Not sure what the rules were in ‘82 but in my time we were limited by +/- 2 degrees in pitch and +/- 3 in roll. I always thought the higher roll limit odd because the boat rolling towards you in the hover was ‘not great’ - whereas a pitching deck could be dealt with using a gumshield and ‘manly’ arrival.
The weirdest thing about CVS pitch and roll was the monitoring device in Flyco had two settings. One essentially showed half the deflection of the other. No one knew which one was right - so we used the one that showed the lowest!
I was lined up one day - looking at the bow with an amount of disbelief that we were within limits. I asked and was essentially told to ‘Grow up’. Post launch Homer told me that my playmates wouldn’t be joining me - deck now out of limits! Cue an hour of boning around Biscay on my own wondering how the landing would pan out...
Some years later I was waved off approaching the USS Carl Vinson (can’t remember how far out but I was ‘on the ball’ so let’s say 0.3nm) that I messed up because the ship pitched dramatically nose up. That gave me a very compelling ‘plan view’ of the ship, therefore natural reaction was to feel very high and take power off. Paddles (LSO) very unimpressed by plummeting F-18E - hence a wave off.
Of course - had I just ‘flown the ball’ - all would have been well and I’d have saved myself another trip around the USN’s patented ‘most convoluted way of arriving’ visual pattern!! I seem to recall the next go wasn’t sparkling but at least it stuck!