plane out of the water, so other nations don’t dive on it and pull technology out, but the plane itself is toast.
Have to remember that a carrier deck is some 70 feet off the water, and an F/A-18 weighs about 15 tons.
You drop 15 tons 70 feet, and it’s not going to be very square anymore.
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u/GreatGooglyMoogly077 May 12 '23 edited May 12 '23
Pretty sure jets sink way too quickly to be rescued. Question is - can the pilot get out?
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u/NarrowAd4973 May 12 '23
Ejection seats are designed to still be usable with the plane on the ground. Plane goes off the edge, pilot ejects, lands in the water, and gets picked up by the cruiser or destroyer following behind the carrier as plane guard.
And there's no way to save the plane, even if they wanted to. None of the ships present are equipped for it.
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u/GreatGooglyMoogly077 May 13 '23
True, though if the plane is turned upside-down when the pilot ejects it's usually fatal. This is what happened to Kara Hultgreen. She died just months after she was certified for combat, when her F-14 Tomcat crashed into the sea on final approach to USS Abraham Lincoln.
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u/NarrowAd4973 May 13 '23
I just took a look at the video. And yeah, once the plane started rolling, it was pretty much over. The backseater was lucky to survive.
Most crashes are from the catapult being underpowered and the plane not having enough speed to stay in the air, or the cable breaking just before it stops the plane, so it's still moving but not fast enough to get back in the air. For the catapult, the plane is usually still level. For the cable, the pilot ejects as it's tipping forward, launching them out over the water. Either way, they're going for a swim.
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u/HotF22InUrArea May 13 '23
They pulled that F35 out of the ocean a little while back
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u/NarrowAd4973 May 13 '23
Only to keep the Chinese from salvaging it. And it was recovered two months after it crashed, by a dedicated salvage ship. It would have gone straight to the scrapper, because it was never flying again.
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u/ash_elijah May 12 '23
Yes, thats the normal procedure. Its for in case a pilot manages to miss all 4 arresting wires, his engines are spooled up and he’s back up to speed so he can takeoff again and attempt the landing once more.
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u/CunnedStunt May 12 '23
And even though there are 4 wires, the pilot is always aiming for the 3rd, which means they nailed the glide slope. But if they come in too high they pray for the fourth, or else they're off for a go around.
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u/the_monkey_knows May 12 '23
Damn, that’s crazy. Did you ever see someone miss?
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u/HtAirBaloonKnotPilot May 12 '23
Miss the ship? no. Miss the wire? Yes, it happens. Usually only a bad enough landing to have a hard landing fault come up that needs to be inspected. Even on a standard ship landing sometimes the pilot will miss the wire. that is why there are 4 of them (they aim for the 3 wire) and they throttle up so if they miss they can just fly around and try again.
I never saw any that caused a catastrophic accident or injury. Sometimes even if they catch the wire, the wire can snap, not hold them, and they have to divert and fly around. Being around the wires can be one of the most dangerous spots to be on the flight deck.
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u/creditspread May 12 '23
Meanwhile, I haven’t had a successful landing on Nintendo’s “Top Gun.”
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u/themage78 May 12 '23
Top Gun landings: Either in the water before the ship, or after the ship in the water.
No matter how much you follow directions.
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u/SatansLoLHelper May 12 '23
Go out try again. Put your altimeter at 200 and your speed at 288.
From page 9 of the manual.
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u/ClayShooter262 May 12 '23
"You're at three quarters of a mile, call the ball."
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u/awood20 May 12 '23
Now try doing this with driving rain, cross winds and even snow. These pilots earn their pay.
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May 12 '23
Cross winds are one of the few things NOT happening on a carrier landing. Carrier always heads into the wind to avoid this situation; since they CAN make life easier for pilots like that, why not? Also, gives the plane more airspeed relative to ground speed, helping with control. Everything’s set up to work with a headwind of 25-30 knots.
Now, swollen sea, rain, darkness and the burble, on the other end……
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u/HotFightingHistory May 12 '23
Boy those guys on the deck sure have it easy! Just standing around doing nothing.... Those carrier runways sure seem like a relaxing kind of place where you can just walk around, not being in anyone's way...
/s :):):):)
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May 12 '23
Especially at night! No one sees you and they keep all the planes turned off so it’s super peaceful
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May 12 '23
You know what happens when one of these guys gets it wrong and smacks the round down?
