A while back I had a crop dusting contract in Sudan, Africa. This was before all of the trouble started. The Christians were still in control. The country was a party. A poor party but the natives that I met there never let that get in the way of being the happiest people I’ve known anywhere. But I digress.
The pilots we had there on that contract were some of the most experienced fliers I had ever come across. One day PerAne, our chief pilot from Holland asked me.
“Chuck Have you ever water skied? “
“Sure “ I replied. “ When I lived in Florida we used ..”
“I mean with an airplane Chuck” “Huh? “Sure. Fly the airplane onto the surface of the water and let it water ski. It’s easy with a tail dragger. At 100 mph the water surface is just like concrete to the wheels and the aircraft just skims along. You can even let go of the controls and it will remain stable on the surface of the water.”
“We are all going water skiing today. Want to join us Chuck?”
“Sure. Just tell me what to do”
“First pick a day like today. No wind. Early morning is best before the wind comes up and the water gets choppy. Make a real shallow approach to the water at over 100mph. You will feel the water. The water will then make a cohesion with the wheels, which will skim along the top of the water. Oh. Lock your wheels before you do this or the wheel bearings will burn out. And most importantly don’t forget to unlock them before landing back on the strip."
We piled into the company Land Rover and headed for the strip. Preflights done all of us took off and headed for Blue Nile about a mile away. I approached the water, white knuckled, with a shallow descent until I felt the wheels making contact. I could feel the ripples of the river vibrate through the aircraft. Still I maintained my attitude and let the aircraft descend until I actually felt the aircraft decelerate from the drag and then stabilize. I slowly released the controls and the aircraft maintained a straight and stable path down the river. When we came to a bend in the river I applied some rudder and the aircraft followed the bend. I wouldn’t advise applying too much rudder though. Sideways in the river? Not good. I saw the others peel off and go around for another run. I eased back on the stick and she came away easily.
Now a veteran water skier, I joined them for another go. We spent most of that day water skiing the Nile and never got wet. I’m chalking that one up to really different experiences not many others have ever done before, sort of like joining the mile high club or climbing Everest or swimming with a Great White, or, indeed, water skiers who never got wet. Now that has to be an exclusive club.
So I water-skied that day like I’ve never water-skied before. All of us, six planes in all, an assortment of Pawnees, AgCats and a Turbo Thrush, all skiing down the Nile River in formation, under bridges while natives on the bank watched in awe. I was in awe. I let go of the controls and the airplane just stayed there, flying down the river. I half expected to nose dive in the drink, but for the memory of my father explaining why suicide jumpers die when they hit the water reinforced PerAne’s explanation. Perish the thought. Needless to say, the usual bother about engine out procedures became totally superfluous. The usual questions that should be constantly running through ones head when flying: “What if and what’s next are, when water-skiing your airplane, become no brainers.
When I returned to the States I tried it again in an Aronca Cub on San Diego Bay. It was lots of fun and something just a little different with my terrified brother screaming at me from the front seat. I never tried this with a nose wheel aircraft though, and don’t think I will. Oh. If you forget to unlock your wheels before landing you will be the recipient of yet another thrill. Fortunately for me, our strip was gravel.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
The Best Lime I've ever Tasted
It was another bright, sunny Sudan day at our spray site on the western bank of the Blue Nile in Wad Medani. While finishing up a fertilizer contract in England, I had accepted a job spraying DDT on cotton in Sudan, Africa. How I got there is another story but there I was, living in an old British plantation house with all the other ‘croppers’ who had a seat spraying cotton that summer. Yes, it was a beautiful August morning, in the year 1981. The day usually starts with a fruit and egg breakfast, followed by a discussion with the chief pilot of the days spraying assignments. I was working with Paddy Mckay as usual. Paddy was a spirited little Irishman. He had flown the length and breath of the Sahara and knew all the tricks. We would dogfight between jobs. I got really tired of the sound of his “tika tika tika” in my earphones. He would come out of the sun, out of a cloud, from underneath like Albert Ball, straight down at me occasionally. Sometimes I would get on his tail, but then he would throttle back and throw out all his flaps and I would be in front of him again. "Tika tika tika" We would compete for first place on the strip, hot and dusty as it was, laughing with full throttle on takeoff while the other faded into the dusty Sahara behind. Paddy was a better flier though. At over 100 landings and takeoffs a day on some pretty precarious airstrips, we were all proficient. Cropdusters are among the best light aircraft handlers in the business. Patty was better than that for a number of reasons. It would be hard to describe in detail, but he just was.
