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RealA4EPilot

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About RealA4EPilot

  • Birthday 01/19/1942

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    Upper Mojave Desert
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    amature radio, photojournalism/photography, MARS [Military Auxiliary Radio System], sybratic joys
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  1. Hi, Gianky, Yes, it did depend. I can't remember the exact terminology, but there were areas in South Vietnam that were so infested with communist Viet Cong that they were almost free fire zones. The Navy A-4s never were in direct contact with the troops on the ground. The only radio in an A-4E of the time was an AN/ARC-27 which was an AM UHF-VHF radio. I believe troops had a VHF FM radio. The FACs could talk to us and to the troops. I don't recall working with a ground FAC, but I know that the Marines had some FACs with frontline units. There we two different classes of FACs fast movers in something like an F-100F in the high threat areas of South Vietnam, but most FACs were in slower prop aircraft. I do remember one mission off the Independence where we ended up in a stack over a FAC along with a flight of A-6 Intruders from the Indy. We were loaded with either 250lb or 500lb bombs. The FAC was working a tree line next to a stream and calling us in one at a time. All of a sudden he announced that he was taking fire from the other side of the stream and wanted to know if anyone was in position to roll in. The A-4s were all out of position but an A-6 called, the FAC fired a rocket with a white phosphorus warhead where he wanted the bomb and cleared the A-6 in Hot. All four A-6s were loaded with five 2,000lb bombs. When the bomb exploded, the FAC went wild . . . "Holy <profanity>! What was that? Do you have any more?" The Intruder driver told him he had 4 more and each of the three remaining A-6s had five of those bombs. The FAC had each of the A-6s lay down a stik of bombs 50 meters down the tree line from the last bomb impact. A total of 20 tons of bombs tore the trees apart. If the Viet Cong soldier survived, I am confident he was more circumspect about choosing his targets after that. That wasn't the only time on a close air support mission that some Viet Cong soldier had the sky fall on him or her because a FAC was targeted.
  2. Well you might start by cleaning the windows. It's a kinda hard to fly that beastie aboard ship with them thar winders painted over.
  3. Okay the honest, correct, and truthful one word answer to your question is a staunchly firm, "probably." As evasive as that is, it fits because how one would answer the question would depend what time frame you were talking about. Here's what I mean. In 1965, Dixie Station was roughly 100 miles east of Quảng Ngãi, South Vietnam, and Yankee Station was roughly 100 miles west of the DMZ that separated North and South Vietnam. The first day in the combat zone of our second Vietnam Cruise, I walked into the VA-72 ready room, plopped down in a ready room chair, turned my eye to the PLAT TV and could not believe my eyes. The island plat camera was showing the coastal mountains of North Vietnam in the background, and a medium sized fishing junk a couple hundred yards from the carrier. Convinced that what I was seeing was a ruse of some kind, I sprinted to the flight deck to see what was going on. I'll leave it to you make my reaction earthier using appropriate anglo-saxon words where they are needed. As I looked toward North Vietnam I thought "Holy <fecal material>, our captain has <gonads> the size of grape fruit!!!" Sailing this close to the North Vietnamese coast was a visceral announcement to everyone on the ship and those watching from the shoreline that the United States was taking a much more aggressive stance in regards to protecting the growth of democracy in South Vietnam and ensuring freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and the Gulf of Tonkin. Although just a shade over six months before we were flying combat missions off of the Independence, Dixie station had all but disappeared, and two carriers were deep in the Gulf of Tonkin. One operating from noon to midnight, and the other operating from midnight to noon. So as I said above the correct answer to your question depended on what period of history you are asking about. In July 1965 the answer is yes. if you were assigned to Dixie Station you primarily flew air support missions in South Vietnam.
  4. Thanks to Gianky for posting this link to the 1965 Crew's Book of the USS Independence. My copy of the cruisebook must be packed away somewhere beyond my field of view. At the University of Missouri School of Journalism I majored in photojournalism in the style of National Geographic or Life Magazine. As such I put great stock in power of good journalistic images to tell a story. The quality of the images varies widely, but the book as shown online tells a more cohesive story than I remember. While I contributed heavily to a USS Oriskany Crew's Book when I was a member of ship's company, none of the photos in the Indy book are mine. Even though the official U.S. Navy photographs that fill the Indy's book range from poorly composed snapshots to photos worthy of the label as a work of art, I recommend to all hands to thumb digitally through the digital cruisebook. The picture of CTF77 about halfway through the book is a story in itself. We were in the middle of one of the many bombing halts during the Vietnam War. when the call went out to assemble the task force to take some pictures. It was breathtaking to be on the flight deck with all those ships gathered so close together. To be in a diamond formation of four aircraft carriers was remarkable and awe inspiring. One of the ships launched and recovered fixed wing aircraft during the evolution, and my heart goes out to the F-4B driver that boltered and then got waved off as all of the other 400 carrier pilots in the United States 7th Fleet watched in giggling glee thankful they weren't the embarrassed flying goat. You can be sure that no one in his squadron let a day go by without twanging his strings. In a Navy Carrier squadron only the skipper or squadron CO gets to pick his handle. Everyone else's is picked by his squadron mates, and I absolutely will not tell you what mine was. I suspect that that poor F-4 driver's call was changed to GOAT that very day.
  5. You Betch'em Red Ryder that be it, and I can confirm that apartheid reached out to all 4,000+ sailors and officers and smacked us right across the chops. When we reached the Cape of Good Hope we didn't stop for a week long visit. The restrictions they placed on our black sailors nixed our port call.
