Embedded here, in this SD U/T article about the FA-18 Reagan lost off Oz last year. Bring your own popcorn.
I told you this stuff is hard.
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37 comments to Ramp strike video |
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Lex, I chose not to open the file. The extension was .ram, and said the size of the file was around 60 bytes…
Hell of a video. A little over-correcting but he didn’t look too bad until the end when he dropped like he’d folded the wings. Actually, it looked alot like a few I’ve made in the computer but I get to walk away from them!
Wow. The article didn’t say, but I presume no one onboard the carrier was injured…
Hell, even our crashes look good compared to the Zoomies…
I wonder how cold that water was?
Lee,
You Navy guys are a hoot.
RLTW
Low start, over correcting in the middle, de accelerating in close. LSO was too slow to issue corrective action. Glad no one got killed.
“LSO was too slow to issue corrective action”
I was going to ask about that. With as badly as this turned out I thought he would have been shouting his head off.
“Lex, I chose not to open the file. The extension was .ram, and said the size of the file was around 60 bytes?
“LSO was too slow to issue corrective action”
I was going to ask about that. With as badly as this turned out I thought he would have been shouting his head off.
“Lex, I chose not to open the file. The extension was .ram, and said the size of the file was around 60 bytes…”
If you hate Realplayer as much as I do, try Media Player Classic and the RealAlternative and Quicktime Alternative plugins. work great. This site has them rolled up with a TON of codecs all in one package.
K-lite Codec Pack
Byron, that’s normal operation for RealPlayer. You download a small file that sets up things for the streamed video to follow.
Sure does look like some sort of malware that way, doesn’t it?
Then again. quite a few people would described Real as a malware generator.
Lex,
A guy puts up a nice ramp strike vid and it turns into a discussion about codecs and malware. THERE is your decline of western civilization…
BTW nice piece of reporting from the U/T. I never would have figgered out that a jet that crashes was too low…
Nose
Nose, I really wanted to see the video. But when I saw this, I felt I had to report it ASAP, in case someone had hacked the code and made the downloader link to a less than nice site. Just trying to be responsible. Personally, I think Bun-Bun should add hackers to his “kill all the telemarketers!” list.
Ya know, one of these days someone’s gonna come up with a solution for near ’bout all of the plane crashes in the world… when they invent “below zero landing strips” to accomodate pilots who try to break the low-altitude flying records.
Lex: Could you comment on the amount of vertical movement of the ramp – looked like the ship was moving pretty good. Also, the LSO advisements – not to many, what is “normal” given the boat’s movement and what seemed to be a tending-low approach to the ramp. Lastly, did the guy ‘dive’ for the boat at the end or what?? The one comment that he went down like he’d folded the wings sounds like a former flier talking . . .
One last comment: I saw a special about Naval Air on the Military channel and one of the pilots showed video of his own ejection from an A-6. He made the point that when you have to leave the plane – just do it and don’t wait too long. On the video it looks like the pilot just barely got out and only after the plane went off the ship. Lucky guy.
The Title-
“Hornet was too low, a Navy report says”
Sherlock Holmes wrote that.
re Lex: “I told you this stuff is hard..”
Round down is literally steel! Not the first, not the last.
b2
Hey Steve,
I went into the U/T link and read the “report.” The report was the JAG investigation into the mishap – won’t be as detailed as the Safety Investigation Report which shouldn’t be released.
1. He wasn’t low for most of the pass as a couple of readers think. LSOs said it, radar said it, pilot said it. On most PLAT (Pilot Landing Aid Television) on most carriers, a jet that is on glideslope will be below the crosshairs. From the in-close position to the actual striking of the ramp, you bet he was low – but he pulled the nose up pretty good, so he did not see the ball as low as he should have. PLAT analysis by the CVW LSO (former LSO School Instructor) projected a hook touchdown point 225 feet aft of the target – unfortunately, the back end of the ship was 20 feet forward of that! He hit the ship just forward of the main landing gear.
2. Deck was relatively steady. Dark night, but with a horizon – if the deck was moving and the stabilization on the IFLOLS (Meatball) was not keeping up, the LSOs would have either rigged the MOVLAS (Manually operated Visual Landing Aid System – basically an LSO controlled meatball) or they would have talked the pilots down. Anyway, the LSOs, Air Boss, and Ships Inertial System data all show a relatively steady deck.
3. I found this wild: The pilot was late pulling the handle because HE DID NOT KNOW THAT HE HAD HIT THE RAMP! He thought he had snagged a 1 wire but wasn’t decelerating fast enough.
