Comments on: Damned if You Do

By: prowlerguy

prowlerguy — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:18:06 +0000

Whether you knew what a Fitrep was or not isn’t really germane, since we both know that while under instruction, one almost always gets an NOB, the CO can write a graded Fitrep based on outstanding or adverse actions for ANYONE while they are in his/her command.

I’m also happy that you are totally immune to command pressure and/or get-it-done-itis. To never bow to either, and to never worry about whether your fellow JO’s would consider you a “non-hacker” makes you a man to be reckoned with, surely.

And consider if he had attempted the landing at NI, and that had turned out badly. People died, and he was disobeying a direct order at the same time. But at least his superiors would have been spared, then, and that’s what is really important, right?

By: bdgerjmn

bdgerjmn — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:07:46 +0000

Rhino, do us all a favor, get on the message board, read the SIR, remember what it was like to be a student, put yourself in his shoes(oh wait, you’re a WSO so that’s impossible) at his skill level and then re-evaluate your posts. This is not a personal attack but you offer alot of uneducated opinions based on what you are reading to be fact admittedly from the ‘internet’. I would also caution you in reading into the conclusions of the JAGMAN as 100% gospel. While I respect your opinion that the guy who signs for the jet is responsible for that jet and where it goes, as a FRS IP current in A-F, a NATOPS evalutator in the A-D for 4 years and a CRM instructor, this was not your typical NATOPs check or exercise in CRM. This was 20 slices of swiss cheese all lining up to allow the light to shine through so to point the finger in one direction as a final analysis is a stretch. AGAIN, READ THE SIR, all of it not just the narrative!

By: Bill C

Bill C — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:45:50 +0000

Lex,
I know the name but not the man. I had an F8 hit the ramp on me one very moving night EIGHT seconds after he got the wave off lights and call. He hit burner, stalled and hit 31 feet left of centerline. He killed himself and our enlisted phone talker and took the entire mirror platform off the side of the ship. I remember that night very well, it was bad.

By: lex

lex — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:06:34 +0000

Bill, did you ever know my first CO, Gerry Arbiter? Flew A-7s for sure, might have flown A-4s too.

When I signed up for my paddles, he told me in his typically clipped and terse way that he had, over the course of a long LSO career, seen seven or eight ramp strikes, many of them F-8s.

I kept my own counsel (for once), but thought to myself, “Should have moved the wave-0ff window out a little bit further, skipper.”

Then one day on the Connie in ’87 we had a “guest paddles” day for the old timers. Biter came up to the platform, took the controlling pickle and waved two or three Hornets off because the deck was still foul (wire coming back) as they rolled out of the turn.

Eventually CAG paddles, whispered to him, “We let them get a little further nowadays, skipper.”

So. What did I know?

By: Rhinowso

Rhinowso — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:49:53 +0000

Thank you for sharing that… quite an experience… although nothing that exciting happened to me behind the boat, I did fly with a pilot of questionable talent who liked to try flying slow around on the hook to final after a number of bolters, so he wouldn’t have to slow to landing on-speed… follow that up with wrapping it up to not overshoot final… woohoo! Approach turn stall at night, anyone? No thank you please! Make it stop, make it stop! Thanksfully, we made it stop…

By: Rhinowso

Rhinowso — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:32:40 +0000

Comjam,

I’m sure there were outside pressures on everyone – “Get’er done-itis”, whatever you want to call it… Almost every mishap does… and hidesight is always 20/20… such are the bad breaks of Naval Aviation…

VR,

Rhinowso