Climbing in the stack

[Vox]

Hi everyone, I am wondering something about altitude movements in the marshall stack (during case one).

 

It is recognized that descents are to be done between points 3 and 1, and climbings between point 1 and 3.

 

My question is: what circumstances could induce climbing in the stack?

 

Thank you for any help 

[Hoirtel]

New aircraft joining with lower fuel state I think. Or other types that need different groove time.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Hoirtel

[Slant]

3 hours ago, Vox said:

Hi everyone, I am wondering something about altitude movements in the marshall stack (during case one).

 

It is recognized that descents are to be done between points 3 and 1, and climbings between point 1 and 3.

 

My question is: what circumstances could induce climbing in the stack?

 

Thank you for any help 

 

Launches, spinning and bolters immediately jump to mind. When you're trick or treating at 1500 feet as well. I've not heard of the actual stack itself climbing. It's all preplanned and if there's a fuel issue, they can always trick or treat. The groove time is fixed, because the big metronome of the CASE I procedure doesn't slow down or speed up for different types of aircraft.

[Nealius]

Trick or treat?

[Jenson]

I have the same question too. 

 

Thanks Vox. 

[Vox]

Thank you very much for your answers.

 

My question is about the stack itself and is based on this figure which, as you will agree, suggests that it may be necessary to climb to the upper level in the stack.

This figure comes from the CNATRA P-816 (CV procedure T-45), maybe it only concerns a procedure used during qualification ?

 

[Cab]

On 7/22/2021 at 7:54 PM, Nealius said:

Trick or treat?

I think that means tanking. 

[Nealius]

I thought the recovery tanker was at 9,000ft? 

 

Which might actually be an instance of where one might be climbing in the Marshal stack. If a bird bolters and needs the tanker, do they ignore the Marshal stack and climb direct to the tanker?

[Cab]

I believe if a jet has had enough passes that he (or she, sorry) will likely need more gas to proceed, they will have the tanker nearby to pass fuel as soon as possible.

 

One of the carrier pilots or fleet sailors on this forum can confirm or correct that. Full discloser, I saw the term "trick or treat" on the the video below at the 6:35 mark.

 

 

[Slant]

On 7/23/2021 at 2:54 AM, Nealius said:

Trick or treat?

 

Sorry, trick or treat is a term for tanking if you're in the pattern and run out of gas. These days it's a Super Hornet but back when it used to be an KA-6 or something flying the marshall at 1500 feet and if you run out of gas you'd climb up to 1500 feet, meet with the tanker and get enough gas for 1-2 more attempts.

[Slant]

On 7/24/2021 at 12:45 PM, Nealius said:

I thought the recovery tanker was at 9,000ft? 

 

Which might actually be an instance of where one might be climbing in the Marshal stack. If a bird bolters and needs the tanker, do they ignore the Marshal stack and climb direct to the tanker?

 

The tanker flies at 1500 feet. You do not climb up to angels 9 through the marshal stack. If you need to take big gas, you're sent away from the marshal stack and meet up with a big boy tanker somewhere completely different. The tanker under the marshal stack is just meant to give you enough gas for 1-2 more attempts.

 

From what I hear it's actually quite the challenging job. If you run out of gas, the tanker's supposed to time his circle so he'll be right in front of you when you bolter, so all you need to do is climb up and plug in. Very interesting stuff.

 

I'm gonna call it now so you can put it to rest: I don't think there's any reason for anyone to climb through the marshal stack. Especially not from the pattern up to angels 9 just to get gas. Bar any input from actual navy pilots on here, I'll say the "climb" side of the pattern refers to bolters, launches and the likes, not people climbing randomly through the marshal pattern where people are expecting you to only go down.

Edited July 27, 2021 by Slant

[Nealius]

What about high/low holding? I understand that's an orbit over the ship just like CASE I Marshal. If I understand correctly, depart CASE I 7nm (intercept 10nm arc?) then go into holding. If holding at 22,000ft or something like that, I guess they would need to use the ascending side of the pattern to get up there unless they plugged burner and went high angle between 10nm arc and the 5nm pattern. 

[Slant]

6 minutes ago, Nealius said:

What about high/low holding? I understand that's an orbit over the ship just like CASE I Marshal. If I understand correctly, depart CASE I 7nm (intercept 10nm arc?) then go into holding. If holding at 22,000ft or something like that, I guess they would need to use the ascending side of the pattern to get up there unless they plugged burner and went high angle between 10nm arc and the 5nm pattern. 

