Great Navy Video

What a second, a GoPro vid without "Sail"? Say it isn't so.

I don't think they had the appropriate cloud distance criteria in some of those scenes. :D
 
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...I logged 83 carrier landings as a Naval Aircrewman on C-2's during my enlistment. Nothing like it...

Naval Aviators - best pilots on the planet. Period.
 
Hmm... I thought you were going to mention Top Gun.
 
kenjr said:
...I logged 83 carrier landings as a Naval Aircrewman on C-2's during my enlistment. Nothing like it...

Naval Aviators - best pilots on the planet. Period.
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Do those landings feel as hard as they look? Those planes are really slamming it in there.
 
ScottK said:
Do those landings feel as hard as they look? Those planes are really slamming it in there.
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Only if you break it :)

Compared to a flared landing, yes. But it doesn't hurt or anything, just a really rapid deceleration that throws you forward into your straps (or backwards into your seat if you are a passenger on the COD). It's generally somewhere between 700-1000 fpm rate of descent when you touch down, which is probably "hard" comparatively.
 
35 AoA said:
Compared to a flared landing, yes. But it doesn't hurt or anything [...] It's generally somewhere between 700-1000 fpm rate of descent when you touch down, which is probably "hard" comparatively.
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I was in the hangar for the T-45 drop test article 24 ft/sec sink rate demo point. That's 1400 ft/min. It was...uh..."impressive".

Nauga,
and his MMP 904
 
nauga said:
I was in the hangar for the T-45 drop test article 24 ft/sec sink rate demo point. That's 1400 ft/min. It was...uh..."impressive".

Nauga,
and his MMP 904
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Yeah, that would definitely hurt. I had a couple ones on cruise that did almost kind of hurt, but they weren't anywhere near that. Funny thing about 904's is that they seem to be more frequent with certain pilot techniques rather than legitimately "hard" landings......ie fly a nice pass but add too much power in close, stuff the nose just prior to touchdown to hold off a rising ball, 3 point landing and bam....904. Conversely, my trend was to be a little (good night) to full (bad night) high all the way, and how hard I came back down at the ramp was a function of throttle friction/vis/moonlight/how tired I was/how fast my scan was that night......but I always kept it on speed, and I always dumped a couple extra hundred lbs below 34k for the wife and the airframers....and I never had a 904.
 
ScottK said:
Do those landings feel as hard as they look? Those planes are really slamming it in there.
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yup. It's a controlled crash - but if you see the gear close up it's heavy duty stuff and designed to take the punishment. What's spooky is when you get a 'cold cat' and sink excessevily once the catapult pushes you off the deck. There's a delicate balance of knowing how much fuel/ordinance is on a plane and relaying that information down to the guys who control how much juice (steam) needed to get the plane airborne off the catapult. Most times it's just right - sometimes it's 'hot' and sometimes it's 'cold'. The cold ones suck. :eek:

It was backwards for me in the C-2 as I was facing the opposite way as the flight crew. I did cheat once and peeked out the front for as long as possible on a long final. Those guys are amazing - especially landing at night when the weather stinks.
 
Fun to watch how much stick movement and tail flutter is going on during final. Definitely not for the faint of heart.
 
What, no one's going to comment on all the guys with their right hand on the towel rack down the cat stroke? :rolleyes:

Nauga,
with one hand tied behind his back
 
Seanaldinho said:
Fun to watch how much stick movement and tail flutter is going on during final. Definitely not for the faint of heart.
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little small corrections of the stick and throttles, but indeed, pretty rapid as you get in close. since the jet is fly-by-wire (or "control-by-wire" depending on who you ask), all of those wild little movements are sort of independent of control inputs.....or I should say that the jet comes up with those movements to give you the response that your control inputs are looking for. In the approach configuration, you have ailerons as well as both horizontal stabs to effect roll control, so it is finding an often strange looking balance of what surfaces to move in what order/when/how much to give you the great control you experience on approach.
 
nauga said:
What, no one's going to comment on all the guys with their right hand on the towel rack down the cat stroke? :rolleyes:

Nauga,
with one hand tied behind his back
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we had a guy actually get in a little bit of trouble after some of the heavies caught him several times going down the cat without his hand up on the towel rack. Not sure what the true danger in this would be, but either way, he caught a little heat
 
nauga said:
What, no one's going to comment on all the guys with their right hand on the towel rack down the cat stroke? :rolleyes:

Nauga,
with one hand tied behind his back
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I've already brought it up to 35 before. Apparently policy to do that.

I mean how hard can it be to fly one? They have automatic launches from the bow and ACLS coming in on the back end. Don't need no stinking pilot! :D
 
35 AoA said:
we had a guy actually get in a little bit of trouble after some of the heavies caught him several times going down the cat without his hand up on the towel rack. Not sure what the true danger in this would be, but either way, he caught a little heat
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Hands off the stick is important to prevent PIO off the cat. It's a Hornet procedure, not common to all cat-launched airplanes. Hand on the towel rack is just a procedural thing to make it happen.

