Military AircrewA forum for the professionals who fly the non-civilian hardware, and the backroom boys and girls without whom nothing would leave the ground. Army, Navy and Airforces of the World, all equally welcome here.
Reminds of my days in Army Aviation, we had a lot of RN aircraft engineers attached and one CPO, 'Doc' Foster, would always be wandering around singing, "And as for deck landings at night in the dark, as I told 'Wings' this morning, fkcuk that for a lark.......... and I still have to fill in my A25"
I sat and watched these clips and thought of a time 35 years ago when we used to have that capability ( albeit without the swathes of technology shown here ) on the old Ark - fixed wing night flying recovering to arrestor gear on a pitching deck. I used to go up to the ACR debrief room ( cramped) for 809 recoveries - I'd leave it to the Duty AEO to take the lead on any post recovery debrief - lets face it we weren't turning any aircraft around for a re-launch - next launch would be a 4 around 0700 followed by another 4 about 0800. The aircrew would come in off the deck with exhaustion and stress etched on their faces - Lt Francis would fetch out a cigarette from his immersion suit ( how did he do that ??) and immediately ask " Have you got a light Chief " - no debrief until that action was complete. Robin Kent would come in looking about 20 years older than normal and say " F***k that for a game of soldiers " - he wasn't one for expressing sentiment of that nature at most times.
And that is exactly why you cannot just pitch up (scuse the pun) and operate from a deck after months ashore and expect to be operationally capable in a few days!
I agree with your post 2#. But found that whole clip literally awesome. A stunning case of teamwork, and some good leadership (in taking the place of a junior pilot for the tanking flight). I have never seen a large modern carrier move that much, is it common, and do any of you RN types have experience of flying in those conditions?, I would be fascinated to hear more tales. The tale of the Sea Vixen landing with zero visibility, striking aircraft/structure on deck, and going on to land safety at a land based station, is one such story I think sums up the naval aviator very well.
There's a USN saying something like, "it wasn't too bad if you can hold the Jack Daniel's steady while filling out the maintenance forms". Yes, US ships are dry, but not always in flying squadrons.
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Out of interest was there a specific reason that US ships are dry (such as an embarrassing incident once upon a time) or it is one of those "God hates a drinker" bible bashing things?
The US Navy decided that alchohol and ships don't mix. While I'm partial to a drink now and again, I am forced to agree. There is NO alchohol in US operations, period and, you know what, banning it cut down tremendously on accidents, fights, legal problems with the locals. All stuff that used to be part and parcel of US military deployments.
Dominoe, I believe we may have some 1st tourist RN pilots who failed to make the grade for the Harrier OCU on exchange flying F-18s with the USN (to build up carrier experience before the introduction of Dave). At least that was the plan a few years ago.
I did an exchange with the VF101 back in the 1980’s on the F-14 RAG . It was their equivalent of our Operational Conversion Unit so was land based. I did, however, get to day and night Carrier Qualify – day great fun, night bl**dy frightening. Not sure that the RAF have any more ‘shoot and trap’ exchange post now that the F-14 has retired.
. Not sure that the RAF have any more ‘shoot and trap’ exchange post now that the F-14 has retired.
