Stories from FL280...

[Serenity]

What's the A-6 sitting next to the Fire Dept for? Fire Training?

Can you get a profile picture of it?

Unfortunately I'm back in Kingsville, so no luck on more pictures, but I imagine it was used either for familiarization of aircraft, or it was just left there because they had nowhere else to put it. I taxied past it every day, and there are no burn marks and no obvious saw cuts, just every panel hanging open, and stripped of parts.

[Nefarious]

Was curious if you could get a BuNo,  I belong to a group that tracks A-6 bunos.

[DaveBB]

Even the F-4 was equipped with a carrier auto-land feature.  It worked very well.  Why do pilots still land manually on carriers?

[Serenity]

Even the F-4 was equipped with a carrier auto-land feature.  It worked very well.  Why do pilots still land manually on carriers?

Uh... wut?

Auto-land isn't a thing. "Magic Carpet" helps take the 'five-knuckle-shuffle' feeling out of your throttle hand, but you're still working the aircraft. And "magic carpet" passes don't count for score, Rhinos still have to meet a quota of full-manual passes for a very simple reason: Systems fail. A lot. I've seen a failure of every single system of both the T-6 and the T-45 either in my own aircraft or an aircraft in my flight. And unlike the Air Force, who can go find a bigger, longer, 'safer' runway to land on, when you're at the boat, good jet or bad, you have exactly two options: Land on the boat, or eject.

[zxrex]

Ahh.. DaveBB is just jealous.  Trying to rain on your parade.  He got booted from drone school.

[Arlo]

Ahh.. DaveBB is just jealous.  Trying to rain on your parade.  He got booted from drone school.

Back in my day we strapped a .45 to a pair of pigeons.

[JimmyC]

Great write up Spaz.. you are living the dream..
So proud..(hes a squaddie since a sqeeker!)
Keep at it, you got it down.. "the most important part about being an Aviator is looking cool!"

[DaveBB]

No, I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade.  I've read about it many times.  In fact, here is a manual from 1982 on the Automatic Carrier Landing System:

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a118181.pdf

How effective is the Automatic Carrier Landing System (ACLS)? Do pilots use it or do they prefer manual landings?

Tim Hibbetts, Naval Aviator, Airline Pilot, Aerospace Eng Major
Updated 10 Mar 2016

Optimally, the Automatic Carrier Landing System lays down the jet's tailhook inside a box 2 feet wide and 6 feet long. If that sounds awesome, think a couple ticks higher; it's astounding. This naturally moves one to marvel that it isn't used all the time.

A review of the ACLS, first, though: an aircraft approaching the carrier from astern is locked by a special radar, the pilot engages the autopilot and autothrottles, and both controller and pilot accept the ship's systems coupling with the jet. This happens beyond five or six miles. The jet rides down this magic beam, making micro-adjustments with engines and flight controls to maintain the intense precision required. In these few sentences, it should be obvious that a lot of things have to align and stay aligned for the entire approach. This happens about 60-80% of the time. For the rest of the approaches, the pilot must take over and manually land the plane. The closer to the ship, the more dangerous the shift. Because of this, most squadrons only let the veteran pilots couple up. With dicey weather and a pitching deck, interest ramps up, in a burning-rectum sort of way.

Let's say you're a journeyman in a skill that took years to achieve. It's a perishable skill—one that needs constant tuning and can kill you if it lapses. Automation gets the job done, but you gain no skill or confidence in the process. It's also not going to work all of the time and as conditions worsen, will fail more often. Why in the world would you ever not practice that skill unless driven by absolute need? I never did. In fact, unless you already had several hundred carrier arrested landings and pre-announced your intent to test the systems, no self-respecting naval aviator did so. It's a good indicator that it's time to move on to less dangerous endeavors.



   
   

Development of the F/A-18A automatic carrier landing system
http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/3.19978?journalCode=jgcd

[PR3D4TOR]

Hibbetts also answered your question why pilots still land manually on carriers.

[Vraciu]

No, I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade.  I've read about it many times.  In fact, here is a manual from 1982 on the Automatic Carrier Landing System:

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a118181.pdf

Development of the F/A-18A automatic carrier landing system
http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/3.19978?journalCode=jgcd

Hornet Autoland System is fairly famous.   Same with the programmed launch mode. 