Sudanese cotton fields are laid out within irrigation distance straddling the Blue Nile. There are no trees of any height, the telephone and electric grid setup by the British were in the advanced stages of disrepair and had fallen down long ago. In short there were few obstructions on the 90-acre fields in which the cotton was planted. Rather than spray one field at a time, we found it faster to dip into one field after another in a circular pattern, presumably ending up back at the strip with an empty hopper to land for a refill of insecticide. Naturally, we kept a weather eye on each other, hoping to make it back to the strip first, thereby making the other wait and laughing out loud during the entire takeoff run as the other sweats in his 120 degree cockpit whilst choking down propwash in tiny bits of the Sahara. So it was first to the loading bay that won this game of one-upmanship we played with each other. The stakes were high: Pride.
During one of these bouts Patty and I found ourselves returning at exactly the same time but on opposite ends of the strip. Patty was on the approach end while I was on the tank loader end. I dove for a downwind landing reasoning that the strip was long enough and that if I landed short and turned around quickly enough I would be between Patty and the loading dock in case he tried to pull any of his fancy flying tricks. I landed first alright and as short as I could. Stick forward with throttle and left brake got the tail off the ground and spun the aircraft around. I saw Patty close on final so I gunned the throttle to close the distance between my aircraft and the dock as quickly as possible. Not good enough. I don’t know where he found the room but the next thing I knew his aircraft started filling up the top of my windscreen. He plopped it down right in front of me, rolling it up and swinging it around in front of the dock. He took what I thought to be quite a chance, but the sight of him laughing, he was so loud I could practically hear him over the engines, said that it had never crossed his mind. I take comfort in telling myself that there are some things I never do and am still here to tell the tale, but it hurts to know that there are some things Patty will always do and is also here to tell the tale. Yes, he was better than me at this game, for sure.
So it is no wonder that what I experienced later that afternoon I would never have wanted Patty to find out. And he didn’t. No body did, not even the resident mechanics and line boys, for surely they would have told Patty and all the other pilots and I would have never heard the last of it. They didn’t though and I left the Sudan that year with my soul intact.
We had a well-oiled and truly motley crew that year in Wad Medani, Sudanese and East Indian line boys who would do anything for a buck. The mechanic was a Finn named Heike whom I once saw pick up the tail end of a Thrush 600 with one hand. In his off hours he read book after book illustrated with dead Russians. “Vee don’t like Russians Chuck”, he once told me when I inquired. Then there was the chief pilot, PerAne, who brought his wife. There was two blond twins from Sweden, whose memory is forever defined in a downtown houseoftherisingsun contrasted side by side with two embarrassed, young black girls. There were two wild Kiwis who were used to airstrips on the sides of mountains. Then Angus, the appropriately named Scot who moved to Sweden because “it’s the only place where the lassies get their knickers off quicker than Scotland Mate..” There was the Siek from India who flew with his headset wrapped around his headdress, and me who was “that crazy Yank who flew the Sahara alone”. Actually I followed the Nile River for the most part from Cairo to Wad Medani, so I don’t consider myself that crazy. Ok a little crazy but not die of thirst drinking camel weewee in the middle of the stinking desert crazy. Not that crazy.
On about my third load after lunch I had thought I heard a change in my engine. Crop dusting is flying with the head out of the cockpit. Everything is by feel with an occasional glance at the oil pressure gauge, but with 10 hours and a hundred power changes a day the ear becomes one with the aircraft environment. That day something changed. I couldn’t determine what it was but the engine sounded different. About the third takeoff I noticed a small oil leak. Not so much as to cause a serious loss of fluid but clearly, the 235 horses on my C model Pawnee were talking to me. I informed the load supervisor that I was heading back to base to have Heike look at it. I flew the 10 miles to the gravel strip, lined up on final. There was no one around. I hoped Heike was working in the hangar. I rolled up to one of the parking areas and pulled the mixtures to lean. The prop wound to a stop and I switched off the mags, pulled of my helmet and hopped out on to the wing. Heike was working on the wing of a Turbo Thrush just inside the hangar. I walked the 100 or so feet to greet him. “Hey Heike. My engine has developed a tic and I would like you to look at it”. “Nuting wrong wit dat engine Chuck”. He replied. I heard you land and roll up. How is your oil pressure, any fluctuations?” “No, nothing like that. The needle’s steady” “Ok vell gut to go den. I look at it closer tonight”
“OK. See you tonight Heike”.