  6. USAF vs USAF – A VA-72 Sea Story NOTE concerning AN/APR-23: The way the APR23 is described by links dredged up by a Google search as well as the references in the A-4E/F NATOPS manual do not align with what I remember. Considering it was almost 60 years ago when I flew with this gear, I may have the nomenclature wrong. What I remember was a radar receiver that fit where the in the nose where the radar was mounted and used the APG-53 CRT to display radar that it heard. Lobes were displayed on the APG-53 display with the length of the lobe indicating relative signal strength and the direction of emitting radar. The Navy did not have the funding necessary for every scooter squadron to have the same capabilities. For example, the A-4 could carry sidewinder but with sidewinder equipped F-4 squadrons in the air wing The only time A-4s filled the fleet air defense role was when the weather was too rough for the phantoms, but not for the scooters. Since strapping AIM9s on A-4s was so infrequent only one A-4 squadron per air wing was modified for the sidewinder. Similarly, only one of the scooter squadrons was modified to carry the AN/APR-23. That’s an overly longwinded way of saying that other than AFCs that affected basic safety and airworthiness, just because an AFC was issued doesn’t mean that every A-4 was modified. I pulled the story that follows out of the dusty corners of my memory. The story’s protagonist passed more than a decade ago so I cannot get his help in burnishing up some 57-year-old memories. As the details flowed from the corners of my mind to the tips of my typing fingers they flowed faster and faster, almost faster than I could type. Experience tells me I was remembering not creating. FWIW, VA-72 was my first squadron. The VA-72 Blue Hawks were the AN/APR-23 squadron in Carrier Air Group SEVEN, and the Sidewinders of VA-86, we derisively called them the “Snakes,” carried the AIM9 when necessary. Therein lies a story of a standoff between an AN/APR-23 wielding U.S. Air Force captain and indirectly a 3-star Air Force general. Some additional background will help you understand what happened and why. On the surface, the disagreement or conflict was over tactics or how the mission would be flown. During the Vietnam War, the nature in of command and control of Navy combat units and nature of command and control of Air Force combat units diverged rather strongly. The Navy provided the tools and intelligence necessary to plan and execute strikes against JCS designated targets. The guys flying the aircraft and the ship’s organic intelligence and weaponeering assets helped the strike planners create the mission plan. The Air Force model was significantly more centralized with the route plan, run-in headings, altitudes, weapons delivery profiles, etc. stipulated in a detailed strike plan created by PACAF assets in Hawaii and sent to operational units in the Vietnam area. Little if any room for initiative was left to the units assigned to those units designated to carry out the strike. As the Vietnam War matured, local, on scene Air Force commanders began to carve out a bigger role in mission planning and execution. The abject failure of the remote planning model is central to the story of an APR-23 standoff introduced above. The Air Force reacted to the increasing threat to Air Force and Navy pilots and aircraft by the Soviet supplied SA-2 surface to air missile system by planning and executing a strike on a missile site. Initially the mission was regarded as a resounding success. A follow-on photo reconnaissance mission showed that the Air Force strike was made on a dummy or decoy SAM site. The first successful destruction of a North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile site was led by the executive officer of my squadron the VA-72 Blue Hawks. The Air Force wanted to regain face by conducting a successful attack on a SAM site, and they asked for Navy assistance with planning and executing that strike. VA-72 was tasked with providing that assistance because we could home on the SA-2's Fansong radar with the AN/APR23. The decision of who to send to guide an Air Force strike to a radiating SA-2 missile site was ironic and almost poetically comical, and went something like this: “Hmm . . . who should we send? Hmm . . . It’s an Air Force Mission, why don’t we send our Air Force pilot?” For years there has been an active and strong exchange program between the services. Selected Navy pilots spend a tour flying Air Force missions and aircraft, and selected Air Force pilots spend a tour flying Navy missions and aircraft. Joe spent about a day huddled with the ship and air wing doing pre-strike mission planning. When he climbed out of his Skyhawk at the staging point for the strike, he was ushered into a pre-strike briefing. It was a PACAF production that Joe said would have cost the lives of half the aircrews. He listened the brief and when asked to comment, told them not only that’s not how the mission was going to be run but also, as he unfurled his maps, why it wasn't going to be flown that way. By the time he had briefed his profile he had bird colonels yelling at him that he was a pilot in the U.S. Air Force and would damn well follow the USAF mission plan. The Air Farce did not take kindly his proclamation that since he was attached to the United States Navy he answered to the U.S. Navy not the U.S. Air Force, and if they wanted the Navy’s help in the form of leading the strike group to an active SA-2 missile site, they would follow his strike plan. Otherwise, he would “get an overhead time from the ship and fly back to the Gulf of Tonkin where he would be safe from fools and idiots posing as knowledgeable U.S. Air Force strike planners,” a pronouncement that was not well received by the United States Air Force members at the brief. Joe finally ruled the day, but the mission never found a live SAM site within the strike group’s combat radius. How much impact Joe’s intransigence had on the USAF’s decision to move strike planning from the rear to where the war was being prosecuted was never determined. But the fact that no one was shot down following Joe’s strike plan after planers had predicted a 15 to 20 percent loss rate must have fermented some evolutional and maybe revolutionary thinking.
