Carrier Landings

Crazy indeed!
I don't know why the same auto feature available in commercial aviation isn't used (or maybe it is?).
I have been up front in many B777s landing into category IIIb approaches when the pilots just allow the pc to land in really bad weather.
There must be some form of automation going on, the pitching of the deck while crazy is at least predictable in short algorithms.

I thought by now we would have done away with human pilots at least in the carrier military.

True Story:

In 1994 I deployed aboard USS Kitty Hawk CV-63, The sh*tty Kitty we called her affectionately.

I had spent most my life aboard Cruisers and this was my first deployment aboard a carrier. Still, with my fascination with aviation and especially naval aviation, what I was doing should have had Bill Engvall there handing me a "sign".

I was an EW, an Electronic Warfare Systems operator. One of our areas of responsibility was the SRBOC Chaff launchers for radar decoying of Anti-ship cruise missiles. The Starboard Aft(right rear) sponson (balcony) that housed two of our eight launchers was on the 03 level right below the flight deck.
http://tinyurl.com/59pzda
in this photo you can see a guy standing on the sponson just below the flight deck. behind him is the carrier landing approach radar enclosure, just to the right are the two launchers covered with grey tarps and then two white service ammo lockers for the chaff rounds.

Because the landing deck is at an angle, this put the Chaff sponson right under the ramp, right beside the drop-down alignment lights. If I put my foot on the lower rail of the guardrails, I could stand up and touch the round-down right center line with the landing deck. You could underhand toss a small object into the air and hit a plane as it was landing, that's how close they are passing overhead.

July 11, 1994 I was back here late of an evening and watching landing ops from this deck. Planes usually land about every two minutes this evening, the longer interval due to us being in some fairly heavy seas and the deck was pitching pretty good for a carrier. Most of the planes had landed and only a few stragglers were left to recover. I had an 0345 watch to get up for and it was now 2330 and I had yet to hit my rack.

As I turn to leave the deck I note that there is one plane still on approach.

I stepped around the corner and opened the watertight door that leads back inside the ship. Inside this door is a small space painted flat black with a spring loaded rocker switch that turns off the lights when the door is opened. This is called a light-locker and prevents light from escaping out of the ship after dark. I dogged the watertight door down and had just opened the non-watertight inner door and stepped into the passageway beyond, right across from the Hormel Hawgs (VAW-114) ready room.

WHAM!!!!!!!!
Knocked off my feet...
lights flicker...
Alarms going off...
1MC system squawks to life... "Crash on deck, Crash on deck!"
"General Quarters, General Quarters... all hands man your battle stations..." GONG GONG GONG

Now as to what I learned later in the following days and saw on the PLAT Camera and flight deck camera footage that was shown.

Pilot Lt. Arnold and RIO Lt. Cdr Jennings were one of the last F-14A fighters from VF-51 "Screaming Eagles" to land. The LSO (Landing Signal Officer) saw him go a little low and told him to add a little power. The Pilot did so but then noted that the Meatball was rising too much so he backed off the power even though the LSO was telling him he was now on glide slope. The ship was bucking some heavy seas and we had just dropped into a trough between swells. this made the pilot think he was shooting high on the approach and so he backed off the power. Just before he crossed the ramp the ship caught the next swell and rose back up. Now he was WAAYY too low and the LSO tells him...
"power.. POWER... P O W E R !!!!"

too late..

the plane strikes the ramp, fire-balling and sliding on down the deck. At this point the RIO, Lt Cdr Jennings, managed to command eject both of them. Jennings sprained his ankle when his Chute brought him down on top of a parked S-3 Viking. Being second in the ejection sequence, Lt. Arnold was not so lucky, his chute bringing him down right into the flames and wreckage still burning on the flight deck.
http://navysite.de/cvn/f14crash.mpg

The sponson I was standing on maybe 10-15 seconds earlier.... wiped out.

Watching landing ops from where I was, knowing that a "rampstrike" is one of a carrier landing's greatest dangers... admittedly earns me a great big Bill Engvall's "Here's your sign" award.

I'd rather earn that, than a Darwin Award...






Sir, Put the mouse down slowly and step away from the keyboard!