I walked back out to the aircraft noting that it was exactly as I had left it. Not a soul around. “Hmm, wonder where the line boys are? Heike must have them off running errands, I thought.”In the next few moments I would wish that he had them off running errands. “No sense doing a walkaround “ I thought. No one around and I had only been gone for 5 minutes. Mixtures rich, mags on, on start the oil pressure came right up to 80lbs. I taxied to the strip, did a mag check, set the trim to neutral and applied full power. On roll out the tail didn’t want to seem to come up. I had plenty of runway so continuing the takeoff run I eased her back a little and the gravel runway fell away behind me. I was holding full forward stick and still climbing out. A large serving of forward trim eased the pressure on my palm. Something was certainly off kilter here. Full forward trim meant the ship was tail heavy. I turned so that the aircrafts shadow was visible from the cockpit side window. I tied my tail to that shadow every night. That steel weight we tied our tails to every night was now a shadow dangling from its chain off of my tail. “Damn those overly helpful invisible line boys.” I thought. Surely one of them ran out and tied my tail down as I was walking toward the hangar. If I turned around and landed either Heike or the line boys would spot me and my dangling embarrassment for sure. My best bet was to land at the strip and hide it. I saw Patty off in the distance winging his way through his sequential pattern of fields. It looked as though I would be able to reach the strip before he arrived. I lined up on final and made a quick landing, hoping that the iron plate dragging behind behaved itself and didn’t bounce up and sucker punch my fuselage. “Lucky Me”, I thought as I climbed out of the cockpit and rushed back to the tail to see the steel plate lieing impotently at the end of its chain. A quick scan of the horizon did not show Patty any where in sight. I unhooked the chain and hid it behind the loading tank; the Sudanese loading supervisor gaping at all of this with a questioning look on his face. “Surprise for Captain Patty”, I said. “Please don’t spoil his surprise by saying anything about this”. “Yes Captain Chuck. We will surprise him good!”, he said smiling.
“Ok great, now to load up” (and act normal). The next trick will be to get it loaded and back to the strip at days end without any one the wiser. .. We had a great afternoon, Patty and I. The wind was slightly out of the East, just enough to encourage a good drift of the chemical on to the crop and out of our way on the next spray run. Ordinarily, on still days I snap my cockpit vent closed during the run then pop it back open for the turn. Yes, that afternoon went well. The sun came to rest on the horizon and off in the distance I began to see aircraft heading back to the strip. I wanted to be last..the very last. I planned on loading the steel weight into the cockpit and standing it on edge on the floor beside me. I fiddle farted around, wasting as much time as I could without raising suspicion and finally saw Patty heading for the home strip. I landed and loaded the steel up onto the wing and then into the cockpit. It was a good thing I was young and in halfway decent shape. The weight of that metal threatened to push through the thin sheet metal floor of the aircraft. It had to weigh over 100 lbs. Sun getting orange in the distance, I took off and headed back. By the time I had landed all of the pilots and mechs were on their way back to the house. I knew they wouldn’t wait if I was late enough. If you dallied at the field or flew just one more load no one was going to miss their shower for you. As I surveyed my approach to my parking space, the Indian line boy ran out and began guiding me in. As if I needed guiding in. The line boys were certainly overly helpful at times. Today was one of them. As soon as the prop stopped he ran over and opened the cowling for engine cooling. Before he left that evening he would tie the aircraft down, check the oil, clean the cockpit and check the tire air pressure. After he opened the cowling he ducked his head into the engine compartment. I reached in and grabbed the steel with all my might. I knew he was probably looking at the engine oil leak and would not be paying much attention in my direction. I lifted the steel to my chest and heaved it toward the tail as hard as what little strength I had left in me would permit. It landed with a thud. Out came his head and he looked up at me . “What was that?” “What was what? “ I replied. “That noise like a cow falling down” said he. “Noise? I didn’t hear any noise like a cow falling down” He looked around curiously then looked up again with an exasperated look on his face. “I am telling you and telling you and telling you I heard a noise like a cow falling down and there is no cow around here to fall down. I am not crazy, but I am telling you that I heard a noise like a cow falling down”.
“ Well, I’ve never heard a cow falling down so I don’t know what it sounds like”.
“ In India we have lots of cows and when one dies sometimes it falls down. That’s what it sounds like Captain.”
I climbed down from the wing and began the lone walk home. The sun was already set and the lime trees that the British had planted years and years ago were heavy with fruit. I plucked one and turned around to see the line boy tying the aircraft down. He would never know why he heard a cow fall down in Wad Medani on the western side of the Blue Nile in Sudan Africa where there were no cows around--and neither would Patty.
Patty could come out of the sun or the clouds at me with his rat-tat-tat in my headphones. He could do Immelmans and his infernal loops to get on my tail, he could land over me to a short roll up to the loading dock, but he would never know about the cow falling down. Nothing is sweeter than winning the final battle. I chuckled at the thought as I sucked on the hole I had punched in the lime. Yes. In so many ways that lime tasted of victory, success, with a little tang of luck. Yes it was a good day in the Sudan on August 2nd of 1981.