4. As for the lack of LSO comments, basically the guy was so slow to correct for his underpowerd condition in close, and then made an improper correction (pulling nose up on the settle), by the time you see him start down, it was already too late. I’m sure you have heard the thing the Secret Service says about if a guy wants to kill someone important badly enough, they can probably find a way, well it is equally true for flying behind the ship, you can pretty easily get into a position where ain’t enough power calls, waveoff lights or thrust to save you. That’s called an unsafe deviation inside the waveoff window which means the LSO, except through an act of clairvoiance (sp) doesn’t have enough time to save you.
Here is my disclaimer – would an earlier call from an LSO changed the outcome? Maybe. Without being there and seeing the little things that you learn to look and listen for (attitude, nose movement, engine noise etc) I can’t say if they should have made the call sooner, but I doubt it.
Byron, I was only teasing about the geek thing. I appreciate your warning but, being a Naval Aviator, couldn’t pass an opportunity to give you a ribbing!
Best
Nose
Thanks for the instruction. All I saw at first was a $30 million dollar roman candle! I’m glad he got out alright, after all its just hardware. Its hard to replace an experienced pilot.
I really can’t say too much about this because I’ve kind of got inside knowledge, and that knowledge is “privileged.” I agree with Nose in that the deck motion isn’t all that bad, although perspective is everything, innit?
As a squadron LSO I used to show a 5-minute compendium of these kinds of mishaps before starting a CQ lecture. When it was over, I always had their undivided attention. The thing that struck me – strikes me still – is how many of the mishap approaches look relatively normal, right up to the moment where the guy falls out of the sky like a turd off a tall moose.
I guess if they were more screwed up earlier, the LSO’s would have waved ‘em off in time.
they tried to get all the names off, but his name is in there, along with the Helo crew. Not that it matters, other than the fact it’s all over the world at this point.
I had the “I think I’m gonna hurl my trapezoid fish” feeling when I opened the clip. Of course, that didn’t prevent me from viewing it. Three times.
Every now and again, huddled in the dim post-Taps redness under the platform while debriefing the last recovery, I’d tell the bubbas that we had the best and most rewarding gig on the boat. We were in the by-God white float coat brotherhood so we knew it to be true even though various others thought we were just blind, lying ****suckers. Me? I think they were just jealous that we were allowed to wear the Ray Bans on the flight deck.
Never had much use for PLAT wavers so will reserve comment on what I saw. Suffice it to say, I’m glad this young fellow got out.
And Nose, you’re spot on – if someone really wants to fly into the jet shop, not much one can do about it but scream, holler, pickle and duck.
By the way, I was always convinced that if it ever happened to me while I was on the pickle, I’d probably just stand there and take it all in in slow motion while I did my pickling and screaming. Net? What net? Fortunately for me, it never came to that.
You came close one night, my brutha! Remember when Master was waving Rocky aboard the Indy-boat, and I was backing him up? After the drama was over I looked around the platform and saw you holding a guy by the shoulders standing ready to pitch him in the net. I imagined at the time that you’d have been following right after him.
As I remember, the enlisted phone-talkers were a whole lot smarter than their officers – they’d bailed into the net and were already half way to the O-3 racetrack by the time the rest of us realized we were still alive.
Like it was yesterday. I had my brand new to the fleet BN with me. He’d never been to the platform and asked if I’d take him up. You bet!, said I enthusiastically. You’ll recall that previous to Rocky’s pass there was a lot of other “color”, to include Sterno’s long bolter where his main mounts hit the end of the angle but his nose gear didn’t. Oh man, I was looking through the smeared backstop window wondering if, when a jet hit the water, it exploded in a ball of fire or just splashed? *sigh* Anyway, after multiple screaming power and waveoff calls throughout the night, Rocky’s pass kind of took the cake. My FNG BN, ignorance being utter bliss, turns to me and says quite seriously and probably fearing for his future as a crewmember without access to a flight control input, “Is it always like this?” I’ll never forget that comment and that night. I still keep in contact with him and I can assure you, neither will he. Manly men doing manly things. Good stuff, that.
P.S. And one reason for all that color, apart from the deck pitch of course, was the fact that I think we had just switched boats – for the first time – from Connie to Indy. And Indy was, as you know, a bit less forgiving in the H/R department. 11.7′ vice 14.1′ or some such?
We knew that we’d be OK though, yah? Because we were young, we were stupid, and we’d never die.
True.
By the way, that was truly the Worst Night Ever. I never saw a series of recoveries more terrifying.
Good thing we were, young, and stupid, and would never die.
Oyster,
You would have loved waving on the “old” Midway. She had a 27C flight deck, 95 feet ramp to No 1 wire, 9 Foot H/R and a point stabilized mirror platform. Bringing F-8′s aboard at night was an exercise in sheer terror for all concerned. Lex is so right about the “Good thing….” comment.