 

I am not familiar with high/low holding, it's a thing I've only heard recently somewhere. A lot of these things are often not talked about in NATOPS and may be squadron/airwing SOP. Unfortunately, we typically do not have squadron/airwing SOPs on the internet, most likely because nobody would have considered them interesting enough for nerds like us in flight simulation to keep them or make them public.

 

My current understanding, however, suggests that if you want to "meet up" somewhere, you'd take off, do the 7NM departure and then hold at a pre-briefed TACAN fix based on father. It doesn't make much sense to me to have that holding pattern on top of the marshal. You're supposed to fly out 7NM at 500 feet so you don't get in the way of everyone coming in to their marshal stack. You turning around, climbing through all the angels of the marshal to your holding altitude seems unsafe to me.

 

So, I am not sure about this, a lot of this is just me speculating and trying to guesstimate basted on the tone of NATOPS and half-sentences picked up in podcasts or actual navy pilots posting here. And the problem with that is that NATOPS only provides general guidelines that are fleshed out in SOPs and while I'd like to trust pilots in podcasts or wherever, sometimes they can misremember, or refer to a procedure that was specific to their squadron, assume some prior knowledge on our side, or don't tell the entire context of the story so it doesn't actually help us trying to emulate it.

 

That high/low holding pattern you mention, I think I've heard that in a half sentence, but that's all the information we had. Just "high holding over the boat". Yes, well, directly over the boat? Or just somewhere in the 50nm CCA? Where is it? What's it used for? Lots of unsaid things left out.

[Nealius]

48 minutes ago, Slant said:

That high/low holding pattern you mention, I think I've heard that in a half sentence, but that's all the information we had. Just "high holding over the boat". Yes, well, directly over the boat? Or just somewhere in the 50nm CCA? Where is it? What's it used for? Lots of unsaid things left out.

 

I recently heard it on Ward Caroll's channel, when he was talking about wingman rejoins in the Tomcat. They would depart the 10nm arc then go into low or high holding over the boat with the same 5nm pattern as CASE I. Just at a much higher altitude than where the recovering aircraft would be orbiting, I presume. 

[Slant]

55 minutes ago, Nealius said:

 

I recently heard it on Ward Caroll's channel, when he was talking about wingman rejoins in the Tomcat. They would depart the 10nm arc then go into low or high holding over the boat with the same 5nm pattern as CASE I. Just at a much higher altitude than where the recovering aircraft would be orbiting, I presume. 

 

I think I heard it in the same place, so you know as much as I do.

[Pieterras]

@Vox  @Jenson

First of all, forget all of CNATRA when it comes to carrier operation. CNATRA is a T-45 training document not applicable for carrier ops when flying the F/A-18. 

In answer to your question, I see many thoughts above although none of them are correct. 
Climbing in the stack is highly unusual occurrence. I asked the question to some of the real guys and they have never seen it happen. It’s more theoretical than anything, and if it were to happen it would be between points 1 and 3. If this were to happen anywhere, it would be during CQ, and would be Boss directed.

Hope that answers the question

 

[Nealius]

12 hours ago, Pieterras said:

First of all, forget all of CNATRA when it comes to carrier operation. CNATRA is a T-45 training document not applicable for carrier ops when flying the F/A-18. 

 

I guess Hornets don't do CASE I/II/III and Points 1~3 in the CASE I pattern don't exist for them, then. 

12 hours ago, Pieterras said:

it would be between points 1 and 3

 

Wait....they do exist, along with the climbing/descending side. But I thought you said to forget all of CNATRA?

 

Don't push blanket statements which are false. There are some things from CNATRA that are not applicable. Most of it is applicable, otherwise there would be no point in its existence. I assume you could ask the real guys if they completely ignore everything that was in CNATRA as well. I'll eat a sock if they say they don't do anything that was trained in CNATRA.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Nealius

[Slant]

4 hours ago, Nealius said:

 

I guess Hornets don't do CASE I/II/III and Points 1~3 in the CASE I pattern don't exist for them, then. 

 

Wait....they do exist, along with the climbing/descending side. But I thought you said to forget all of CNATRA?