Sudanese cotton fields are laid out within irrigation distance straddling the Blue Nile. There are no trees of any height, the telephone and electric grid setup by the British were in the advanced stages of disrepair and had fallen down long ago. In short there were few obstructions on the 90-acre fields in which the cotton was planted. Rather than spray one field at a time, we found it faster to dip into one field after another in a circular pattern, presumably ending up back at the strip with an empty hopper to land for a refill of insecticide. Naturally, we kept a weather eye on each other, hoping to make it back to the strip first, thereby making the other wait and laughing out loud during the entire takeoff run as the other sweats in his 120 degree cockpit whilst choking down propwash in tiny bits of the Sahara. So it was first to the loading bay that won this game of one-upmanship we played with each other. The stakes were high: Pride.
During one of these bouts Patty and I found ourselves returning at exactly the same time but on opposite ends of the strip. Patty was on the approach end while I was on the tank loader end. I dove for a downwind landing reasoning that the strip was long enough and that if I landed short and turned around quickly enough I would be between Patty and the loading dock in case he tried to pull any of his fancy flying tricks. I landed first alright and as short as I could. Stick forward with throttle and left brake got the tail off the ground and spun the aircraft around. I saw Patty close on final so I gunned the throttle to close the distance between my aircraft and the dock as quickly as possible. Not good enough. I don’t know where he found the room but the next thing I knew his aircraft started filling up the top of my windscreen. He plopped it down right in front of me, rolling it up and swinging it around in front of the dock. He took what I thought to be quite a chance, but the sight of him laughing, he was so loud I could practically hear him over the engines, said that it had never crossed his mind. I take comfort in telling myself that there are some things I never do and am still here to tell the tale, but it hurts to know that there are some things Patty will always do and is also here to tell the tale. Yes, he was better than me at this game, for sure.
So it is no wonder that what I experienced later that afternoon I would never have wanted Patty to find out. And he didn’t. No body did, not even the resident mechanics and line boys, for surely they would have told Patty and all the other pilots and I would have never heard the last of it. They didn’t though and I left the Sudan that year with my soul intact.
We had a well-oiled and truly motley crew that year in Wad Medani, Sudanese and East Indian line boys who would do anything for a buck. The mechanic was a Finn named Heike whom I once saw pick up the tail end of a Thrush 600 with one hand. In his off hours he read book after book illustrated with dead Russians. “Vee don’t like Russians Chuck”, he once told me when I inquired. Then there was the chief pilot, PerAne, who brought his wife. There was two blond twins from Sweden, whose memory is forever defined in a downtown houseoftherisingsun contrasted side by side with two embarrassed, young black girls. There were two wild Kiwis who were used to airstrips on the sides of mountains. Then Angus, the appropriately named Scot who moved to Sweden because “it’s the only place where the lassies get their knickers off quicker than Scotland Mate..” There was the Siek from India who flew with his headset wrapped around his headdress, and me who was “that crazy Yank who flew the Sahara alone”. Actually I followed the Nile River for the most part from Cairo to Wad Medani, so I don’t consider myself that crazy. Ok a little crazy but not die of thirst drinking camel weewee in the middle of the stinking desert crazy. Not that crazy.
On about my third load after lunch I had thought I heard a change in my engine. Crop dusting is flying with the head out of the cockpit. Everything is by feel with an occasional glance at the oil pressure gauge, but with 10 hours and a hundred power changes a day the ear becomes one with the aircraft environment. That day something changed. I couldn’t determine what it was but the engine sounded different. About the third takeoff I noticed a small oil leak. Not so much as to cause a serious loss of fluid but clearly, the 235 horses on my C model Pawnee were talking to me. I informed the load supervisor that I was heading back to base to have Heike look at it. I flew the 10 miles to the gravel strip, lined up on final. There was no one around. I hoped Heike was working in the hangar. I rolled up to one of the parking areas and pulled the mixtures to lean. The prop wound to a stop and I switched off the mags, pulled of my helmet and hopped out on to the wing. Heike was working on the wing of a Turbo Thrush just inside the hangar. I walked the 100 or so feet to greet him. “Hey Heike. My engine has developed a tic and I would like you to look at it”. “Nuting wrong wit dat engine Chuck”. He replied. I heard you land and roll up. How is your oil pressure, any fluctuations?” “No, nothing like that. The needle’s steady” “Ok vell gut to go den. I look at it closer tonight”
“OK. See you tonight Heike”.