  7. I debated with myself about posting what follows. First because of the thinly camoflauged "f--cking" vulgarity, and second because it might be mistaken as chest thumping or drum beating. I finally decided to post this in the belief that you will gain not only a better feeling for the camaraderie that exists in a fleet squadron tasked with daily combat operations in the most formidable anti-air defensive environment in the history of aerial combat, but also learn a bit more about the character and integrity of the typical A-4E combat pilot during the Vietnam War. * * * * * * * “Luckiest F--cking Guys in the World” Ironically, my first squadron, the VA-72 Bluehawks, was the first attack squadron equipped with A4D-1 or A-4A aircraft. The first squadron for every naval aviator occupies a special place in his or her memory, but few first squadrons were as remarkable as the collection of aviators in VA-72 in 1965 and 1966, especially the CO and XO (commanding and executive officers). During the first two years I spent in the squadron, the COs and XOs were such exceptional leaders that 50 after we flew together in Vietnam the cohesive, close-knit team they built was still holding periodic reunions. Until my spouse’s 15-year decline to the end of life in November 2021, I looked forward to and attended every Bluehawk reunion of the pilots who flew together through the skies of North Vietnam in 1965, and 1966. During the last reunion in Fort Worth, I was sitting enjoying an adult beverage or three with a squadron mate who joined the Bluehawks between the 1965 and 1966 cruises when Ed’s comment broke through my momentary reverie. “You know we were the luckiest f--king guys in the world.” My body reacted physically and I did an uncontrolled double take. We were lucky to be shot at with thousands of rounds of small arms fire, exploding anti-aircraft rounds or flak, and surface to air missiles? Lucky to watch our fellow pilots shot out of the sky and killed or captured? Lucky that we were tasked with achieving vast goals with the half vast wartime leadership emanating from the Oval Office or the Department of Defense? I didn’t think so and I objected to that premise. Ed went on to explain that in the mismanaged fiasco that was the war in Vietnam, our oath to defend the constitution and obey the order of the officers appointed over us gave us no option but to follow the strategically flawed decisions made in the senior most levels of our government. Yet within the panoply of possibilities that was the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet, we flew perhaps the finest tactical aircraft ever produced (it was certainly the most fun to fly), we were led by arguably the finest squadron skippers in the U.S. Navy at that time, and we couldn’t have hand-picked a better bunch of guys to fly with. While I demurred at that time, Ed was spot on, but I did not arrive at that conclusion either quickly or without considerable soul searching. Ultimately, simple mathematics convinced me he was right. We were the luckiest f—king guys in the world. During the Vietnam War the Navy fielded 15 carrier strike groups with two deployed with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean and three deployed with U.S. 7th Fleet to the western Pacific. Each carrier air wing had between 80 and 100 pilots distributed between four to five squadrons, two of which were A-4C or A-4E squadrons each with 14 aircraft and 19 to 20 pilots. Simple math shows that out of the 7,000 or so naval aviators on active duty at any one time during the Vietnam War that only 285 to 300 were flying A-4C or A-4E aircraft with front line units. Put a different way, only 4% of the active duty billets available for pilots were in front line units flying A-4s that deploy on aircraft carriers. Inclusion in the 4% was and remains an elitist percentage. Even if the only metric by which to evaluate Ed’s pronouncement is the opportunity to fly one of the most iconic aircraft performing the mission for which it was designed and for which you were trained, the numbers show that Ed was correct. We were the luckiest f—king guys in the world.
  8. Well, I looked in my record for the letter from VA-44 at NAS Cecil that acknowledges that I was a qualified A-4 delivery pilot, but I couldn't find it. The only quick response to whoever doesn't believe that I flew A-4s are the ribbons I wore on my left breast uniform coat from 1966 until I retired from the reserves in the 1990s. The awards from left to right, top to bottom are: Distinguished Flying Cross, 12 Air Medals, 3 Navy commendation medals with combat V Navy Unit Commendation, Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation, National Defense Medal Vietnam Service Medal, Vietnam Cross of Gallantry, Vietnam Campaign Medal Almost anyone who made two cruises flying A-4E aircraft with CTF77 would have a similar collections of ribbons and medals. Two of my VA-72 squadron mates were awarded Silver Stars, and our huey rotorhead pilot in VX-5 was awarded a Navy Cross for his actions in Vietnam. The Navy Cross is awarded for combat heroism, and sits just below the Medal of Honor in precedence.
  9. J'ai enfin lu tous les messages sur les forums A-4E_C DCS Community qui ont débuté le 28 août 2016.
  10. How to Fly the Ball – Part 2 I have worked myself through previous posts to MagicSlave's 2021 post about flying the ball. I sent him or her a private message and after reading what I wrote, I thought it probably deserved wider distribution because it addressed issues that might help others make arrested landings on a digital aircraft carrier. MagicSlave: 03 MAR 2021 Does anybody have any good tips on “flying the ball” in the A-4? Yes, read my recent posts on flying the ball. I’m really struggling on keeping her attitude / descent rate under control and making controlled corrections. Please tell me what actual flight experience, if any, you have. Do you have an instrument- rating? Do the following: 1. Configure the aircraft at maximum gross landing weight 14,500 lbs 2. Practice precisely controlled climbs, descents and level standard rate and half standard rate turns in the landing configuration, i.e., gear down, flaps down, hook down. 3. Determine and record engine power settings (fuel flow, rpm, EPR) for these flight conditions: a. Level flight at optimum angle of attack.: i. Straight and level flight. ii. 25 to 30 degree angle of bank turn. iii. Standard rate turn. iv. Half standard rate turn. b. Descending flight at optimum angle of attack. i. Stable decent straight ahead at 500 fpm (feet per minute) ii. Stable decent straight ahead at 600 fpm (feet per minute) iii. Stable decent straight ahead at 700 fpm (feet per minute) iv. Stable decent in a standard rate turn at 500 fpm (feet per minute) v. Stable decent in a standard rate turn at 600 fpm (feet per minute) vi. Stable decent in a standard rate turn at 700 fpm (feet per minute) There is a good bit of lag in the engine response to throttle changes, so it feels like it is easy to overcorrect and end up with the nose pitching up / down more than you intended. Then on the other hand it seems kinda responsive around the “sweet spot” throttle setting for on-speed and desired descent rate, where you are able to make small adjustment and get the jet respond quite quickly. If you do not have the speedbrakes extended, extend them in the landing pattern and don’t retract them unless you miss the wires and bolter. If that happens, don’t forget to extend them when you are established downwind. Extending the speedbrakes keeps the engine speed up which reduces the time it takes the engine to react to When you talk