Originally Posted by
gums
Salute! I gotta go with Spaz. Over on the F-35 forums one of the "boat" officers( think it was qual flights - Lincoln? been awhile) said that the plane was so accurate that they had to work on the spot on the deck that was repeatedly struck on touchdown. Good to see the seat working well on that beast and the Bee. Gums sends...
Gouging the tarmac during hook tests then striking the deck at the same spot would become a 'problem' it was said using DFP because it was so accurate but IIRC I don't believe a 'fix' has been implemented. The carrier probably moves enough to vary the hook strike point enough plus any other variables doing same. JPALS will be programmable for varying the wire to be caught being especially useful during rough weather for the 'hook to ramp' clearance to be safe. LSOs can manipulate a manual mirror MOVLAS (
MANUALLY OPERATED VISUAL LANDING AID SYSTEM) situated on the starboard side (called 'station 3' but it can be at stations 1&2 on the port side) to get aircraft onboard in bad weather or when regular IFLOLS at the port side station is (U/S) unserviceable.
USN 'boat officer' quote as mentioned by 'gums':
'35_aoa':
“FWIW, CVN 76/77/78 3 wire boat
hook to ramp clearance is (IIRC) more like 10 feet. It is different enough that our brand new CAG paddles on cruise (who were both 4 wire boat guys) spent some time learning the "new" sight picture. For a month or two, they were calling low all the way for what were on-on passes. Then the airwing paddles collectively got into the debate of whether or not an "OK 1 wire" was a thing. Technically speaking, it is, based on the reduced hook to ramp clearance, but it took several months to convince CAG paddles of this. Old habits and sight pictures die hard I suppose.”
http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic....t=hook#p353647