 

Don't push blanket statements which are false. There are some things from CNATRA that are not applicable. Most of it is applicable, otherwise there would be no point in its existence. I assume you could ask the real guys if they completely ignore everything that was in CNATRA as well. I'll eat a sock if they say they don't do anything that was trained in CNATRA.

 

 

CNATRA is an document serving the information, standardisation and guidance for instructors and student aviators within Naval Air Training Command. It is tailored to supplement the T-45C Advanced Strike Training Curriculum. If you are in the squadron and all, your document is NATOPS. And at that point, CNATRA means nothing to you. Your Airwing/Squadron SOPs and NATOPS is where you get your information from.

 

Is there some overlap? Yeah, sure, because CNATRA is meant to prepare you for naval aviation, guiding you to being able to fly according to NATOPS standards. Would an actual hornet pilot look up stuff in CNATRA? Most likely not. Especially not for CV OPS, since NATOPS has its own document regarding that topic. And that supercedes anything in CNATRA.

 

I'm always happy for the naval aviators in our community to correct me on anything I just said, but that's my general understanding.

 

As for the first sentence... it makes no sense at all. CASE I, II and III are put down in NATOPS, the descend/climb restrictions are also part of NATOPS. Not sure why you feel the need to hyperbole. Calm down and let other people be right, it's not a crime.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Slant

[Nealius]

  

55 minutes ago, Slant said:

Not sure why you feel the need to hyperbole. Calm down and let other people be right, it's not a crime.

 

Hyperbole is saying that nothing in CNATRA is applicable. Operative word being "nothing." The fact that there is overlap, as you said, in agreement with what I said, indicates that there are parts of it that are applicable. 

 

 

 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Nealius

[Slant]

13 minutes ago, Nealius said:

  

 

Hyperbole is saying that nothing in CNATRA is applicable. Operative word being "nothing." The fact that there is overlap, as you said, in agreement with what I said, indicates that there are parts of it that are applicable. 

 

 

 

 

He's right though. There may be informational overlap, but that doesn't mean CNATRA is a valid reference by itself. It's not. NATOPS is. CNATRA is not applicable for normal carrier ops that don't include students. Except where NATOPS itself specifically refers to CNATRA.

 

See, the problem you're faced here is that these documents exist to standardize procedures. And lending two documents validity and authority is the exact opposite of their purpose, it would add ambiguity and confusion about which document counts.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Slant

[Nealius]

13 minutes ago, Slant said:

 

He's right though. There may be informational overlap, but that doesn't mean CNATRA is a valid reference. It's not. The document is not applicable for normal carrier ops that don't include students.

 

 

That's not entirely correct. CNATRA contains fundamentals that are still applied operationally. Perusing through CV NATOPS (latest I could find was 2007), it clearly assumes that the pilots/readers already know the fundamentals of CNATRA. It does not reteach them, nor does it give different procedures. It gives advanced procedures and/or additional details added to the fundamentals from CNATRA. There is no NATOPS that I can find that completely supercedes CNATRA as a reference for CASE I/II/III. Ergo there is no other reference in existence other than CNATRA for those fundamentals. The reason an operational pilot wouldn't reference them is not because they "aren't applicable," but because they know these fundamentals and their command expects them to know these fundamentals to the point it's like breathing. After graduating university you wouldn't reference one of your textbooks for your current job, would you? Probably not. But would the content from that book still be applied to your job? Most definitely. So you could reference it in theory. At least in my line of work.

 

Now if there is a NATOPS that reteaches/undoes everything from CNATRA, I'd love to have a NAVAIR number for it.

 

To your point earlier, I'm grateful to input from people actually doing the job as well. However, the appeal to authority fallacy needs to be taken into account, and things cross-referenced with all documentation available to us simpletons. Lest we end up with the hyperbole we're discussing right now. 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Nealius

[Slant]

22 minutes ago, Nealius said:

 

That's not entirely correct. CNATRA contains fundamentals that are still applied operationally. Perusing through CV NATOPS (latest I could find was 2007), it clearly assumes that the pilots/readers already know the fundamentals of CNATRA. It does not reteach them, nor does it give different procedures. It gives advanced procedures and/or additional details added to the fundamentals from CNATRA. There is no NATOPS that I can find that completely supercedes CNATRA as a reference for CASE I/II/III. Ergo there is no other reference in existence other than CNATRA for those fundamentals. The reason an operational pilot wouldn't reference them is not because they "aren't applicable," but because they know these fundamentals and their command expects them to know these fundamentals to the point it's like breathing.  

