that's great! i laughed for a full minute on that one and had to share with some co-workers to get the lead out after a beautiful weekend here in the southeast.

The thing is... whether contrived, thought-out or spontaneous...

This stuff really happens. Some does get a bit "edited" after the fact, though.

My best examples can't be told in mixed company, or around minors (that's young'ns, not the people who dig stuff up).

Recon birds---Fly fast. Take pictures.

Also heard a Navy pilot say at an USAF field the old adage: Runway's long enough, but why is it so wide?

THAT IS AWESOME!

All . . .

I doubt if the man suffered from constipation. More likely the other way around.

When one approaches the aft end of a carrier for purposes of landing his/her tactical jet, there's a lenses on the left side of the deck on the stern which all naval aviators care avidly about, and look at with utmost attention to detail. This moving light on a vertical pole is a fresnel lens; naval aviators--e.g., Navy and Marine tactical pilots--refer to it as the "meatball." The litany that future carrier aviators are taught from the moment they fly their first training missions in a tactical jet is "Meatball, Lineup, Angle of attack." The meatball, a ball of light on a vertical post, changes color according to whether you are high, low, or right on glidepath. A perfect meatball--e.g., you are right on glidepath--glows bright orange. It produces a wonderful feeling in the gut and heart of every carrier aviator. If you're too high or are going too high, the meatball changes from orange to white and you'll either "wave off" the approach or do a "bolter." If you're too low or are going too low, the meatball changes from orange to various shades of red. Bright red means you're really low and are about to crash into the stern of the ship and make a big mess. Problems with one's bowels can occur prior to and during such moments.

"Lineup" means whether you are right or left of centerline. Your margin of error is only a few feet (particularly with large planes like the F-14D or the A3D). If you drift right, your starboard wing will hit a parked airplane and set the stern of the ship on fire. See Problems With Bowels Dept. If you drift left, you may merely tumble off the port side of the ship, get sucked under, and chewed to pieces by any of the carrier's 4 giant propellors. Id.

"Angle of attack" refers to the angle of the aircraft through the air mass, and more particularly as your jet descends toward the ship. If your angle of attack is too low, your hook will very likely bounce off the deck and you'll get a "hook skip" and you'll have to "bolter" and try again. If your angle of attack is really low, you'll smack onto the deck in a flat position and likely cause damage to your landing gear. You'll certainly miss all 4 "wires."

When you hit the deck, your first rule is to always jam the throttles to max power so you can fly off the ship if your hook skips a wire. If you fail to ram your throttles to full power, or fail to obtain full power, you will either dribble off the bow of the ship into the sea, or will wobble off the bow of the ship, stall a few moments later, then drop into the drink. See Problems With Bowels Depart. Every naval aviator seeks an "Okay 3 Wire," which is a carrier landing without any errors. Every landing on the ship is always graded--without mercy. By the way, if your angle of attack is too high, and you are low, say, 1000' above the water or less, you'll likely stall the airplane and may crash and burn on the ship, or simply fall into the sea. Successful ejections from an out-of-control airplane at low altitude are frequently not. Id.

There is no greater, faster, more exciting ride than a Catapult shot (a "Catshot") off the ship, and no greater, more wonderful feeling when you've hit the deck than an "Okay 3 Wire". Being able to think about either event in the moments after it happens means you're still alive.

TWD

To T.W. Davidson: My thanks as well. Also, a correction: It should be Naval aviators, not Navy aviators.

In 1971, I and a bunch of publishing types got a tour of the Naval Air Station at Pensacola. The admiral commanding had gone through there in early 1942, graduating just in time to join the fleet for the Battle of Midway. He said that the Navy was so desperate for pilots at the time, that a classmate of his, who crashed five planes in a day, was graduated and sent overseas when he landed his sixth.

As a confirmed "Blackshoe", the term most used by the rest of the Navy to describe Nasal Radiators is "Airedale". Those boys who land helo's on the pitching deck of a destroyer or frigate in the middle of the night have a large pair, as well. I made one carrier landing on USS Enterprise CVN-65 on a C-2 COD. Once was enough, never again.

U.S. Naval Aviation IS the pointy end of the spear. The first to arrive within striking range of some distant $h1thole in real need of a good air strike!

That was some funny s**t!
Ahhh, to reminisce, 'bout the good 'ol days ...thanks for explaining that TWD!

After a rough day I really needed that. Reminds me of some stories my granddad has about flying over Austria and Germany during WWII. He was the bomber on a B-17 and had close calls on several occasions. One of the oddest is the the cocky ball-turret gunner that forgot to put his oxygen mask back on after making a trip the "restroom." Needless to say, he didn't make it back to the states alive.

