We Now Know When Navy Aircraft Carriers Will be Armed with F-35s

Pilots follow a yellow light on the flight deck of the ship called the Freshnel Lens to help the trajectory of the approach, called their glide slope, Navy experts have explained to Warrior.

So "Navy experts" explained this to "Warrior Maven"?

What? Who is "Warrior Maven"? Has he/she never seen Top Gun?

This isn't an article, it's a press release. And I thought the National Interest was an opinion journal.

The neocons have fallen a long way.

Yes...I got my helmet turned around sideways on my head the first time I had the opportunity to stand in the catwalk next to the waist cat during a launch cycle during my Plane Captain rotation.

One of our planes (an A-7) took off, and nobody really ducked or anything. So when a Prowler came up and wound up, I was so astonished at the noise level (Prowlers and the A-6) have unusual noise frequencies in there that other planes don’t seem to have, and they are nearly painful to the ear, even through the ear protection.

I was so zoned in on the noise (probably standing there erect with my mouth wide open) that when the signal to launch was given and everyone ducked, I was the only head sticking straight up, looking for all the world like a groundhog sticking its head out of its hole in the ground on a cloudy day.

When the plane shot off, I got a full face of exhaust, ripped my goggles off and turned my headgear sideways on my face. There were many knowing and grinning faces of ridicule as I sheepishly put my head back together trying to look like it was no big deal, but it was.

I didn’t even think that was possible to have the helmet ripped around like that, I thought I had it strapped down snugly and everything. I learned that lesson that day, for sure.

Saw a gal on a Dependants Day Cruise have the exact same experience. Cat 4 launch of a EA-6B. Didn’t duck fast enough, her cranial rotated 90 degrees, goggles askew. She was a good sport though and laughed it off.

If the deck was wet, you’d get a nice, cool spritzing of JP-5 , oil , etc./ s

Another EA-6B incident. Where there were ladders and /or light lockers, a big heavy piece of channel iron was bolted to the scupper to allow a solid surface to make the transistion from the flight deck to the ladder/light locker. Someone had failed to bolt one of those down. EA-6B launched, the jet blast picked up this channel iron, aprox 3 feet long, and chucked it up and over # 4 JBD , it sailed clear over the LSO platform into the sea.

A bit of chatter over the radio about that, lol.

Wow! Can you imagine if that thing had hit someone...it would have killed them!

Talk about things flying free on the flight deck...I had to go up with one of my shipmates and see the Air Boss once. We were flying our planes on at the start of a cruise, they had all landed and tied down, and a Sea King set down near us, so we were being buffeted with rotor wash. This was my first Med deployment, so I was still a somewhat green plane captain...

I used my TL-29 to open an avionics door in the side of the plane, and when it popped open, several large paper manuals about six inches thick in binders that were leaning against the inside of the door flew out as the door opened, landed at my feet, broke open, and filled the turbulent air with reams of paper it was like a snowstorm with 8.5 x 11 snowflakes!

They were being blown everywhere by the rotor wash! I stood there dumbly, not really knowing what to do, but I recalled hearing something loud and angry coming over the 1MC even though what was being said completely didn’t register.

A Chief Yellowshirt came over and yelled in my ear “THE AIR BOSS WANTS TO TALK TO YOU!”

LOL, me and the other guy marched up there and he was pissed. He didn’t attack us, but said loudly “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?”

I explained that someone had lodged the binders in there where I hadn’t expected any binders to be, and they just plopped out unexpectedly. I didn’t hear about it after the fact, so I guess it was one of those “The less said about it the better” things...nobody ever asked why someone put those binders in there, maybe that was normal when flying on board when starting a deployment.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.