Obi
I'm pretty sure this it is not an afterburner flame because firstly it is too deep within the bypass duct, i.e upstream of the spraybars. Secondly for a carrier launch (particularly this far down the bow), either the engines are at military thrust or maximum afterburner. In either case due to the possibility of a flameout/stall the afterburner igniters would be energised and visible. Thirdly when set to low/minimum afterburner it is the central circular V gutter channel that is lit as well as the igniters
Well you seem to have a lot of experience in this from reading the above. So I had to go back to your original questiom to form my answer
I was just wondering, under what circumstances are flames visible (from the rear end of course) around the turbine blades, excluding turbine fires?
The only time that flames would be visible that far forward arround the turbine blades at high power would be in the event of simultaneous dual engine failures which seems
not to be the case in your photos. So I chalk it up to optical allusion.
What do some of the others carrier deck folks see? Is it normal or not? Are these really flames or just glowing hot?