I walked back out to the aircraft noting that it was exactly as I had left it. Not a soul around. “Hmm, wonder where the line boys are? Heike must have them off running errands, I thought.”In the next few moments I would wish that he had them off running errands. “No sense doing a walkaround “ I thought. No one around and I had only been gone for 5 minutes. Mixtures rich, mags on, on start the oil pressure came right up to 80lbs. I taxied to the strip, did a mag check, set the trim to neutral and applied full power. On roll out the tail didn’t want to seem to come up. I had plenty of runway so continuing the takeoff run I eased her back a little and the gravel runway fell away behind me. I was holding full forward stick and still climbing out. A large serving of forward trim eased the pressure on my palm. Something was certainly off kilter here. Full forward trim meant the ship was tail heavy. I turned so that the aircrafts shadow was visible from the cockpit side window. I tied my tail to that shadow every night. That steel weight we tied our tails to every night was now a shadow dangling from its chain off of my tail. “Damn those overly helpful invisible line boys.” I thought. Surely one of them ran out and tied my tail down as I was walking toward the hangar. If I turned around and landed either Heike or the line boys would spot me and my dangling embarrassment for sure. My best bet was to land at the strip and hide it. I saw Patty off in the distance winging his way through his sequential pattern of fields. It looked as though I would be able to reach the strip before he arrived. I lined up on final and made a quick landing, hoping that the iron plate dragging behind behaved itself and didn’t bounce up and sucker punch my fuselage. “Lucky Me”, I thought as I climbed out of the cockpit and rushed back to the tail to see the steel plate lieing impotently at the end of its chain. A quick scan of the horizon did not show Patty any where in sight. I unhooked the chain and hid it behind the loading tank; the Sudanese loading supervisor gaping at all of this with a questioning look on his face. “Surprise for Captain Patty”, I said. “Please don’t spoil his surprise by saying anything about this”. “Yes Captain Chuck. We will surprise him good!”, he said smiling.
“Ok great, now to load up” (and act normal). The next trick will be to get it loaded and back to the strip at days end without any one the wiser. .. We had a great afternoon, Patty and I. The wind was slightly out of the East, just enough to encourage a good drift of the chemical on to the crop and out of our way on the next spray run. Ordinarily, on still days I snap my cockpit vent closed during the run then pop it back open for the turn. Yes, that afternoon went well. The sun came to rest on the horizon and off in the distance I began to see aircraft heading back to the strip. I wanted to be last..the very last. I planned on loading the steel weight into the cockpit and standing it on edge on the floor beside me. I fiddle farted around, wasting as much time as I could without raising suspicion and finally saw Patty heading for the home strip. I landed and loaded the steel up onto the wing and then into the cockpit. It was a good thing I was young and in halfway decent shape. The weight of that metal threatened to push through the thin sheet metal floor of the aircraft. It had to weigh over 100 lbs. Sun getting orange in the distance, I took off and headed back. By the time I had landed all of the pilots and mechs were on their way back to the house. I knew they wouldn’t wait if I was late enough. If you dallied at the field or flew just one more load no one was going to miss their shower for you. As I surveyed my approach to my parking space, the Indian line boy ran out and began guiding me in. As if I needed guiding in. The line boys were certainly overly helpful at times. Today was one of them. As soon as the prop stopped he ran over and opened the cowling for engine cooling. Before he left that evening he would tie the aircraft down, check the oil, clean the cockpit and check the tire air pressure. After he opened the cowling he ducked his head into the engine compartment. I reached in and grabbed the steel with all my might. I knew he was probably looking at the engine oil leak and would not be paying much attention in my direction. I lifted the steel to my chest and heaved it toward the tail as hard as what little strength I had left in me would permit. It landed with a thud. Out came his head and he looked up at me . “What was that?” “What was what? “ I replied. “That noise like a cow falling down” said he. “Noise? I didn’t hear any noise like a cow falling down” He looked around curiously then looked up again with an exasperated look on his face. “I am telling you and telling you and telling you I heard a noise like a cow falling down and there is no cow around here to fall down. I am not crazy, but I am telling you that I heard a noise like a cow falling down”.
“ Well, I’ve never heard a cow falling down so I don’t know what it sounds like”.
“ In India we have lots of cows and when one dies sometimes it falls down. That’s what it sounds like Captain.”
I climbed down from the wing and began the lone walk home. The sun was already set and the lime trees that the British had planted years and years ago were heavy with fruit. I plucked one and turned around to see the line boy tying the aircraft down. He would never know why he heard a cow fall down in Wad Medani on the western side of the Blue Nile in Sudan Africa where there were no cows around--and neither would Patty.