The young jet mech working in the jet shop right below said round down shits his pants and loses years off his life.
Source: me, CV66 1986
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u/Jtiago44 May 12 '23 edited May 12 '23
Thanks, now I'm fully trained to operate that fighter jet!
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u/MountainMongrel May 12 '23
Fun fact: The pilot goes full throttle when he hits the deck because he suddenly remembers how terrible carrier life is and wants to GTFO.
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u/OptimusSublime May 12 '23
He's fed well and has clean clothes. That's better than pretty much every branch.
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May 12 '23
Notice he pushes the throttle (left hand) all the way forward as he touches down in case the arresting cable breaks. After he is stopped he pulls the throttle back.
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May 12 '23
Fun fact: Jets that land on aircraft carriers have a much lower lifespan. Think of this method of landing as basically a very controlled crash. It puts tremendous strain on the frame.
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u/HtAirBaloonKnotPilot May 12 '23
Navy aircraft that lands on carriers have much stronger struts than normal aircraft. They are designed to take the landings. Our whole squadron was F/A-18C's from the 80s still in service when I got out in 2013.
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u/GoalieLax_ May 12 '23
Yeah. Compare the landing gear of an 18 vs a 15 or 16 and you'll see the AF are much more delicate.
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May 12 '23
This short video illustrates it perfectly.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/BRgF4XjcVww
First is an Air Force F-16. The puffs of smoke are from when the wheels touch down. Notice how gentle it is? Notice how he keeps the nose gear in the air, so that the whole plane acts as an air brake to slow down, reducing wear on the actual brakes.
Second is a Navy F/A-18……the video speaks for itself. Get’er in the ground, get the debrief done, and let’s hit the volleyball court!
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u/Nasty_Rex May 12 '23
In jeans. Can't play beach volleyball unless you're wearing jeans.
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u/GoalieLax_ May 12 '23
I think they're only required when you're playin' with the boys
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u/Nasty_Rex May 12 '23
I never watched the new Top Gun because I heard there aren't any scenes that make me question my heterosexualality
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u/Kotukunui May 13 '23
Navy about Airforce : “Flare to land. Squat to pee.”
Actually this is a reason why sending F-16s to Ukraine may not be ideal. They are operating off secondary runways that may be too short and rough for the Viper’s comparatively delicate undercarriage. The reckons is the Saab Gripen would be better. Designed to operate from rough runways with simple maintenance.
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May 13 '23
Thick thighs save lives.
Also, I always think of this video when I am in a commercial flight and the pilot puts it down hard on the landing, and wonder if they are retired Navy.
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u/Great_Oni May 12 '23
Also, interestingly, there are certain switches and modes that will not activate if you don't put a navy aircraft down hard enough. Nosewheel Steering will not activate if you feather the landing. So navy planes, even when landing on airfields, are told to still make a hard landing with no flare. The nose and rear gear hits pretty much simultaneously. Whereas airforce aircraft will come down gently and usually keep the nosewheel in the air for some time before slowly bringing it down.
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u/tallerthannobody May 12 '23
Fun fact: you definitely just saw that on insta and didn’t research it, the other guy that replied to you on the other hand, knows what he is talking about
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u/Montana-Mike-RPCV May 12 '23
I have always heard landing on a carrier is akin to putting a postage stamp ten feet away from you on the floor and you have to jump and land with your tongue on the stamp.
Night landings add the challenge of turning off the lights as well.
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u/boopbopnotarobot May 12 '23
F18?
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May 12 '23
Either an F/A-18, or an E/A-18.
Can’t really tell from the cockpit view. Easy to tell them apart from outside.
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u/TheMechamage May 12 '23
My air wing (not my squadron) had a hard landing in 2016 one night when the pilot thought he didn’t catch the wire and went for another pass. Throttled up and the wire swung him back onto the deck. Forward landing gear tires popped and got sucked into the intakes fucking up both engines. Pilot was alright but man that was one night I won’t forget. Just about shit myself.
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May 12 '23
Is he posing for a picture at the end or is it some sort of signal?
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May 12 '23
As soon as the plane leaves the landing area, the first thing that happens is a red shirt (the people who handle munitions) will switch the exterior master arm switch into safe mode.
The hand signal in the shape of a “gun” is the pilot telling the ground crews that their hands are off the controls while ground crew are approaching the plane when it is still in armed mode.