Nauga,
riding his limit cycle
 
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35 AoA said:
I honestly don't even know how to couple up and do a mode 1. Probably should but I've never done it. It's probably pretty cool though
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Seriously? I mean when I went out to the Stennis to check out the CATCC I didn't see a single mode I but I thought being good weather they just didn't elect to do it. Heard it breaks down a lot as well???

I read Adm Gillcrist's autobiography and he describes in the first chapter watching the deck cam and F-4 after F-4 doing perfect approaches because they were all mode Is. Honestly didn't realize they had that capability back in the late 60's & early 70's. Thought it was something that came about in the 80s. Another good book though.
 
Velocity173 said:
Honestly didn't realize they had that capability back in the late 60's & early 70's. Thought it was something that came about in the 80s.
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SPN-42/ACLS has been around since the 60's. SPN-46/PALS (Precision Approach and Landing System), and JPALS (Joint PALS) are late '80s/early '90's. Civilian ILS in Navy tactical jets is an emerging technology ;)

Nauga,
and the children of the green needles
 
Velocity173 said:
Seriously? I mean when I went out to the Stennis to check out the CATCC I didn't see a single mode I but I thought being good weather they just didn't elect to do it. Heard it breaks down a lot as well???

I read Adm Gillcrist's autobiography and he describes in the first chapter watching the deck cam and F-4 after F-4 doing perfect approaches because they were all mode Is. Honestly didn't realize they had that capability back in the late 60's & early 70's. Thought it was something that came about in the 80s. Another good book though.
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It is cool to watch. Some of the more senior guys like department heads and above would do them after long in country flights. Many did not, maybe a personal comfort thing or something. I didn't do them because it is a thing for first tour guys to not do them....kind of like if it breaks, we need to know you can still fly a good approach. I also didn't use autothrottles on the ball for the same reason. By the end of deployment, I wouldn't have been wrong to use either of those capabilities, but by then, flying fully manual passes was my comfort zone and I didn't really care to try new things. I think some airwings may be different, and I know for a fact that in the old days of the Hornet that wasn't a thing at all.....kind of "if you have the capability, why not use it?". It does break periodically though. Generally not in use or an option during the day unless you are case III for visibility/weather......it takes them a few miles on a good long straight in to lock you up and enable the system. What I did use was the ACLS symbology, which is still in the HUD as long as you have your datalink set up.....but I mostly used ICLS, like nauga mentioned, as it was better for getting lineup squared away early on than ACLS is. After the ball call, ICLS glideslope drifts high (ie you would bolter if you flew ILS glideslope all the way to touchdown), while ACLS is pretty close to what you want to fly, so I would transition to referencing that in close.....but at that point you are just looking outside and flying the ball....all of the navaid systems can and are often slightly "off" so relying on them is normally not a good game plan, though they are good references to QA/QC a decently stable approach and make sure you are not trending towards something bad.
 
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35 AoA said:
Yeah, that would definitely hurt. I had a couple ones on cruise that did almost kind of hurt, but they weren't anywhere near that. .
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You should give instructing a shot! You quickly learn to watch for an "ease guns to land" when a FAM stud flies a BAW (LOX /IM HIC CDAR EGTL Bolter....been awhile, but that seems close). 50 feet AGL and the ball starts to rapidly fly off the top of the lens, suddenly you hear silence, as the stud just selected idle. Lol. "Holy s***!" As you're slamming in full throttle (and clinching your cheeks, I might add) to cushion the landing.:yikes:
 
This thread has gone way too ready room, lots of folks out there scratching their heads right now.

Me, I coupled all the time at night, Skipper was happy with a net zero on the greenie board, and CAG Mx gave the squadron a bone towards the golden wrench for keeping the system working. Daytime, I liked being where the food was: auto throttles to a fair duck more often than folks liked, only bolter in my life was when my compartment mate was running the MOVLAS (being a good deck spotter, I saw it coming, but played the game and accepted the beers from him later).
 
Banjo33 said:
BAW (LOX /IM HIC CDAR EGTL
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Thus the 24 ft/sec sink rate demo :yikes:

35 AoA said:
I didn't do them because it is a thing for first tour guys to not do them....kind of like if it breaks, we need to know you can still fly a good approach.
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This is a really good point and an interesting counterpoint to discussion about overreliance on cockpit automation in commercial transports. Manual recoveries, MOVLAS recoveries, making Mode I the exception rather than the rule. Granted circumstances and mission are considerably different but there's something to be gained by analysis.

catmandu said:
This thread has gone way too ready room, lots of folks out there scratching their heads right now.
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You're probably right. Maybe we should discuss ebola or how the government done us wrong instead. :D

Nauga,
and his spoolup time
 
nauga said:
Thus the 24 ft/sec sink rate demo :yikes:

This is a really good point and an interesting counterpoint to discussion about overreliance on cockpit automation in commercial transports. Manual recoveries, MOVLAS recoveries, making Mode I the exception rather than the rule. Granted circumstances and mission are considerably different but there's something to be gained by analysis.