I've heard carrier landing referred to as something between sex and a car crash, sound pretty accurate I guess.

I wonder what the Air Boss said to him after he said that?

If naval aviators think they are a special breed, set apart from other flyers, it is only true. To fly a real hairy combat mission and then have the focus to land on a pitching carrier deck takes a special person. I fly a 1946 Luscombe taildragger and on a gusty day, it takes all of my small skill to get it on the ground safely.
Mark-1's earlier comment refers to the carrier pilot feeling comfortable landing crosswise on the runway, but wondering what the other 1 1/2 miles of asphalt is for.

All . . .

A few minor clarifications and further details . . .

About the Fresnel Lens, aka the "Meatball": the lens moves up and down on its vertical post in direct correlation to the pilot's glidepath. A perfectly centered bright orange meatball means the jet is right on glideslope. This is where a pilot feels warm and wonderful and happy, but it takes constant work and total focus to keep the ball centered, particularly if sea/wind conditions are less than optimal or the plane or pilot has a problem.

If the ball rises and turns lighter in color, you're going above glideslope. The Air Boss may become annoyed with you and tell you to Wave Off, but you're safe as long as your angle of attack is okay and you've got power on the plane and some fuel onboard.

If the ball descends and turns shades of red, you're falling below glideslope. In the language of naval aviators, "Red Means Dead" has nothing to do with communism. But it has everything to do with being too far below glideslope and crashing into the stern of the ship.

Long before you visually acquire the meatball your landing gear is down and locked, your hook is down, your harness is locked (so you don't smack face-first into the instrument panel when your hook catches a wire), and you've obtained the optimal angle of attack ("on speed" is the correct term) to bring the airplane onboard. Once you acquire the ball, you make a call to the Boss and make a simple, brief report. Though for me its been about 20 years, the call goes something like this: "Ryno 31, meatball, on speed with the gear, hook down, harness locked, 3000 lbs." You've just told the ship that you see the ball, that you're at the correct angle of attack (without which you won't get onboard) that your gear and hook are down, and what your remaining fuel state is, which instantly translates to the Boss and his staff how much time in the air you've got before you flame out or whether tankers need to be sent aloft.

While all this is happening, and while you're making constant tiny corrections to your power, your rudder and your ailerons--you almost never make any significant elevator corrections from here on in, although you will may make very, very tiny corrections of nose (elevator) trim to stay "on speed"; power controls glideslope--a person on the aft port side of the ship may become your personal God in terms of getting your plane safely onboard. This person is the "LSO," or Landing Signal Officer.

Carrier aviators agree that a reasonable and experienced LSO is worth more than his weight in any precious metal. An LSO particularly becomes vital when there is something wrong with the airplane, or with you, or when ship/weather conditions are crappy, or when any combination of these factors has turned your world to sh*t. A good LSO can detect a pending problem or trend with an airplane usually before its inexperienced pilot can, and all without any fancy instruments or measuring devices or high-tech gear, which is pretty amazing when you really stop and think about it. A good LSO (who is always a good pilot first) uses his training, his experience, his intuition, his empathy and his calibrated eyeballs to "see" problems with a plane and its pilot and fix or adjust them before things get out of hand.

Sometimes an LSO will say nothing more than a single soft word, almost a whisper: "Power." This means the pilot should advance one of his throttles by a millimeter, maybe two, to keep the aircraft from sinking below glidepath. Or the LSO might say, "Drifting left," which means the pilot has got to put a little rudder and maybe a little aileron the other way to stay on proper lineup or get back on proper lineup. But if, for example, the LSO shouts over the radio "POWER!!!", this means the pilot and his plane are in very deep sh*t and the pilot has instantly got to go to full afterburner, level his wings, forget all about the approach, and simply try to save his airplane.

A good LSO can sooth a frazzled pilot with a f*cked-up airplane, calm him down, and talk him onboard. I know this personally.

Great LSOs have more booze, money, and Really Friendly Women (as payback for their skills in keeping pilots alive) at their beck and call than anyone else on the ship.

A catshot is incredibly, incredibly violent. Sometimes instruments pop out of the panel during a catshot right into/onto the pilot's chest or lap.