 

You have to understand that we, not being in the Navy or Naval Aviators, don't have the full picture here. We only see a very small portion of the publicized documentation that a Hornet pilot would have to adhere to. NATOPS is pretty sparse in its procedures, that is right, but most of that is fleshed out in Airwing/Squadron SOPs. And we typically never see those, either because they're classified or because nobody thinks them to be interesting enough for anyone outside the actual ship's crew to publish it anywhere but on that ship. It's probably even a combination of both, if you ask me.

 

As for your argument, you seem to be mixing up training vs. operations. Do you need to learn to fly in a T-6 Texan to be able to fly an F-35C at some point? Probably. Does anything from that T-6 document have any relevance to an actual F-35C pilot? Sure, aerodynamic forces etc. are applicable to any aircraft. Is he ever going to look up anything in the T-6 Operator's Manual ever again for his F-35C career? Absolutely not.

 

So, I think you understand very well what's what now and at this point you're getting hung up on semantics. This is typically where I bow out of the discussion, it's tedious and I gain nothing from this. Have a good day, buddy.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Slant

[Nealius]

11 minutes ago, Slant said:

We only see a very small portion of the publicized documentation that a Hornet pilot would have to adhere to. NATOPS is pretty sparse in its procedures, that is right, but most of that is fleshed out in Airwind/Squadron SOPs. And we typically never see those, either because they're classified or because nobody thinks them to be interesting enough for anyone outside the actual ship's crew to publish it anywhere but on that ship. It's probably even a combination of both, if you ask me.

 

Critical thinking. Would each squadrons on the ship have different CASE I/II/III procedures? Would one CVW have different CASE I/II/III procedures from other CVWs? We have to remember these procedures are written in blood. It's also sparse in procedures because of the fundamentals in CNATRA, which they already learned and therefore don't need reiterated. Putting that information in NATOPS would be redundant. 

 

  

11 minutes ago, Slant said:

Does anything from that T-6 document have any relevance to an actual F-35C pilot? Sure, aerodynamic forces etc. are applicable to any aircraft.

 

Flight planning, tactical formation, etc.

 

  

11 minutes ago, Slant said:

Is he ever going to look up anything in the T-6 Operator's Manual ever again for his F-35C career? Absolutely not.

 

Whether or not they are going to look anything up is irrelevant. What is relevant is do they use those fundamentals or not? 

 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Nealius

[Pieterras]

@Nealiusstop being such a smart ass.  In the first few topics of this subject you ask questions because you don't know the answers, to then pretend like you do know all the answers. 
Obviously you will find similarities between CNATRA and NATOPS however @Slant is absolutely right.. 
CNATRA docs for CQ are 100% unreliable. They are the most divergent from real operations out of all those docs. They are full of misleading or simply wrong details.. (REAL LIFE PILOT STATEMENT) 

As I said: Forget about CNATRA as its not applicable for carrier ops when flying the F/A-18. There is NOTHING in CNATRA that isn't written in CV-Natops. and if it is, then ignore it as CV-Natops would have mentioned it if it was important. 

The same can be said for all patterns displayed in the F-18 Natops or the F-14 Natops. Ignore them all and stick to CV-Natops published figures and patterns. 

It is only that guys like @Nealius try to fill in blanks by info out of sources like CNATRA that aren't 100% correct and then pretend they have the complete picture. 
Ow and as you asked me to ask what the guys say about CNATRA: don’t use CNATRA for the boat. At all.

@SlantTanking is a subject with a lot of "it depends" they could be around angels 7/8/9 in the stack, they could be hawking you low level... it all depends... 

Again,,, want to read more about it: check here 

Or watch my video about Cyclic Ops: 

 

 

[Slant]

22 minutes ago, Pieterras said:

@SlantTanking is a subject with a lot of "it depends" they could be around angels 7/8/9 in the stack, they could be hawking you low level... it all depends... 
 

Hmm, interesting. The only tanker I'm aware of that's actually in the pattern is the trick or treat Hornet at 1500 feet. I just assumed anyone that needed serious gas and was up in the stack would have gone to the tankers that are away from the carrier (if there are any circling somewhere in the CCA).

 

But I'm fairly certain this is one of those things that are put down in Airwing SOPs and vary from ship to ship and cruise to cruise.