about the “sweet spot” it sounds like you are not keeping the aircraft in trim. There’s an old saw that the way a scooter driver knew he had a control or balance problem was that he ran out of trim. If a naval aviator is hand flying the aircraft, i.e., not using the autopilot, the trim switch is going constantly. One of the things that should be obvious but may not have dawned on many of the digital A-4E drivers is that in a landing approach changing the power setting will require a trim change. Likewise, a change in pitch will require a power change. So sometimes I feel like the key to success is to anticipate: if I'm sinking too fast, get the power on for 1-2 seconds then throttle back down to "the sweet spot". If I'm too high, then get the power off for 1-2 seconds and then back to sweet spot. Then at other times it seems that what ever I do, is too much or too late and the pitch just gets out of control. Then again other times it feels like it is a matter of finding the sweet spot on the throttle and then making just small adjustments. So I am kind of struggling in my head with what would be the "correct" mindset for this? Despite the relative violence of an arrested landing, flying an approach to the carrier is an exercise of precision flying with small, measured power changes and flight control inputs. Your description above gives me the feeling you are making power changes and control movements that are excessively large. It also sounds as if your digital aircraft is not properly trimmed during the approach. I don’t know what your throttle is or how you are using it, but early in training as a naval aviator, the SNAs [student naval aviators] learn that they need to reference their throttle movements against an immovable part of the aircraft and pivot the hand around the left little finger anchored on the left wall of the cockpit. If you look at the YouTube video A-4E Skyhawk: Cockpit Tour Tutorial | DCS WORLD, pay close attention to the left console especially when the throttle is moved. Notice how close the light switch on the left side of the throttle is to the left cockpit wall. If you slide your hand to the left, it’s a simple matter to anchor your hand to the cockpit wall. Now that’s in the real aircraft, but what the hell do you do when your cockpit is your wife’s card table? Regardless of what your Thrustmaster or whatever throttle is sitting next to you, you need to secure it so it will not move around. If you bolt the throttles to a hunk of ¾-inch plywood you can clamp that to a table or whatever. I’ll leave to you, but you need to add something to your hunk of plywood you can use to anchor your left pinky. To keep from over controlling the nose or roll of the aircraft, you need to practically immobilize the right arm. The way I do that is to lock right arm to my right leg or knee and just use the muscles in my wrist and fingers to fly the aircraft. What surprises me is how easily she seems to float with throttle “off”. One would think that with those delta wings it would fall of the sky pretty easily with the power down – or is it just the engine lag and me overcompensating a too high descent rate with too much power and then trying to power off too late? I recently read this article, and I would agree that the A-4 in the mod also feels like it stays pretty well on the yellow doughnut once trimmed on-speed, as long as you don’t end up needing too large throttle adjustments: “One of the beauties of the TA-4 was that in the approach environment, it flew exactly like what you were taught to think a navy jet should fly like. Attitude controlled airspeed and power controlled rate of descent. So once you got it trimmed in pitch, it pretty much maintained that speed. If you started to see a change in glideslope from the meatball, you simply made the appropriate power correction to return to a centered ball. I loved flying it, and the way that it flew. “ (https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/9599/a-tomcat-pilots-early-struggles-to-tame-the-mighty-f-14) I really would love to get the hang of these "appropriate power corrections" and just return to a centered ball! So any words of wisdom? What is your tactic with ball flying in A-4? Let’s call this a few final words of wisdom. Steady state flying is nothing more and nothing less than constant error correction. If you invert that bit of wisdom you end up with something like this: “If you are not constantly making corrections, you are a passenger in an airplane, not the pilot of the airplane.”
  11. Hi, Gianky, Where the confusion may be is in partial descriptions and a lack of understanding of the geometry or appreciation the mechanics of the turn to final and the final approach. l strongly recommend that in addition to downloading the A-4E/F NATOPS manual that digital scooter drivers also download the CV and LSO [landing signal officer] NATOPS manuals. Chapter 4 in the LSO NATOPS is worth a bit of study. There are two parameters that are important, the vertical and horizontal widths of the plane of light of a centered ball. If you read chapter 4 in depth you will learn there is not a single beam. In this discussion of approach altitudes, fig. 4-3 in the LSO NATOPS manual is instructive. It shows the horizontal width of the light plane created by the Fresnel lens system is 40 degrees. If you superimpose the vertex of a 40-degree angle on the point where the Fresnel lens is installed and line up the arms so that an extended bisector parallels the centerline of the angled deck you see a couple of things. You will be able to see the ball before you cross the wake of the carrier in your turn to final. You still have a bit of a way to go from the point that you can see the ball until you are wings level on final. The point that you are wings level on final approach is roughly ¾ of a mile from touchdown on the carrier and with 30 knots of wind down the angled deck that will take 27.6 seconds to fly if you’ve kept the ball centered between the datum lights, your altitude should be roughly 350 ft ASL and 27.6 seconds of descent from 350 ft ASL at a nominal 600 fpm rate of descent the aircraft would be at the height of the flight deck of an average nuclear powered aircraft carrier. I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut that the source of the 300-foot altitude is an otherwise silent former A-4 pilot who remembered that he was 300 to 350 when he rolled wings level in the groove and called the ball. Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?!?!? Bob
