Night Flying
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.