'tartare' the night approach was a long CCA Carrier Controlled Approach, more or less the same as a GCA Ground Controlled Approach. The 4.4Gb PDF has heaps of info about carrier landings from the beginning until today with the F-35B/C. Amongst the heaps are pages about how a Sea Venom radar was installed on HMAS Melbourne (and other HM carriers) to become the CCA radar with it unseen in the metal dome aft atop the island.
There is nothing to be seen except blackness at sea at night until perhaps at one mile the bright mirror lights are seen (but early on difficult for me to differentiate). From my reading I believe the USN OLS Optical Landing System has much better viewability from a greater distance, however they do precision instrument approaches. The A4G with the early TACAN on MELBOURNE did not have sufficient resolution for any pilot instrument approach, except to a CCA pickup.
The runways of NAS Nowra are on a tabletop about 300 feet above terrain. To the east the ground drops away dramatically in a gully running more or less west to east for the under run of RW 26. With the strong westerly winds the turbulence can be violent everywhere in the circuit. One night a Sea Venom crew ejected after turning downwind in this turbulence, striking treetops during the rollout. First night ejection in ADF - both OK.
I think I can attach a zipped PDF here of some size so I'll attempt this soon with some pages about RW 26 and the downdraught. Yes the runway is closed because the arresting system is being removed
AFAIK. It will reopen I'm told once that is complete but I do not know for sure.
My SP Senior Pilot on VC-724 put the fear of god in me about the downdraught on Runway 26. The Vampire had woeful engine acceleration from low RPM whilst the Sea Venom was better with an engine control unit, the VAMP just had your steady left hand. In the A4G and Macchi the throttle could be slammed open but in the Macchi one would rather NOT do that. Two pilots and a passenger died in two Sea Venom crashes due to downdraught Runway 26. Other Sea Venom downdraught crashes caused minor injuries.
An attempt c.1970 was made to fill in the underrun gully a little bit by scrapping the hill in the overrun of the same runway, transporting the dirt by dump trucks on a temporary road. It reminded me of the guy in hospital, covered completely in bandages, in CATCH 22, who had tubes running from one end to the other that were reversed every once in a while. The new dirt moved the downdraught effect further away from the threshold but did not ameliorate the lethality if one was negligent.
The RAAF Caribou was the first doing a tour of Oz demonstrating ability in 1964. Even though they were warned (as we were on base RW 26 every time) about the downdraught they underestimated the effect to end up smashing onto the concrete before the piano keys, clipping the wheels on the concrete lip (a road was causing this effect) then breaking the back of the aircraft with the wings flopping onto the runway. Some crew were injured.
I see a 7Mb PDF is allowed so I'll try that soonishlike.