  12. Carrier Operation with the A-4E Most of the topics that follow address the skills, procedures, equipment, etc. that are associated landing on the carrier or operations around the ship. Those that aren’t associated flying around the carrier were included either because of comments, questions, incorrect information, or “Well I’ll be Damneds” or "Ain't that interesting." NATOPS CV Landing Pattern Conflict canned_fire: 06 NOV 2018 In preparation/anticipation I was reading the A-4 NATOPS. My understanding is that it says you should maintain 600 ft through the 90 up until intercepting the glide slope still at 600 ft (carrier landing). I am correct? If so why the difference to the F-18 which (my understanding) you should intercept the glides slope at around 300 ft. Does anybody know why the difference? What explains it? Old technology? no Hud? Back in the 70s that how it was? Any clues? The simple answer should be “comply with pg 3-25 of the 15 NOV 1968 A-4E/F NATOPS manual the carrier operations section.” However, I believe the diagram on pg 3-25 is flawed because it does not show an altitude check point at the 90. RELEVANT HISTORICAL INFORMATION: I went through the process of carrier qualification in four different aircraft, two in the training command before I got my wings, and two in the fleet. While the briefs were tailored to the specific aircraft, all of them described the profile from the 180 until you were wings level on final flying the ball the same way. Basically, each of those briefs described the approach turn as a descending turn at 25 to 30 degrees angle of bank that starts from 600 ft at the 180 in straight and level flight at optimum angle of attack in landing configuration, gear down, flaps down, hook down. The check point at 90 degrees of turn was a 450 ft altitude ASL [above sea level] at optimum angle of attack. The turn continued from the 90 level at 450 ft at the optimum angle of attack and the angle of bank was adjusted to line up the aircraft on the extended centerline of the angled deck. Descent from 450 feet commenced when the meatball was centered between the horizontal green datum lights. CONCLUSION: The difference between the graphic in the A-4E/F NATOPS and the F/A-18 NATOPS graphic should not exist. With the single exception that an F/A-18 would be depicted in one graphic and an A-4 would be depicted in the other, the A-4E/F graphic should be identical to the F/A-18 graphic. HYPOTHESIS: The incongruity of the A-4E/F NATOPS and the F/A-18 NATOPS graphics describing the same thing was due to human error or inattention to detail. While the passage of time would make proving the hypothesis exceedingly difficult, any interested party could pursue an evidential proof by seeking out input from willing participants in the dwindling population of A-4 pilots who regularly flew the scooter from the decks of aircraft carriers to determine if the approach turn described above was how they flew the aircraft from the 180 to the point they were established on centerline, on glidepath, and on speed, i.e., it was a descending turn from the 180° Gunsight to Land on Carrier? No! No! No! ruprecht: 04 JUL 2020 Rudel_chw said: Ohjust tought that it was only me having difficulty with the carrier recovery ... maybe it is harder than other aircrafts because of the SFM? It can be tricky, but if you can get the pattern as accurate as possible, it really helps with the landing. APC helps a lot if you're not using it, and a 75mil sight depression gives you a good aiming reference all the way around - top of the 50mil circle on upwind, dead centre horizon on downwind, put the caret on the crotch in the groove and walk it to the centreline abeam the IFLOLS for a 3 wire. The way the gunsight is implemented in the A-4E DCS digital aircraft, when it is turned up as it would be for weapons delivery it interferes with the pilot’s view of the meatball and datum lights. For case I operations, there three references for landing on a carrier and nothing else: 1. Centerline of angled deck 2. Fresnel lens glidepath system (meatball and datum lights) 3. Angle of attack APC or Autothrottles The first time I engaged the autothrottles I did so with a little trepidation because I didn’t know what to expect. I was absolutely blown away by how closely the APC system mimicked my impulses to change the throttle position. Almost before I could add or reduce power, the autothrottles made the precise power correction that I knew was needed. A couple of years later when I had a couple hundred arrested carrier landings in the A-7, I did not have the same sympatico relationship with the autothrottles in the A-7, a situation or condition that has always mystified me because landing grade wise, I was as proficient in the A-7 Corsair II as I was in the A-4 Skyhawk. I guess this is a cautionary tale that an APC or autothrottles is not a panacea. While the power settings and adjustments directed by the A-4F autothrottles were never a surprise or excessive, the A-7s APC system’s reaction to changes in aircraft attitude or pilot inputs to the elevator appeared to be untimely, excessively large, and frequent inappropriate. Angle of Attack Indexer Display and Function The October 2016 A-4E DCS Community update by archimaede contains a description of how the angle of attack indexer is used that needs both correction and amplification. The description in archimaede’s update belies both how the angle of attack indexer functions and how it is used in a stabilized approach to an arrested landing on an aircraft carrier. First, the angle of attack gauge and indexer show nothing about an aircraft’s position on an extended glidepath. The angle of attack equipment shows one thing and one thing only, the instantaneous angle between flow of air and a defined reference to the wing usually something easily measured like the straight chord line of the wing. It should be intuitively obvious that if the aircraft is on glidepath and on centerline it also indicates whether the attitude of the aircraft is either nose high, nose low, or properly aligned for an arrested landing. If an aircraft is flying a stabilized 4-degree glideslope, i.e., stabilized on the glideslope, and the airspeed is stable, a green nose high or slow indexer chevron tells the pilot that he/she needs to add power and speed up to the point that the aircraft is stabilized on the glidepath at the optimum angle of attack. The converse is true if the red or fast chevron is on. The pilot needs to reduce power and raise the nose and stabilize on the glidepath at the optimum angle of attack which for an A-4E is 17.5 units. Yes, angle of attack is an angular measurement of the relative wind in relation to the wing, but units should not be confused with degrees. Landings “Ruled by” G-Forces & Geometry Aircraft and arresting gear limitations and aircraft performance characteristics and geometry define the envelope for a successful approach and arrestment. If an aircraft is on speed (yellow circle lighted in the AOA indexer), on glidepath (meatball in the center of the green horizontal datum lights), on centerline, and the deck isn’t rolling, pitching, or heaving excessively, the hook will contact the deck between the 2 and 3 wire every time. If the pilot drops the nose, he also raises the tail of the aircraft, and the hook may hit the deck between the 3 and the 4 wire. You cannot escape either the geometry of the approach or the physics of flight. In the air all roll, yaw, and pitching moments roll, pitch, or yaw the aircraft around its center of gravity whether those moments are from control inputs or wind gusts. Flying the Meatball While the information that follows should be obvious, my real world experience tells me it bears repeating. There are only three states that will exist when you first see the ball: 1. meatball even with datum lights – aircraft on glidepath – reduce power to stay on glidepath 2. meatball above datum lights – aircraft above glidepath – reduce power to fly down to glidepath then adjust power to stay on glide path 3. meatball below datum lights – add power and maintain the optimum angle of attack and continue turn – when ball is in the center, reduce power and fly the glide slope – when the ball is in the center adjust as needed to stay on glidepath. I don’t have a copy of the F-18 NATOPS, but I cannot imagine why it would say that 300 feet is where you should intercept the glide path. At 300 feet the aircraft is about 20 seconds from touching down on the carrier. From time to time I purposely adjusted my abeam position and approach turn so I only had 10-15 seconds wings level in the grove before I trapped because the ship was running out of sea room or my flight was late in getting back to the ship, but that sort of approach is a