Patty could come out of the sun or the clouds at me with his rat-tat-tat in my headphones. He could do Immelmans and his infernal loops to get on my tail, he could land over me to a short roll up to the loading dock, but he would never know about the cow falling down. Nothing is sweeter than winning the final battle. I chuckled at the thought as I sucked on the hole I had punched in the lime. Yes. In so many ways that lime tasted of victory, success, with a little tang of luck. Yes it was a good day in the Sudan on August 2nd of 1981.
Carrier Pilots
By Chucky
1989
A recent invitation to fly the S-3 simulator at NAS North Island provided a long awaited opportunity to answer a number of questions that had formulated since flying as an S-2 Aircrewman for three years culminating in l966 and the subsequent ten years experience as a crop-duster and twin engine charter pilot.
Having experienced over 100 cat shots and carrier landings as an Navy aircrewman, but from the back seat, I had no idea really what challenges were involved in landing an aircraft aboard a carrier. As my experience as a charter pilot expanded I began to regret never having had the opportunity to land aboard a carrier as a pilot, and still, even though I had accumulated nearly 4000 hours of flying time, had not the slightest idea of a typical approach or the physical and technical loads required for such an operation.
After discharge from the Navy I hung around San Diego long enough to graduate from State, get married, divorced and generally make a mess of my life before deciding to start over by leaving town. Eventually I found flying and then dropped back into maintenance, but that's another tale. Beech Aircraft assigned me to their site at North Island, and thats where I was when I met an S-3 pilot who was leaving the Navy and got temporarily assigned to our unit as a KingAir jock. We began swapping flying stories and when he invited me to a session in the S-3 Viking simulator I jumped at it.
The S-3 simulator at North Island, is an exact copy of the cockpit of the aircraft and it is mounted on a three axis, full motion platform. It was so realistic that, after the first few minutes I felt that I was flying the real thing. Not surprisingly it was light years ahead of the old S-2 sim I had flown in as a Radar/Sonar operator at the exact location 20 years before. We began by my getting acquainted with the instrument layout, and the picture out of the window. The computer is programed with a variety of local IFR approaches in addition to presenting a believable local area night VFR picture through the cockpit glass. After doing a few touch and goes at North Island and taking the scenic tour, which included flying under the Coronado Bay Bridge my lieutenant friend hit a button and lined the aircraft up on final approach of a carrier deck. The S-3 aircraft is equipped with auto-throttles. In the auto-throttle mode airspeed is controlled with power and altitude with pitch. I began the first approach in this mode toward the deck by watching the angle of attack doughnut and keeping eyes out the cockpit. On the first approach the deck began rising so fast that I experienced a ground rush and eased back on the stick. Zoom! Right by. He set me up for another approach. Ready for the effects of ground rush and determined not to let it cheat me out of a deck landing I approached, and at his signal, hit a button on the stick to deploy the spoilers. Still too late. Hit the deck, but didn't catch a wire. The aircraft became airborne again. I half expected it to dribble off the end of the deck, but it didn't, thanks to the auto-throttles I suppose. It certainly wasn't the result of an action on my part. He didn't hit a button to line me up again and instructed me to actually fly the aircraft around for the third approach. After some solid IFR the deck lights became visible once again in the distance.
According to my Navy Pilot tutor, the approach profile for ultimate touchdown on an aircraft carrier is identical for every type of Navy aircraft.
Initially the approach is started at 5 nm, checklist complete. Descent is begun from 1200 feet at three miles at a rate of between 400 to 500 fpm. Approach airspeed for the S-3 is around 120 kts.
The aircraft on final is flown using an angle of attack indicator, positioned on the cockpit combing and backed up with a gauge on the instrument panel. The correct AOA is about 15 degrees, which is indicated by a white arc on the panel instrument and a doughnut shaped light with red and green arrows on the combing; a red light indicating nose low and the green denoting nose high. Additionally there is a ball stationed on the stern of the carrier's port side. (the meatball) The meatball should be held in the center, indicating that the aircraft is on the center of the glide path. In the old days this job was handled by a brave fellow called the Landing Signal Officer. The LSOs job was to guide the aircraft on to the carriers deck, or to signal a wave off if it appeared that the chances of a successful landing were becoming remote. I remember a net slightly outboard he could jump into in case the approach got over interesting in a hurry.
During instrument conditions the aircraft can be landed by an extremely accurate system called a CLS or Carrier Landing System. Much like an ILS--two radio beams transmitted from the carrier are translated into cross hairs on the pilots attitude indicator.
There is no landing flair. The aircraft is flown at flying speed right on to the deck. In case of a bolt (missed wire) the aircraft already has takeoff airspeed. Thus precluding end of deck dribbling off of.