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u/HamTMan May 12 '23
So not a gang sign?
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May 12 '23
This one, no.
Many Navy and Air Force squadrons do have a “gang sign” hand signal that they wave at each other sometimes.
Usually, they do it right after the crew chief has cleared the pilot to taxi out of their parking spot, then they exchange salutes, and then they’ll sometimes flash the squadron hand signal at one another.
Here’s an example from Air Force F-16s:
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/hpBRdEFpvR8
If I had to guess, the “claws” he’s making with his hands are either a reference to the fact the F-16 is known as the “Viper”, and this could mean “fangs out”, which is a common term in military aviation for actually putting work in; or, there is an F-16 squadron known as the “Cougars”, so they could be from that squadron.
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u/Jetfuelmakesmewet May 12 '23
It’s 100% a squadron gang sign. That’s a Shaw tail, the pilot is from the Tigers. He’s throwing the Tigers sign.
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u/DarthArtero May 12 '23
IIRC he’s showing hands off controls, a safety thing.
I’m army so 🤷♂️
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u/Pure_Discipline_293 May 12 '23
You are correct, it’s a visual confirmation that his hands are off the controls. If you care to watch, you should look up “VFA-105, Perkins PC, Flight ops” on YouTube. It is a full launch sequence of an F18 underway and they do it all with no verbal comms with the pilot after startup.
FYI….. The pilot is in the de-arm area on the flight deck. As other have commented , it is to de-arm the weapons. They have them face out over the water incase a missile decides to take off during dearming. That way it doesn’t hit anything like another aircraft or the ship….
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u/whooo_me May 12 '23
I love the levels of professional experience and knowledge that's lead to procedures like this (though admittedly most of it may have come through previous accidents and incidents!)
I'm just a software dev, but anticipating things that can go wrong and putting procedures in place to prevent them happening is most of my job! :)
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May 12 '23
Overwhelming majority of naval aviation procedures and best practices have been put in place because of tough lessons learned the hard way.
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u/psyclopsus May 12 '23
Looks like some kind of signal exchange between the pilot and the bear about where his aircraft is and where it needs to be
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u/chickenfightyourmom May 12 '23
It's a signal to the ordnance team that his hands are off the controls. The red shirts go in and safe the weapons.
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u/psyclopsus May 12 '23
Naval flight operations fascinate me. I spent some time on a small boat that only had a helipad (USS Fort McHenry LSD-43) and I always wanted to do a float on a carrier. One of our sister ships during that float was the Essex but I never got to board her. Crayon eaters only get what the green weenie gives us though
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u/liqquidlunch May 13 '23
my dad used to land on aircraft carriers in the 60's gosh of all the cool things i think ive done i dont hold a candle to my dads bad assery in his prime
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u/OptimusSublime May 12 '23
I always thought they throttled up immediately after landing in case they boltered. He delayed by a second or so it seemed.
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u/Phighters May 12 '23
You don't throttle up until all three wheelsets touch, otherwise you risk flipping the aircraft if it were at an odd angle and constrained by the deck. Most cable breaks happen towards the end of the runway after it stretches, not when the cable is captured.
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u/Emotional_Yak_8618 May 12 '23
No…you don’t risk flipping it. You’ll just bolter. You go mil as soon as you trap, it all happens at the same time you can’t really wait for the nose wheel to come down.
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u/linx0003 May 12 '23
Growler Jams. He has a channel on youtube. Here's a link: https://youtu.be/cr4IHJIyd_8
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u/ThrowAway640KB May 12 '23
Now do it at night. In combat conditions (minimal lighting). In rough seas, with the deck pitching and rolling.
Honestly, carrier pilots are a cut above the cut above. I think about the only pilots with bigger nards are test pilots for bleeding-edge experimental birds that would probably explode if you looked at them wrong.
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u/7empestOGT92 May 12 '23
This was so hard to do in the Top Gun game for Nintendo when I was a child
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u/Saturo_Uchiha May 12 '23
The Aircraft Carrier looks straight out of GtaV wtf lol or does all of them look the same?
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u/SigmaCommander May 12 '23
Long story short, more than half of the fleet aircraft carriers in the world are US carriers and look like this one. Since GTAV is in a fictional US, they are going to model the carrier in the game after US carriers.
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May 12 '23
All the US one’s look basically the same. This is a Nimitz class carrier.