dommy-dommy-no-no, though I did get an OK3 grade for one of those wrapped up approach turns. While for all intents and purposes the F-18 CV pattern in the NATOPS manual is identical to the A-4E CV pattern on pg 3-25 of the A-4E/F NATOPS manual. The real difficulty here is translating a generic statement like, “maintain 600 feet until you are on the glideslope” to specific altitudes in the track over the sea because where you intercept the glide slope is not a single consistent point in xyz space because the approach pattern is dynamic. The ship is moving through the water and it’s likely that the wind over the deck varies. The norm on a carrier is for the bridge watch team to maneuver the ship so for recovery operations the wind is straight down the centerline of the angled deck at 30 knots. If the wind down the deck higher, it should be obvious that the aircraft will be further from the ship when the pilot rolls wings level in the groove. Conversely, the aircraft will be closer to the ship if the wind over the deck is less that 30 knots. The pattern around the ship is designed to give the pilot sufficient time to stabilize his aircraft on glideslope, on speed, and on centerline far enough out that he can fly a stabilized approach all the way down to touchdown. The 450 ft to 600 ft altitude at optimum AOA halfway through the approach turn allows this to happen if the pilot starts flying the glide slope as soon as she can during the final part of the approach turn. Corrections in Sets of 3(+), 1 = at Least 2 More Flying has been vicariously described as hours and hours of boredom interrupted by moments of stark terror, but while there is an element of truth in that statement (especially in night carrier aviation), a more accurate description is that flying consists of a never ending series of actions to correct deviations from the desired speed, altitude, and heading that begin when you start taxiing out for takeoff and continue until the engines are shut down at the destination. Much like driving a car, those corrections become semi-automatic. That is you do them without giving any serious thought to what you are doing. An interesting fact that is seldom mentioned even in fight training is that every deviation correction you make typically necessitates at least two additional corrections. I don’t know if any serious human factors studies have been made to determine why this is so, but it’s easy to postulate that it’s because of the imprecision of human movement the error of which is probably exacerbated by the fragility of off-the-cuff human judgement of what’s needed to correct a multi-variant problem. The rather obtuse lesson here is if you are not continually making corrections when you are flying digitally, you are more the passenger in an aircraft that’s pointed in a particular direction than you are the pilot of a high speed, delta wing A-4E Skyhawk returning from a critical combat mission. The Approach In the typical carrier approach in day VFR operations, i.e., case I, the pilot begins the approach 1.25 miles abeam the port side of the ship and starts her 25 to 30 degree angle of bank turn toward the extended centerline of the landing area when she is slightly past the middle of the carrier or roughly the beginning of the last 1/3rd of the ship. In the turn, most scooter drivers descended to 450 to 500 feet above the water by 90° turn stabilized at a yellow doughnut on speed indication. When the pilot rolls out of the turn lined up with the extended centerline of the angled deck, she is roughly ¾ of a mile or 25.7 seconds from touchdown at an approach speed of 135 knots with 30 knots of wind over the deck. If the turn was executed correctly, the pilot should see and start flying the ball at some point after the 90° position, and assuming he is on the glidepath, reducing power slightly as she rolls out of the turn, calls the ball with aircraft type and fuel state, and starts down the glideslope if she hasn’t already done so. When the pilot first picks up the ball at ¾ of a mile, he will see a centered ball from 30 feet below the glidepath to 30 feet above the glidepath. The distance above and below the for a centered ball decreases linearly as the distance to touchdown decreases until over ramp or rear end of the ship the tolerance to see a centered ball is plus or minus six inches. These facts should suggest that one should make smaller and smaller or finer corrections the closer the aircraft gets to touchdown. One of the subjects of Gospadin’s Community update January 2017 was the autothrottles or APC system. If memory serves, the A-4F was the first model A-4 out of the factory with autothrottles. By the time I first flew the Foxtrot with VX-5 at NAF China Lake, I had roughly 300 carrier landings in the A-4, i.e., I had the muscle memory for the power changes during the approach to stay on speed and on glidepath. It was second nature. I had talked to scooter drivers who refused to use the APC because it was too sensitive or overly responsive to pitch inputs. The Carrier Approach Chant or Mantra Another “secret” to a successful and safe approach is to remember the carrier approach mantra or chant that goes like this: “Meatball, Lineup, Angle of attack” “Meatball, Lineup, Angle of attack” “Meatball, Lineup, Angle of attack” “Meatball, Lineup, Angle of attack” “Meatball, Lineup” “Meatball, Lineup” “Meatball, Lineup” “Meatball” “Meatball” “Meatball” The scan is “Meatball, Lineup, Angle of attack” from wings level in the groove or final approach until in close, “Meatball, Lineup” until you are at the ramp, and nothing but concentrating on keeping the meatball steady between the datum lights from there until touchdown. If repeating the mantra out loud helps you remember and accomplish it, do it. No one is going to hear you in the aircraft or probably where you have secreted your computer for A-4E DCS sim flights. Spot not the Deck The mantra above is designed to ensure that as someone makes an approach to the carrier, he will give equal attention to each of the variables that affect the quality of an approach to the carrier. Look at it again. The last bit of mantra is to keep your eyes on the meatball and that’s one of the most difficult things to do. When you are landing on a carrier, you know full well that if you slip below the glideslope that you increase the possibility that you will hit the round down or ramp with your aircraft, an event the frequently results in the death or permanent disability of the pilot. At the very time you should be concentrating only on the meatball or glideslope, the rear end of the ship is prominent in your field of view. The ultimate finality of hitting the ramp or flying over the wires for an embarrassing bolter makes it almost impossible to avoid the temptation to look at where you are going to land. Looking at the landing area during the final part of the approach is known as spotting the deck. I can personally attest to the fact that the path to developing a habit of spotting the deck is deceptive and insidious. During carrier qualification, the last phase of training to become an attack pilot flying A-4E aircraft. I did not know I was spotting the deck and apparently neither did the LSOs [landing signals officers] who manned the LSO platform during the recovery of fixed wing aircraft. When I got to my squadron, the air wing LSOs didn’t pick up on it, despite the fact there were plenty of warning signs like excessive bolters, frantic power calls by an LSO and the aircraft touching down on flight deck short of the #1 wire, which is a grievous error that is known as taxiing to the #1 wire. The process of breaking