The ride answered quite a few of my questions that I had nostalgically pondered from time to time through the years. I became acquainted with the flight parameters of the aircraft, but more importantly I learned a bit about the stress that a carrier plot is required to endure. My ride in the simulator was under ideal conditions. No cross winds, no weather, and no fatigue due to the vagaries of a possibly difficult mission. I made the deck and caught a wire on the third try, albeit with a lot of coaching from my tutor, and felt very proud of that, but came to realize why carrier piloting is a young man's game. My eyes really gave out after the third approach. The strain was too much after two hours of night flying for the precision required for carrier deck landings. I can imagine how it could have been trying to land under difficult weather conditions after a real mission.
I suppose that answers another question that I have had for a number of years: Why the top brass fliers let the young guys have all the fun? Maybe it is because that by age 40 plus, not only have they usually been promoted to additional decision-making responsibilities, but the simple fact is that, except for the occasional flight to keep their finger in, they probably have physically fallen below what is required to do this type of flying on a regular basis. Unlike airline flying, where a senior captain at age 60 is able to function effectively, a carrier pilot has physical and emotional stress handling demands that are simply not needed in the cockpit of a 747. That is my opinion anyway. Additionally, I wonder if complacency doesn't become an inhibiting factor after thousands of hours of successful operations. It pays to be just a little scared. A little anxiety is a good thing in flying. It keeps the senses at attention and concentration sharp. Young pilots have sharp edges; at least the one's that remain alive do.
I spoke to a Navy fighter pilot recently who quit flying because of his complacency. It had almost killed him on a practice bombing mission. He realized the problem and corrected it by grounding himself. He had too much experience. It had actually become too routine for him. Good pilot, and a live one. He had recognized his limitations and took corrective action. During British ATP training at London Polytechnical Institute in England some years prior I had the opportunity to speak at length with a British fighter pilot. He made the point that a fighter pilot, carrier or otherwise, begins to lose his effectiveness after about age 25; by that time he has typically married and begun a family and questions start materializing in his mind as he is hugging the terrain, screaming toward the horizon with a load of ordinance at 750 knots--questions without solutions, such as "What are my wife and kids going to do if I'm killed"? So he eases back on the stick and gives himself another 10 feet and he eases back on the power and initiates a gradual and inchoate deviation from killer to survivor. The result is a loss in combat effectiveness. To be sure, this is predictable and inevitably built into the military's computer model for combat pilots. It is certainly a young man's game. Young men with ample portions of brains and nerve, probably a little more of the latter than the former.
1989
A recent invitation to fly the S-3 simulator at NAS North Island provided a long awaited opportunity to answer a number of questions that had formulated since flying as an S-2 Aircrewman for three years culminating in l966 and the subsequent ten years experience as a crop-duster and twin engine charter pilot.
Having experienced over 100 cat shots and carrier landings as an Navy aircrewman, but from the back seat, I had no idea really what challenges were involved in landing an aircraft aboard a carrier. As my experience as a charter pilot expanded I began to regret never having had the opportunity to land aboard a carrier as a pilot, and still, even though I had accumulated nearly 4000 hours of flying time, had not the slightest idea of a typical approach or the physical and technical loads required for such an operation.
After discharge from the Navy I hung around San Diego long enough to graduate from State, get married, divorced and generally make a mess of my life before deciding to start over by leaving town. Eventually I found flying and then dropped back into maintenance, but that's another tale. Beech Aircraft assigned me to their site at North Island, and thats where I was when I met an S-3 pilot who was leaving the Navy and got temporarily assigned to our unit as a KingAir jock. We began swapping flying stories and when he invited me to a session in the S-3 Viking simulator I jumped at it.
The S-3 simulator at North Island, is an exact copy of the cockpit of the aircraft and it is mounted on a three axis, full motion platform. It was so realistic that, after the first few minutes I felt that I was flying the real thing. Not surprisingly it was light years ahead of the old S-2 sim I had flown in as a Radar/Sonar operator at the exact location 20 years before. We began by my getting acquainted with the instrument layout, and the picture out of the window. The computer is programed with a variety of local IFR approaches in addition to presenting a believable local area night VFR picture through the cockpit glass. After doing a few touch and goes at North Island and taking the scenic tour, which included flying under the Coronado Bay Bridge my lieutenant friend hit a button and lined the aircraft up on final approach of a carrier deck. The S-3 aircraft is equipped with auto-throttles. In the auto-throttle mode airspeed is controlled with power and altitude with pitch. I began the first approach in this mode toward the deck by watching the angle of attack doughnut and keeping eyes out the cockpit. On the first approach the deck began rising so fast that I experienced a ground rush and eased back on the stick. Zoom! Right by. He set me up for another approach. Ready for the effects of ground rush and determined not to let it cheat me out of a deck landing I approached, and at his signal, hit a button on the stick to deploy the spoilers. Still too late. Hit the deck, but didn't catch a wire. The aircraft became airborne again. I half expected it to dribble off the end of the deck, but it didn't, thanks to the auto-throttles I suppose. It certainly wasn't the result of an action on my part. He didn't hit a button to line me up again and instructed me to actually fly the aircraft around for the third approach. After some solid IFR the deck lights became visible once again in the distance.
