smeared with skid marks from one end to the other and glistening with pools of hydraulic fluid and the occasional jet-fuel slick."Įarly this month, a $20 million F14 flying from the carrier USS America plunged more than 10,000 feet to the bottom of the Arabian Sea after the two crewmen ejected.
As Tom Wolfe wrote of a carrier in "The Right Stuff:" Okay, guys, don't be unsafe but we've got to load and shoot 'em a little faster than that. I've got the deck screwed up because Smoke Stevens is on the cat and he's dyin' on me. Okay, visual Corsair? an A7 approaches for a landing.
#Hotswitch ready driver
"Tell that tractor driver if he drives out into the landing area again without telling me, I'm gonna be mad. Watch the wings on that A7 there, don't let him fold them back with that Tomcat coming.
How many traps does 123 have? That bolter didn't count, did it?. After every 100 traps, the cables are removed and tossed overboard to prevent accidental reuse of frayed wires.Ī few moments in the night life of the Air Boss as he lands and launches, or "shoots," his planes: The tension on the arresting cables must be fine-tuned for each plane because a heavy F14 would yank the cables set for a lighter A7 out of the ship, while the cables adjusted for an F14 would rip the tail off an A7.
#Hotswitch ready full
A carrier jet lands in 350 feet, one-tenth the runway needed by a land-based fighter.Īs a precaution, the pilots shove throttles to full power upon touching the deck which allows them to zoom off again if the hook misses all four cables in what is known as a "bolter." Four "arresting wires," cables as thick as a man's wrist, snag or "trap" the hook dangling behind the jet as it lands, jerking it to a stop before they can skitter over the edge into the sea. Harnessing steam from the ship's boilers, the "cat" is powerful enough to fling a Volkswagen six miles and can slingshot an F14 off the bow from a standing position to 160 knots in 2 1/2 seconds of screaming flame, smoke and steam. Dozens of sailors scamper across the deck below, each wearing a jersey color-coded to denote his duties - purple for fuel handlers, blue for plane pushers, white for flight surgeons, green for catapult crews and so on. Together they juggle eight telephones and radio microphones linked to the captain, the pilots, the air operations center below decks, the hangar deck where waiting planes are stored and sundry crews on the flight deck. Each wears a canary yellow sweat shirt stenciled with the appropriate title in black letters. Douglas Bradt - must choreograph the dazzling ballet of men and machines that gives an aircraft carrier its ambience of controlled chaos.īradt, 41, a former squadron commander from Hyde Park, N.Y., reigns from a glass-walled control booth above the deck with an apprentice known as the Mini Boss. Of the 5,000 sailors on the Independence, the Air Boss - known more formally as Cmdr. Navy is obliged to practice incessantly in peace - at tremendous cost in dollars and sweat - or risk incompetence in war. Having settled on the carrier battle group as its heart and soul, the U.S. It's that guy that keeps making strafing runs on the tower that's getting into my knickers."Įven in the benign blue waters east of Hampton Roads, a carrier is a noisy medley of smoke and flame, tension and occasional terror. So if they're a little rough around the edges, it's to be expected. This is the very first time they've landed on a ship at night. "God, who was that guy? Please have him chase the line.
"C'mon, young man, c'mon, let's chase the line up there," the Air Boss pleads, referring to the white stripe on the deck where the planes are supposed to land. Even when a 20-ton F14 Tomcat suddenly veers toward the control tower at 130 mph, he stands without flinching as the jet shrieks out over the Atlantic at the last moment to circle for another try. and the Air Boss has been launching and landing warplanes since early morning with unflagging panache.
0 kommentar(er)