the habit of spotting the deck began for me with a particularly threatening taxi to the #1 wire one night in the Gulf of Tonkin. I landed so close to the ramp that there was a notable pause before the nose wheel thumped over the #1 wire, a second pause before the main gear thumped over the wire and a final shorter delay until the hook engaged the #1 wire. That landing convinced me that if I didn’t make some changes, I was going to kill myself by hitting the ramp. That one landing scared me so badly that the next time I flew at night I boltered six times and tanked twice before I finally trapped. It was the last recovery evolution of the night and the captain of the USS Independence had committed to keep the ship into the wind and keep cycling tankers up to refuel me until I trapped. One of the senior officers in VA-72 who had been an LSO asked me if the moment the hook engages a wire comes as a surprise or if I knew when the hook was going to grab a wire. He went on to say if I was not surprised by the arrestment, I wasn’t looking at the meatball, i.e., I was spotting the deck. He took me under his wing, taught me the approach scan mantra, and put me on a course to become a proficient and much safer carrier aviator. Breaking the deck spotting habit took considerably longer than I expected it would. It was not until the middle of the next deployment when during the final “Meatball, meatball, meatball” section of the approach mantra I did not spot the deck. I kept my eyes on the ball, and the violence of the arrestment scared the crap out of me. I was still trying to keep the ball centered between the datum lights as I was thrown forward in the shoulder harness as the arresting cable brought the aircraft to a stop on the flight deck. The arrestment was such a physical shock that it was almost like one of those moments when someone snaps out of a daze wondering where the hell they are. From that moment on, flying the ball all the way down to arrestment slowly became routine, I seldom boltered, and became routinely one of the top 10 approach and landing graded pilots in whatever air wing with which I was flying. The 2% Burble If you are around a bunch of carrier pilots for an extended period of time, eventually one of them will make a remark about “lifties” and “lurkies.” That’s pilot speak for unexpected, unexplained, or expected but momentarily forgotten increases or decreases in the rate of climbs and descents. The lurky that is most well-known by carrier pilots is the 2% burble behind the ship. Everyone who has taken the time to master the art and science of digital aviation or who got passing grades in their junior high school science classes understands the basics of Bernoulli’s principle and how lift is generated and what causes an airfoil to experience a stall. What is probably less understood is how the air at the trailing edge of the wing behaves. A fat cambered wing like the one scooter has imparts a slight downward vector at the trailing edge to the air that comes across the top of wing. Despite the fact that an aircraft carrier’s flight deck is not a streamlined airfoil, the air that is displaced over the top of the carrier as it drives through the ocean at 30 to 40 knots has a strong downward vector at the ramp as the air over the deck fills the low pressure area created by the stern of the carrier. This is the burble and the 2% refers to the fact that if your aircraft is stable on the glideslope when you fly into the burble area, it will be below the glideslope as you cross the ramp. Every carrier pilot I know routinely squeezed a little power as he got in close to compensate for the burble. How much power was required depended on how much wind was over the deck, what aircraft you were flying, and what the carrier’s speed through the water was. I have yet to take the DCS A-4E to the ship, so I don’t know if the burble is part of the carrier simulation or not. If it is not part of the DCS carrier experience, it needs to be programed in. Without the impact of the burble, carrier landings require far less skill and flying ability than they should. That brings us to a sticky area for discussion, flight simulators or simulated flight. What is the Function of a Flight Simulator? The topic header above is in the same class of question as the almost unanswerable parametric question, “How long is a piece of string,” for which the only reasonable answer is, “It depends” or “It’s variable” or “It’s undefined.” For me, as a professional pilot who spent 37 years in the cockpit flying alternatingly for Uncle Sam’s haze gray seagoing canoe club or Continental Airlines, a flight simulator is a multi-million dollar tool to train pilots to fly a specific model aircraft, nothing more and nothing less. As such, a flight simulator is riveted to the physical aircraft it is designed to simulate. That is, it reacts exactly as the real aircraft would to environment factors like crosswinds, turbulence, etc. and pilot initiated inputs via the flight control and engine inputs. Modern flight simulators are marvels of realism that sit on platforms that have six degrees of freedom of motion that gives the crew an almost scary seat of the pants feedback as to what the aircraft is doing. “Okay,” you say, “but what the hell does that have to do with me ‘flying’ a digital emulation of an A-E Skyhawk?” In a word, PLENTY!!! If the digital emulation is properly implemented, learning to land on a digital aircraft carrier should be as hard for you accomplish as it was for every naval aviator that successfully completed the carrier qualification syllabus and went on to fly the scooter in a fleet squadron. Flying a high speed tactical aircraft on and off of an aircraft carrier is hard to learn, damn hard to do well consistently, and it’s inherently dangerous. Every time you bolter after working your butt off on an approach to USS Big Gray Boat, ask yourself where the ball was you touched down. If you can’t answer that question, you weren’t flying the ball so you have no reason to expect you will trap on deck. Same is true if the ball was above the datum lights. The key to success is to keep the ball in the center, stay lined up, and stay on the optimum angle of attack. Red Yellow Green Brown Blue White & Purple The above colors are the flight deck and hangar deck rainbow. Each color roughly identifies what the wearer does on the flight or hangar deck. Red – Squadron Ordies (ordnancemen) or Ship’s company fire fighters. Yellow – Ship’s Company aircraft taxi directors. Green – Squadron maintenance or ship’s catapult and arresting gear operators. Brown – Squadron plane captains. Blue – “plane pushers.” White – medical, safety, or quality assurance. Purple – Ship’s aviation fuel system operators. Everyone called them “grapes.” The last colorful comment is a “Well I’ll be damned“ or if you prefer a “Trivia on a stick” comment. I hope the comments above help reduce the number of collapsed hose gears as well as making the task of landing aboard ship more fun and realistic. It's an old saw amoung carrier pilots that the most fun you can have with your pants on is a toss-up between a max gross cat shot and running the deck on a sunny day. FWIW, running the deck is: cat shot --> trap cat shot --> trap cat shot --> trap cat shot --> trap as fast and as many times as you can. A max gross cat shot on a small 27C like the Oriskany accelerated the scooter from 0 airspeed to 176KIAS in 211 feet. Relative to the ship that's 146 knots or 168 miles per hour. No matter what you say about that 211-foot trip, it will be an understatement. May 2022 be a year of fair winds and a following sea for all of you.