You're probably right. Maybe we should discuss ebola or how the government done us wrong instead. :D

Nauga,
and his spoolup time
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Once Ebola takes over the planet, the only safe place will be an aircraft carrier. :D
 
nauga said:
Nauga,
and his spoolup time
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Speaking of "spoolup," we had a new stud and new IP come back from a weekend cross country late one Sunday night. Their final approach of the night was a low oil ILS. The stud set the power and was trying to maintain glide slope AND on-speed, but was quickly realizing he hadn't accounted for the extra drag of the gear and extended flaps with the recommended 80% power setting and was getting near the pedal-shakers at about 400 AGL (mins were at 200'). So, instead of adding a smudge of power to help out, he elected to pull up the flaps! The IP was fatigued and his head wasn't in the game, so he got the surprise when he suddenly felt the bottom drop out from under him and the velocity vector drop off the bottom of the HUD.:yikes: He quickly slammed the throttle forward, scooped out what seemed a very low pass, and landed off the approach. When they got the jet back to the line and hopped out to do the post flight inspection, they both discovered how low they had actually gotten. There were pine cones and pine needles hung in the main gear door fairings and around the tail hook, but no damage (except to their pride, lol).
 
Doggtyred said:
for us mere mortals.. whats a 904?
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It means the maintenance monitor panel (MMP) on an F/A-18 registered a hard landing.
As 35 AoA described, it doesn't necessarily mean there *was* a hard landing.

Nauga,
who monitored the monitor
 
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Banjo33 said:
Speaking of "spoolup," we had a new stud and new IP come back from a weekend cross country late one Sunday night. Their final approach of the night was a low oil ILS. The stud set the power and was trying to maintain glide slope AND on-speed, but was quickly realizing he hadn't accounted for the extra drag of the gear and extended flaps with the recommended 80% power setting and was getting near the pedal-shakers at about 400 AGL (mins were at 200'). So, instead of adding a smudge of power to help out, he elected to pull up the flaps! The IP was fatigued and his head wasn't in the game, so he got the surprise when he suddenly felt the bottom drop out from under him and the velocity vector drop off the bottom of the HUD.:yikes: He quickly slammed the throttle forward, scooped out what seemed a very low pass, and landed off the approach. When they got the jet back to the line and hopped out to do the post flight inspection, they both discovered how low they had actually gotten. There were pine cones and pine needles hung in the main gear door fairings and around the tail hook, but no damage (except to their pride, lol).
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dear god, that sounds like a story to tell the grandkids.....:eek:
 
catmandu said:
This thread has gone way too ready room, lots of folks out there scratching their heads right now.

Me, I coupled all the time at night, Skipper was happy with a net zero on the greenie board, and CAG Mx gave the squadron a bone towards the golden wrench for keeping the system working. Daytime, I liked being where the food was: auto throttles to a fair duck more often than folks liked, only bolter in my life was when my compartment mate was running the MOVLAS (being a good deck spotter, I saw it coming, but played the game and accepted the beers from him later).
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I hear that, and I don't know if your way or our way or any way is better than the other. That said, while I definitely kept ATC on until the ball call at night (or maybe another potato or two if it had been a really long in country or just really bad environmentals), I never used it whatsoever during the case I pattern. Apparently I was the weird one as most other guys used it during the approach turn.....never worked for me, always uncomfortable feeling, maybe my approach turn was just that dicked up :) I also uncaged the velocity vector at the 180 which really hurt people's brains when we watched tapes in the ready room after the flight.
 
Banjo33 said:
Speaking of "spoolup," we had a new stud and new IP come back from a weekend cross country late one Sunday night. Their final approach of the night was a low oil ILS. The stud set the power and was trying to maintain glide slope AND on-speed, but was quickly realizing he hadn't accounted for the extra drag of the gear and extended flaps with the recommended 80% power setting and was getting near the pedal-shakers at about 400 AGL (mins were at 200'). So, instead of adding a smudge of power to help out, he elected to pull up the flaps! The IP was fatigued and his head wasn't in the game, so he got the surprise when he suddenly felt the bottom drop out from under him and the velocity vector drop off the bottom of the HUD.:yikes: He quickly slammed the throttle forward, scooped out what seemed a very low pass, and landed off the approach. When they got the jet back to the line and hopped out to do the post flight inspection, they both discovered how low they had actually gotten. There were pine cones and pine needles hung in the main gear door fairings and around the tail hook, but no damage (except to their pride, lol).
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Good ole Squirrel
 
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