There's a "Cat Grip" just in front of the throttle(s). This is a steel bar that is welded or bolted to the inside of the cockpit that you pull down, rotate into position, and hang onto for dear life with your fingers during a catshot while the throttles (at max thrust) rest in the palm of your hand. If you don't grab and hang onto the cat-grip before the catshot, the force of the shot, the massive instantaneous G-forces from the shot, will cause you to involuntarily yank your throttles to idle right as you're getting shot off the ship. This is fatal unless you are quickwitted enough to eject in time, and unless you are in a proper "ejection envelope" when you pull the handle.

Before you launch, you trim your elevators slightly nose up (so the plane will fly itself if you pass out during the shot), center your aileron trim (so your wings will stay level if you pass out during the shot), drop your flaps, run your engines to full throttle and grab the cat-grip and hold on tight, then check your panel for any problems. If everything looks good, you then salute the Cat Officer, which means you've just told the ship that you are good to go for launch. You then quickly position the stick so it just rests against the crook between your right thumb and index fingers while your elbow braces against your gut.

The Cat Officer looks over your airplane, salutes you back, then drops his hand to the deck and you're gone. In about a second and a half you'll accelerate from zero to 120kts or more, depending on your type of jet.

Like I said, a catshot is incredibly, incredibly violent. There's just nothing else like it. I grayed out on my very first catshot--from the U.S.S. Coral Sea, about a quarter of a century ago. Along the way, I'm man enough to admit that I may have incurred, maybe, just a little brown leakage during the shot. Things came back to focus for me in the air with the Boss very calmly, very gently telling me over the horn, "312, time to get your gear up now."

The Boss and everyone else all knew, of course. It happens to a lot of people on their first shot.

TWD

T.W.
What was your ride. We had A6's (all types) A7's, F4's RA5's and KA3's. The Phantoms and Corsairs seemed to be routine. The A6 was almost boring, except the payload was unbelievable, taking off. The designer of that plane should be in prison for forgetting the machine gun. The Vigilantes (RA5's) and Whales (KA3's) were an accident waiting to happen. We lost an RA5 when the tailhook snapped on landing. That plane just rolled right off the flight deck. Both the crewmembers were lost. We also had a big problem with foreign objects in the jet intakes (FOD), where planes would be launched by the cat, but the engines would die because of this FOD. Those planes would plop into the ocean. I still think of those men that we lost, what they would be doing today, and of course,their families.

T.W.,

Wow that is quite a read. Always thought it must be rough on takeoff. You confirmed my thoughts.
On Jan 13,1972 I was an infantry squad leader in the 1 Bn 501st Inf., 101st Abn Div. (Screaming Eagles) My platoon was on patrol in the rocket belt outside Phu Bai. One day in very mountainous jungle I was the lucky guy. Just as I walked by a hidden land mine another soldier tripped it off. A tree shielded my body and the blast only got my left leg. Four others did not do as well. Being injured the least I was last one to get picked up by medivac bird. The chopper lowered a jungle penetrator to the ground they hooked me on and the crew chief started winching me up. About 20 feet from the UH-1's skids the winch jammed. The view of the countryside as that chopper flew in with me hanging underneath on a 1/4 in steel cable was a thing of beauty. The pilot flew very high and 2 Cobras flew escort to the nearest firebase to get me off the hook and in the bird. About a hundred soldiers stood on bunkers watching that Huey come in to the helipad. At the hospital two of my pals were critical and got sent home on a silver duster. The other 3 of us eventually returned to duty. Yep, I got to keep my leg. No, there was not one female Nurse to take care of us.

To YooperJack:

My father served on the ranger from 1962 until 1966. I sure you saw alot of the same places as he. Luckily, he didn't go through with his engagement to the Phillipino woman while he was in the Navy, else I would not exist (at least not in my present form.)

Jerry A.

To TW Davidson,
The carrier landing and RF-4 info is interesting. I used to know a Marine RF-4 pilot from your squadron period who flamed out in a high altitude vertical climb. His restart and ability to convince his RIO not to punch out was an equally interesting story. You wouldn't happen to have known that guy, would you?
TBS C '84

Auburn Hunter,

My only son is a 29 year old Chemical Engineer and Pianist. He was highly recruited and like you went to school (A JAYHAWK!!) on a full scholarship. His Grandfather and I served a total of 47 years so I don't feel bad about him not serving in the military. Like him, maybe you can do more for your country where you are now.

Forgot to add John is buried in the Cemetery at Lancaster KS. His headstone has a DC-6 engraved on it. He was a great guy. Yesterday I posted a pic of him with his last Elk.

TWD - My offer still stands. I love to read and I would also love to get into editing, but very few tend to believe that electrical engineers make good editors.

my uncle was in vietnam

Good stories!