  13. If it's VA-212 on the USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31) the book must have been Stephen R. Gray's documentary book Rampant Raider which is the story of his path to becoming a naval aviator and his experiences as squadron pilot with the Rampant Raiders of VA-212. I bought the book, but I'll never finish it it because it did not resonate with me. The parts I read matched my own experiences, but the prose was too flat. It lacked both the sparkle of good story telling and the drive that sweep the reader toward a destination. U.S. Navy carrier based aviation was at the same time well and poorly prepared for extended combat operations when the Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred on 02 AUG 1964. The attack pilots were highly proficient at day and night carrier operations and delivery of both conventional and special weapons. However, they were ill prepared to fight and survive in the skies of North Vietnam. Their tactics for ingress, egress, and delivery kept them in the center of the most dangerous spot in the North Vietnamese air defenses. The initial loss rates were staggering. As real time ballistics were factored into mission planning and execution, aircraft began to fly at higher altitudes, pilots began to drop bombs at higher altitudes, and the loss rate decreased. When I joined my first squadron. we flew 7,000 ft to 11,000 ft ASL, dropped our bombs in a 60° dive releasing the bombs at 7,000 ft. The second cruise we flew between 7,000 ft and 9,000 ft and released our bombs at 5,000 ft. in a 45° dive. New Subject Specifics of the case 1, day VFR pattern around the ship has been a topic of intense scrutiny and discussion on every iteration of the A-4E DCS forum. Perhaps it is time to discuss some of the finer points of carrier operations flying an A-4E especially approaches and landings.
  14. Reading through the second forum thread I came across the two items below. The first is to correct a word choice. The second, while considerably more esoteric. is critical to survival as a tactical combat pilot. Chocks NOT Chokes The devices that one puts in front and behind aircraft wheels to keep an aircraft from rolling away are chocks, not chokes. Real Time Ballistics & Why Level Bombing? I suspect that no one on this forum has ever heard of real time ballistics, much less knowing what it is or why it is important. Real time ballistics can be defined as the study of, science of, or the solution to aiming a gun so the projectile will hit a moving target like an A-4E trucking along at 7,000 feet AGL and 350KIAS. What’s important to know as a pilot is the flight time of the projectile to various altitudes. As an attack pilot, the last thing you want to do when flying over enemy territory is to fly in a manner that makes it easier for the anti-aircraft gunners to shoot you down. At its most rudimentary level, the importance of real time ballistics is the immutable truth that the closer you are to the gun the shorter the time of flight is from the muzzle to the aircraft, a situation that reduces to second but equally important immutable truth. The closer you are to the muzzle of the anti-aircraft cannon, the more likely it is that you will be shot down. Obviously, you want to stay as far away from the muzzle as you can. Equally obvious is that you want to fly in a manner that will complicate the problem of where to aim the guns. The tactic to achieve this is to not fly straight and level, i.e., jink the aircraft. If the time of flight of a projectile is 7.5 seconds then you need to turn and change altitude every 4 to 5 seconds. When you choose a delivery profile for delivering a stick of bombs you must be mindful of the impact of real time ballistics as well as the inherent accuracy or inaccuracy of the various delivery profiles. The converse of the enemy gunner’s gun aiming problem is your selection of a delivery profile and a release altitude. In its simplest terms the shorter the slant range to the target when you punch the bomb pickle the better the chances are that you will hit the target. The quasi-standard strike delivery profile for a major strike or a road RECCE in Vietnam was a 45-degree dive releasing your bomb(s) at 5000AGL [above ground level] and 450KTAS. A 30-degree dive releasing at 3000 feet would give you a better chance of hitting the target, but your chances of being shot down would be exponentially higher because you were closer to the ground and closer to the muzzle, real time ballistics at work. Level bombing using a depressible gunsight to drop Mk 80 series bombs is not a good tactic because that delivery technique is not conducive to either tight CEPs or accuracy. Why? Small pitch errors or deviations result in large impact errors. When you choose a particular delivery tactic or profile there are a host of factors to consider. For example: · What is the enemy’s anti-air order of battle, i.e., anti-aircraft guns, surface to air missiles, fighter/interceptor aircraft, electronic warfare assets, etc., i.e., what’s the biggest threat to you and your aircraft enroute to the target, in the target area, and egressing from the target? What level of damage is required for the target the be considered as destroyed or damaged to the point that additional strikes are not required? · What do the tactical manuals and weaponeering pubs recommend as the preferred delivery profile? · Etc., etc., etc.
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