According to my Navy Pilot tutor, the approach profile for ultimate touchdown on an aircraft carrier is identical for every type of Navy aircraft.
Initially the approach is started at 5 nm, checklist complete. Descent is begun from 1200 feet at three miles at a rate of between 400 to 500 fpm. Approach airspeed for the S-3 is around 120 kts.
The aircraft on final is flown using an angle of attack indicator, positioned on the cockpit combing and backed up with a gauge on the instrument panel. The correct AOA is about 15 degrees, which is indicated by a white arc on the panel instrument and a doughnut shaped light with red and green arrows on the combing; a red light indicating nose low and the green denoting nose high. Additionally there is a ball stationed on the stern of the carrier's port side. (the meatball) The meatball should be held in the center, indicating that the aircraft is on the center of the glide path. In the old days this job was handled by a brave fellow called the Landing Signal Officer. The LSOs job was to guide the aircraft on to the carriers deck, or to signal a wave off if it appeared that the chances of a successful landing were becoming remote. I remember a net slightly outboard he could jump into in case the approach got over interesting in a hurry.
During instrument conditions the aircraft can be landed by an extremely accurate system called a CLS or Carrier Landing System. Much like an ILS--two radio beams transmitted from the carrier are translated into cross hairs on the pilots attitude indicator.
There is no landing flair. The aircraft is flown at flying speed right on to the deck. In case of a bolt (missed wire) the aircraft already has takeoff airspeed. Thus precluding end of deck dribbling off of.
The ride answered quite a few of my questions that I had nostalgically pondered from time to time through the years. I became acquainted with the flight parameters of the aircraft, but more importantly I learned a bit about the stress that a carrier plot is required to endure. My ride in the simulator was under ideal conditions. No cross winds, no weather, and no fatigue due to the vagaries of a possibly difficult mission. I made the deck and caught a wire on the third try, albeit with a lot of coaching from my tutor, and felt very proud of that, but came to realize why carrier piloting is a young man's game. My eyes really gave out after the third approach. The strain was too much after two hours of night flying for the precision required for carrier deck landings. I can imagine how it could have been trying to land under difficult weather conditions after a real mission.
I suppose that answers another question that I have had for a number of years: Why the top brass fliers let the young guys have all the fun? Maybe it is because that by age 40 plus, not only have they usually been promoted to additional decision-making responsibilities, but the simple fact is that, except for the occasional flight to keep their finger in, they probably have physically fallen below what is required to do this type of flying on a regular basis. Unlike airline flying, where a senior captain at age 60 is able to function effectively, a carrier pilot has physical and emotional stress handling demands that are simply not needed in the cockpit of a 747. That is my opinion anyway. Additionally, I wonder if complacency doesn't become an inhibiting factor after thousands of hours of successful operations. It pays to be just a little scared. A little anxiety is a good thing in flying. It keeps the senses at attention and concentration sharp. Young pilots have sharp edges; at least the one's that remain alive do.
I spoke to a Navy fighter pilot recently who quit flying because of his complacency. It had almost killed him on a practice bombing mission. He realized the problem and corrected it by grounding himself. He had too much experience. It had actually become too routine for him. Good pilot, and a live one. He had recognized his limitations and took corrective action. During British ATP training at London Polytechnical Institute in England some years prior I had the opportunity to speak at length with a British fighter pilot. He made the point that a fighter pilot, carrier or otherwise, begins to lose his effectiveness after about age 25; by that time he has typically married and begun a family and questions start materializing in his mind as he is hugging the terrain, screaming toward the horizon with a load of ordinance at 750 knots--questions without solutions, such as "What are my wife and kids going to do if I'm killed"? So he eases back on the stick and gives himself another 10 feet and he eases back on the power and initiates a gradual and inchoate deviation from killer to survivor. The result is a loss in combat effectiveness. To be sure, this is predictable and inevitably built into the military's computer model for combat pilots. It is certainly a young man's game. Young men with ample portions of brains and nerve, probably a little more of the latter than the former.
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