Carrier Landing Question

Great Responses

Thanks for the insightful responses thus far.

Good input about no brakes needed prior to pull back. It is a challenge to design a UAV to do all that autonomously.

Yeah, I’m sure it would be. It’s a bit of a cockpit dance, especially during CQ events where you are going right back to the cat in minimal time. Basically bring the hook up, and while you are hurrying to clear the LA, you have to taxi quickly to not cause a foul deck W/O but you also want to go slow enough that you don’t scare the yellow shirts. While you are intently watching them (and sometimes losing them in the steam or due to poor wand technique) and following their directions, you are also bringing the flaps to half, “cracking” the wings or just folding them, and doing a whole bunch of other cockpit admin. I’ve found this to be the hardest part of boat ops……..landing on a runway, you have a smooth transition from flying to taxiing to parking. On the boat, you go from flying one second, to being stopped and nearly parked the next second. It can really rush you and it is hard to kind of slow yourself down and not scare the deck dudes after a night trap or something. It will be interesting to see how the UCAS gets integrated into the picture.

Good input about no brakes needed prior to pull back. It is a challenge to design a UAV to do all that autonomously.

Throttle response times on jet engines requires the naval aviator to push the throttle to the military stop about 3 seconds before touchdown. This gives the engine time to spool up to military power in preparation for a bolter.

There is no time limit required. The entire approach is a “power on” approach, at on-speed AoA, so from there, it doesn’t take much time at all to spool up to mil. If you get really underpowered in close (as in over-aggressively trying to make a late correction for being high), then this is a factor, but by then, Paddles have waved you off anyway for being unsafe. Regardless, when you feel the jet hit the deck, you go to mil…..or if you are like me at night, then I go to MAX.

For the OP, there is absolutely no way that you wouldn’t notice that you have landed. You hit the flight deck with a descent rate of somewhere between 600-1000 feet/min, so it is a much harder landing than anything most people have experienced. There is also no confusion ever about whether you caught a wire. Being at full afterburner will not damage the hook or the arresting gear if/when you do trap, so that is not a concern.

The throttle stays at military until the cross deck pendant brings the jet to a stop. If the hook misses the cross deck pendants, the NA flies the bolter pattern. When the jet comes to a stop after a successful trap, the NA applies the brakes and retards the throttle to idle.

Mostly correct, though you definitely don’t apply brakes. The arresting gear motors will retract the wire, and while this is happening, the deck crew have some hooked poles that they pull the wire free from your hook as your jet rolls backwards. Once that is free, the yellow shirt signals for you to bring the hook up, and add power to taxi forward and stop coasting back. Then you normally get a hard turn out of the landing area and you fold the wings.

IThe NA also gives hand signals to the troubleshooter indicating the jet’s state of health. The jet’s state of health can determine where the jet is spotted during turnaround.

Aircraft status would have been communicated already to the tower rep once a few minutes prior to entering the overhead or the marshall stack (case I/II or III dependent), and then again once you get back on deck. You will give the PC a thumbs up or down once you get parked, but that info is already communicated for spotting purposes well before you hit the flight deck. Only difference would be if you 903/904 the jet on the trap or something, in which case what used to be an “up” jet is now “down” 🙁 Anyway, there is pretty good behind the scenes communication on the boat wrt these things.

Well, the only thing djcross left for me is to say “Yes, that’s exactly how it works”!

The older jet engines in the 1950s & early 1960s sometimes took 10+ seconds to run up to near high power from near idle (a couple took over a minute), so pilots flying those aircraft had to keep their throttle as high as possible during the approach, and apply max throttle before they even crossed over the end of the flight deck.

For example, the 1960 RB168 Spey took ~8 seconds from idle to max RPM at sea level, and the 1955 J75 (in the F-105 & F-106) took 16-18 seconds.

Here is an excellent article from a former USN aviator on spool-up time and how that effects landings.
RIP, Neptunus Lex… we miss you.

http://www.neptunuslex.com/2007/11/08/spool-up-time/

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2012/03/navy-crash-kills-pilot-who-blogged-neptunus-lex-030712w/

Throttle response times on jet engines requires the naval aviator to push the throttle to the military stop about 3 seconds before touchdown. This gives the engine time to spool up to military power in preparation for a bolter.

The throttle stays at military until the cross deck pendant brings the jet to a stop. If the hook misses the cross deck pendants, the NA flies the bolter pattern. When the jet comes to a stop after a successful trap, the NA applies the brakes and retards the throttle to idle.

The NA then follows the directions of the director (yellow shirt), who will signal for brake release and pull back by the cross deck pendant. The yellow shirt signals for brake application again and the hook runner inspects the hook (untangles it from the cross deck pendant if necessary) and checks the hook’s self-centering mechanism.

If the hook inspection is satisfactory, the yellow shirt signals for hook retraction, wing fold, taxi clear of the landing area and finally a hand-off to another yellow shirt who will direct the NA to a parking spot. The NA also gives hand signals to the troubleshooter indicating the jet’s state of health. The jet’s state of health can determine where the jet is spotted during turnaround.

Badger is indeed the expert here but as i understand it when the pilot feels the jet slamming into the deck they push the throttle to full just in case they miss a wire and have to go around. Interestingly this is the main reason the French rejected the Jaguar as a carrier type as the throttle response wasn’t quick enough in the event of a bolter.

If you listen carefully to the Super Hornets landing on the Enterprise in this video you can hear the engines going full tilt until the pilot throttles them back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGQy5ImbnNI

Even at full power, it won’t rip the hook from the airframe?

No, Bager will likely be able to add detail, but its part of the Landing Signal Officers job to ensure the aircraft type and fuel weight is passed to the arresting engine crew so the correct tension is applied to the wires.

I believe the LSO does calls a trap and, obviously, a call goes out for a bolter…but I’ve never heard of a visual ‘trap indication’ in the cockpit.

Even at full power, it won’t rip the hook from the airframe?

The simple answer is: If the plane hooks the wire, the plane stops, if it doesnt, it keeps going.