Lex, I would agree that it was probably the worst ever. But!…some pretty sporty nights out there on USS Storm Magnet in CAG 5, and some unbelievable deck movement on our NORPAC adventure – one of the few times during THAT long war that our leadership didn’t try to prove we could operate in the worst possible conditions. At night. It was indeed enjoyable being young, stupid and bulletproof.
Bill C, many friends served in Midway. Such loyalty to a boat and crew I’ve rarely encountered, and of which I’ve always been a bit envious.
I loved waving on Indy because when you controlled, you straddled the foul line and they never parked jets over on “the shelf” (btwn the lens and the platform). A front row seat to be sure. I’m sure I would have loved Midway and look forward to visiting her in SD. I DID CQ on Lady Lex though! But I was too saucer-eyed to know she wasn’t the biggest ship ever to cut through a wave.
I’ve used a mirror system for landing only a couple times in my life – at Memphis during syllabus sorties from Meridian if I’m not mistaken. That should ring familiar Lex.
Oyster,
Sounds like the Indy was similar to the 41 boat. We had no room on the port side for anything and we too straddled the port foul line. I used the term mirror as a generality as we also had the fresnel lens at the start of our 63 cruise. When you go aboard in San Diego you will find an entirely different flight deck than the old one, much bigger.
What happens to the arresting gear when a jet goes skidding through like that?B
Theodore- good question.
The cross deck pendant (The part of the wire that stretches across the deck) is a braided steel cable about 1.5 in in diameter. In the report, it said they started recovering again within 15 minutes (planes in the air still gotta land). They may have had to change one or two but my guess is no significant damage.
They change the CDP every 100 landings and put in new ones. They also check them visually before the recovery and each time a hook touches one but doesn’t engage that particular CDP. Takes them about 3 minutes to change them on a good ship.
BTW, I know of at least one ramp strike where the jet caught the 1 wire as it slid along the flight deck.
Nose
This video gives me the heebie jeebies still, and I am ten years removed. Had CAG LSO shake me hand one night, for the effort, when the hook in a F/A-18C was only seven feet past the round down while I chased BRC as the Big Dog chased the winds. One of us should have played the BS card, but we did not. I caught an ace, showed my Dad the hook point strike on the Tiger Cruise, life goes on.
N-
“..where the jet caught the 1 wire as it slid along the flight deck..”
To add insult to injury.
1 7/16″ and they’re going synthetic with it- sorta bungee like I heard. ‘Tween that, the mag cats and the small tower back aft on CVNX I reckon the LSO’s will be waving from the base of it and indoors! No more ‘skins for y’all white knights!
b2
[...] Those of you paying attention to the comment thread here got to see Oyster – one of the few men whom I know personally who has landed aboard an aircraft carrier at night, with one engine not just out but shattered (not before having taken most of the other one with it) and with what damned little gas he had left more or less feeding a raging airframe fire – and I engage in a bit of reminiscing about the old days. The “bad night” we were talking about was the subject of one of my earliest posts on the old blog, reproduced here. I wrote it before I had developed the characteristically taut prose for which I have so often been complimented by you, my dedicated readership, who have been awfully generous with your correspondent over the course of the last several and for which I thank you kindly – gratitude being one of the last barricades for comity in a world where civil correspondence is everywhere encroached upon by those who would instead craft their words almost as missiles, like, for the purpose of hurting others, the bassids. *cough* So, like I was saying – the story rambles a bit, but may be worth a perusal for those such as haven’t read it. [...]
Wow. Wish I’d read the comments while the conversation was still on and I could get my questions answered. Fascinating stuff–even though I only understood about 60 percent of it, raised my heart rate for sure!
FbL,
Because it’s all I really ever knew, I love talking about Landing on the ship. You can ask me anything any time!
bd1315 (at) google.com
Best,
Nose
PS Bob,
We came up with a pretty good LSO concept for CVX a long time ago, it involved a section of the flight deck that was transparent and LSOs in Barcoloungers on the O-3lvl below watching the landings.
Jerks at Lakehurst thought we were kidding.
N
PPS If anyone hasn’t read Oyster’s story, it is well worth it.
Oyster, I’ve always wondered what Max said to you right after you landed, I’ve never heard, but I heard it was good.
Nose
Was that NorPac Fall of ’86 you’re thinking of?
That was some serious deck movement, with some of the heaviest winds and lowest visibility I ever recall on the roof.
Blue water, no bingo… A wee bit of pucker factor to be sure.
Nose, thank you so much for the offer! I will definitely take you up on it.