[eagl]

The airbus A320 I'm flying for a living now can also do autoland out of an ILS, and its pretty good.  Lands darn close to centerline in any weather and will auto-brake down the centerline too.  Touchdowns are about as firm as the "average" airline pilot, I'd say.  We rarely use it though, because if you can't land the plane in all weather, what happens when the ILS is out of service on a bad weather day?  No ejection seats, and sometimes there isn't a better alternate.  So we manually land pretty much every landing except when the weather is so bad we are require by regulation to use auto-land.  And during the auto-land sequence we are monitoring the process every second, ready to take over if any of the automation doesn't work or if the approach is unstable for any reason. 

Because if we can't land it when the automation doesn't work, then we're dead, and that isn't acceptable.

That line of reasoning goes double for a Navy pilot, who has to deal with not only bad weather but also a runway that may be moving unpredictably and landing guidance systems that may be malfunctioning or destroyed by battle damage.  You need to be able stick the landing, by hand, every time.  Because you never know if the automation is going to be available when conditions suck.

[Vraciu]

It's obviously company- and situation-dependent.   I hear autolands all the time on the radio.   I've not bothered to find out the why.   

One of my flightschool buds is a 777 Captain and he jokes that the plane lands as good or better than they do.    I suspect he's not far off the mark. 

By the time you get to that level of technology (A320, 777, 787, G650, etc.) if you can't land when called upon, especially with the reps an airline pilot gets--which is way WAY more than any military guy that isn't in AMC--it is time to pick a different career. 

I sometimes go several weeks between flights and I can put it right where I want it every time.   What I miss about the airline days is the number and frequency of instrument approach exposure.    Coming off a four-day trip full of four- and five-leg days--with half your approaches down to mins--was a definite skill-honing exercise. 

 

[eagl]

Even when cleared a visual approach, I almost always back it up with an instrument approach.  Makes sure I land at the right airport, and its good practice running through the approach procedures, setting up and using the automation to reduce workload.  That should reduce errors and make it easier down the road when conditions are unfavorable.

Regarding when it is or is not time to pick a different career, I've flown with a bunch of different captains now and some are really smooth on the controls, some are pretty rough.  Interestingly enough, the one who was roughest landing and hand-flying the approach was one of the more experienced ones and I would consider that capt to be highly unlikely to make mistakes like getting the altitude wrong, or any other violations that seem to happen even with experienced crews.

[Vraciu]

I always back up the visual with an approach, but that's not the same as flying an actual approach in IMC.  Of all the skills out there that has to be the most perishable, particularly circling approaches--which most carriers have banned for good reason. 

There are great Captains and mediocre ones.   Smooth pilots and not.  All the practice in the world won't fix the latter in some cases.  In other instances I think they're too beat down to care any more.   They're like you noted...unlikely to do anything illegal or unsafe...but they just want to drive the jet from A to B and go home. 

Funny enough, the most ham-fisted guys I've seen are either ex-single-seat fighter guys or pure Part 91 corporate guys with no 121 or 135 experience.    The former also have their share of very good sticks.   It's a bell curve like anything else.

This is a rapidly changing industry.  There are days I wonder if things will someday pass me by.  Once ADS-B goes fully online I expect to see a lot of people get violated for honest/innocent mistakes.   Hopefully the enforcement side adapts to that new reality. 

Time will tell.

[Serenity]

So, as far as perishable skills go...

I got this story second hand, so I can't vouch for it's accuracy, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least. We had a NALO bringing kids out halfway through our det (It's a 737, just owned and operated by the Navy). I can tell you with 100% certainty, a T-45 does NOT enter holding on an IFR plan. If it looks like we're going to be stuck in holding, we're already looking for a divert, because we're HURTING for gas. I'm told that goes doubly for Hornets, because (and this explanation was fairly vague, so it may not make sense) "when you slow down a T-45, you CAN actually increase your loiter time. You can stretch your minutes in the air. A Hornet takes off with a limited number of minutes of gas, and that's not going up or down no matter what, the only thing you control is how many miles you cover in those minutes based on speed" (This is according to my XO, a thousand hour Rhino driver). So, the important thing: Fighter guys have ZERO idea what holding is.

So the story: My buddy was in the cockpit as the NALO was coming in to El Centro chatting with the pilots (Both Hornet guys) and watching the approach. Well, the Blues were over the field practicing, so the NALO was given holding instructions until the Blues were done. The pilots start busting out iPads, flipping through pubs, and finally one of them turns to my buddy and says "F*** man, you're a student right? What are the holding rules and entries?!"