The Dance

Awesome day! Today is Flight Operations aka Flight Ops

VFA-146 The Blue Diamonds and the other squadrons participated in Flight Ops for the Tigers on board. Tigers were able to watch Flight Ops from either the Flight Deck or Vulture’s Row, or if you wanted to be inside, you could watch every launch and every recovery from various places inside the ship on any of many televisions. John, Dan and I opted for Vulture’s Row, as did many other pilots and families in the squadron. Vulture’s Row is high up on the ship. If you call the Flight Deck the main level, Vulture’s Row is a climb of probably 7 to 9 stairwells. Being on the Flight Deck might give you more vibration and sound, but being on Vulture’s Row gave us a complete visual of the entire Flight Deck as well as plenty of vibration and sound. We arrived at 0900 for a 1000 launch, and within minutes the entire place was wall to wall people. We stayed until the recovery of the first wave of jets at 1130.

The Marine pilots took off first, then the Black Knights squadron, then the Blue Diamonds. In the next wave of launches, we had some Super Hornets (two seater jet) take off with full after burner. The sound and vibration were unbelievable! Even with ear protection, I was taking photos and cringing down into my jacket to get some of the vibration off my eardrum. But one can really understand how exhilarating it might be to fly. Watching it from on deck up high, over and over, is just awesome. Jets were launched every 60 seconds or so from two different catapults adjacent to each other. One after another. One goes, everyone on deck runs to the next sequence spot.

Once they launch, they “form up” a few miles up and out over the Pacific. The Blue Diamonds did the first fly over and two of Dan’s friends and squadron mates were the pilots – Porkins and Schwarma. Porkins flew the painted Blue Diamond jet No. 300. Schwarma flew the No 305.

13 or 14 jets launched in the first wave of launches that we watched. When the final four jets were set up on deck ready to launch, the 10 jets in the air started forming in the “Marshall formation” which is where the jets circle the ship at 3000 feet up, 2000 feet up, etc. When the last of the jets launches, the first jet to come in begins his descent. We were fascinated watching the beauty of this process. When all goes well, everything of the Marshall formation and the recovery onto the carrier is done – or can be done – silently with no radio communications. That is a big plus in a combat situation to have planes land every 50 to 60 seconds with silent radios. The ship has to slow down and turn into the wind for recovery and is highly vulnerable at that point, so everyone on the ship is tasked with making sure they do their job to their utmost to minimize the amount of time necessary to recover the jets in the air.

After the last jet launched, we watched the jets in the air begin their descent and approach. The first jet to come in was the Admiral’s jet, and he flew over the ship at a fairly low altitude then began his approach, turning into “the break”. The Landing Signal Officers – LSO’s- are the eyes on the deck for the pilot in the air. The pilot is looking for the Fresnel lens, aka “the ball”, which is a series of red, yellow and green lights that tell him if he is high coming in which might lead to a “bolter” wherein he misses all of the 4 wires on the deck. If the pilot is low, and in potential danger of hitting the ramp (back of the ship) or the deck, the LSO will give either a “power” call to the pilot, or wave off the pilot entirely, and the pilot powers up and gets back into the landing pattern and waits for another turn to land. The pilot wants the light on the lens to be in the middle. Then the LSOs (there are three of them monitoring the plane’s position in the sky) will watch carefully and monitor the landing, targeting the pilot to hit the deck between the second and third wires.

Many of this morning’s flights caught the 3 or 4 wires. I was amazed that if the jet catches the 4 wire, the furthest and last wire, that the jet stops JUST short of the far end of the deck! When a pilot lands, he brings the jet down, then goes to full burner so that if he misses all the wires, he will be able to take off from the deck. Fortunately, that didn’t happen this morning, and everyone landed the first time.

It’s a beautiful dance that happens on the deck, watching all of the people do their jobs, then another peaceful and controlled dance that happens in the air with the Marshall formation and the recovery. I’ve been to numerous air shows, and I’ve been on numerous aircraft carriers when they are docked at a pier in some city. This was the first time I could watch an air show from a moving carrier.

Another cool thing is how jazzed EVERYONE on this carrier gets about Flight Ops. It’s not just the pilots and their families. Everyone is involved, everyone is excited. The Tigers have some kind of booklet we are supposed to get signed off on- like “find the different Ready Rooms, find the Wardrooms, shake hands with a gunner’s mate” etc. The task that everyone seems to enjoy the most is finding the Ready Rooms of the Flight Squadrons and asking one of the pilots to sign their book. As I write this, two different sets of Tigers have come in and asked the pilots to sign and chat a few minutes with them. Also as I write this, more Flights Ops are taking off from the deck, we’re watching the launches on the TV here in the Ready Room, and you feel the bang of the catapult as it goes.

Another time I'll write about Movie Night and what else we've been doing on this ship since Tuesday.