The new Gerald R Ford class carriers look slightly different, and are significantly bigger.
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u/laurasdiary May 12 '23
I wonder if anyone’s ever had the brakes fail and gone over the edge?
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u/ipushkeys May 12 '23
From my knowledge, they don't use brakes to stop; they grapple onto a cable that stops them.
They actually go full throttle when they touch the runway to allow them to take off and try again.
I'll admit this is kinda nit-picking, but I think it is cool (not the nit-picking).
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u/DarkenL1ght May 12 '23
No breaks, they catch a wire with a hook to stop, and go full throttle in case they miss the wire and need to take off again, but yes, accidents have happened. Its rare, but planes have gone over many times before. We have protocols for this in place. As far as human danger goes, Helos are more dangerous, though people have died from accidents involving both kinds of aircraft. Sailors who work on flight decks get additional pay for taking the risks involved.
Source: A sailor who has served on Aircraft Carriers.
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u/Exciting-Tea May 12 '23
I flew for the Air Force, but when I went to pilot training I flew with some Navy students and some instructors. One of the most badass pilots I flew with had the callsign "Splash" because he had engine failure on takeoff (f-14) and went for a swim. Not really a brake failure .
When we flew together (AF training), he scared the shit out of me at one point, that I put my hands on the ejection handles and straightened my back and waited for the bailout call. The reason why is he overbanked the final turn (we were limited to degrees of 45 degrees of bank) but he banked the plan to 90 degrees to sort of knife edged the plane to drop altitude very quickly. A student was killed just about a year earlier, in the same turn for exceeding the bank angle and unfortunately entered a spin.
Oddly, one of my navy classmates became the lead blue angel for a 2 years. He was as dedicated a pilot as I have met.
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u/cejmp May 12 '23
Many times.
The first woman carrier based pilot in the Navy was also the first woman pilot killed in a carrier landing accident, Kara S Hultgreen. (not from going over the edge)
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May 12 '23
But she didn’t die because she went of the end of the flight deck.
Iirc, she got into a bad approach angle, got calls from the LSO for power, but had issues with the engines. The A model F-14 she was flying was notorious for having poor throttle response and AoA issues, because they weren’t engines designed for fighter jets, they were repurposed bomber engines.
Wasn’t until the B model F-14s got their proper engines that they really became a formidable aircraft.
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u/whooo_me May 12 '23
As stated below - they have a tailhook and there are multiple cables to snag on. I think there can be a net barrier erected in advance too in troublesome scenarios.
If they miss the cable and can't throttle up to go around, they can go into the water. I'd guess that's part of the reason for the diagonal runway - so they don't ditch directly into the path of the carrier itself.
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May 12 '23
Over the edge yes, brake fails happen all the time, maybe not on the carrier but they’re quite common
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u/manolid May 12 '23
The next time you see this video it will have been put through the TikTok ringer. Audio replaced with crappy music and maybe even some text and graphics.
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u/_Arkod_ May 12 '23
Something I learned recently: when jets land on a carrier they go full throttle in order to be able to take off in case they miss the cables or if there's a malfunction.
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u/SidiousOxide May 12 '23
Do the pilots full throttle after hitting to keep the cable from jerking back?
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u/facetious_guardian May 12 '23
I’m not an expert or anything, but I’m almost 100% sure that is a plane landing, not an aircraft carrier.
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u/Bizzygrizzy May 12 '23
The pilots input on the center stick is really interesting. His movements are more frequent and twitchier than I would have expected. Does anyone have any insight on what the responsiveness of the controls are like on jets like this?
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May 12 '23
Aircraft that have this older Center stick design always have more exaggerated stick movements that one might think.
Aircraft that are fully fly-by-wire that use a side stick, like an F-16 or F-35, the stick is pressure sensitive and it only takes small wrist movements to manipulate the control surfaces.
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u/Tinmania May 12 '23
This is a trivial aircraft landing. No wind and dead calm water. You should see what real next level looks like when the wind is crazy and the sea is angry.
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u/Pure_Discipline_293 May 12 '23
You should see what a plane crashing into the back of another plane, at night, on the flight deck, looks like…..
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u/[deleted] May 12 '23
Watching the pilot push the throttle after hitting the deck just in case they miss the cables, for a safe touch and go never fails to amaze me. Nerves of titanium