In this article:
Carrier landing
It takes skills and nerves of ice for a US Navy pilot to take off and land an aircraft on a carrier’s flight deck, essentially a miniature airfield, that is pitching, rolling and yawing in rough seas which these ships operate in.
Landing aircraft on a flight deck of an aircraft carrier is made possible through the use of arresting cables installed on the flight deck and a tailhook installed on the aircraft.
The pilot aims for the middle arresting wire, which is either the second or third depending on the configuration of the carrier. Upon touchdown, the throttles are advanced to military/full power for three seconds. This is done to keep the engines spooled and providing thrust in case a bolter (missing every wire, go-around) occurs or even for the unlikely event of a cable snapping. Afterwards, the throttles are reduced to idle, and the hook is raised on the aircraft director’s signal (CLICK HERE to read why naval aviators advance throttle to full power when they land on an aircraft carrier).
Ramp strike
Why is landing on the first arresting wire considered so dangerous for fighter pilots on an aircraft carrier?
Adam Daymude, former US Navy EA-18G Growler pilot and Landing Signal Officer (LSO), explains on Quora;
‘Here’s a great picture that will help:
‘That’s my baby, the EA-18G Growler, coming in for a trap, aka arrested landing. I truly don’t know how this landing ended up. But what I can tell you with an LSO’s eye is this looks like a 2 or 3 wire good pass.
‘Look at how low the plane is! Look at how close it is to hitting the back of the boat! We need quite a bit of margin for error because it is god-damned difficult to keep the plane on a perfect glideslope.
‘Catching the one wire, or worse, a taxi 1 meaning you landed well short of the one wire, means you could have killed yourself and everyone else on board. You could have hit the back of the boat, otherwise known as a ramp strike.
POWER!!! POWER!!! POWER!!!
‘I saw one ramp strike while active duty, though we studied the videos of others ad nauseum. It ripped the main landing gear off but by some miracle it still stopped on deck. There were 3 of us LSOs on the radio with the pilot and we were all screaming “POWER!!! POWER!!! POWER!!!”
‘I don’t get scared easily but that moment is indelibly written into my mind. These were my friends and I just about saw them die. The only thing worse is when I was sent out as a safety investigator to the site of one of my best friend’s crash. I saw a part of a person, most likely lower arm. I’ve never been that numb before or since. He and his wife had just had a baby.’
Daymude concludes;
‘I will never be able to erase the memories of what I saw and didn’t see. RIP Dink Dink. You were an amazing man.’
Photo credit: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Elizabeth Cohen / U.S. Air Force
