Deck Landing Qualification
- Thread starter Ian_J
- Start date
But I can't see you in the picture!
Looks like scary/fun to me.
Oh, I'm there... In the front right seat having fun and being scared.
Reference: http://forums.jetcareers.com/threads/blocking-a-flightaware-picture.137171/Oh, I'm there... In the front right seat having fun and being scared.
ASpilot2be
Qbicle seat warmer
Very cool!
My Dad was talking with some Coast Guard pilots after they did some hover training over the ship he was working on, and they mentioned it is easier to hover over the ship while it is underway than while it just sits there. Any truth to this? This was practice for getting sick passengers off the ship.
My Dad was talking with some Coast Guard pilots after they did some hover training over the ship he was working on, and they mentioned it is easier to hover over the ship while it is underway than while it just sits there. Any truth to this? This was practice for getting sick passengers off the ship.
Yeah, that's badass.
Ah ha!
No idea... the damn thing wouldn't sit still so I don't know. It kept sailing away managing to put the sun in my eyes no matter what course it took. Guys on the ship said the deck crew couldn't have the sun in their eyes so they could see us. But the sun in our eyes apparently was cool with them.
Also notice we weren't landing directly over the stern lined up with the ship... we had to approach from the right side and land diagonally. That made it a little more sporty.
Oh, and psst! Navy guys... guys on the ship are weird!
darrenf
resident denizen
flyinmomof3
Learning to fly....but I ain't got wings.
Wow...I'm impressed. Definately looked like scary fun.
El Kabong
Well-Known Member
Good times! Hardest part for us Army guys was finding the damn ship! No TACAN or GPS back in the day... Oh dark thirty brief, ship's position, direction of travel, turning 12 knots... Plot an intercept, and good luck. Don't forget to punch off the SCAS (Cobra) or the blade would fly with the pitch and roll of the deck... Huey's were fun too, just lots of water out there with a single engine. Never got to land onboard in a Chinook... Just a tearful wave bye-bye as the cranes loaded them on in Doha...
Thanks Ian for the memories!
Thanks Ian for the memories!
Just like an airplane has a Vmcg the minimum airspeed before the rudder has yaw authority, a ship has a similar minimum water speed required before the rudders on a ship can keep the ship on a steady course. If a ship just sits there underway but not making way (dead in the water), it will pitch and roll like in the video that Houston posted, but there will also be no directional control so while you're trying to line up on the white lead-in/line-up line, the ship will be changing course (erratically) as well and your line-up line will be moving usually until the ship is wallowing between swells. Then it will just roll side to side which just makes things harder for you pilots.
The only is to keep the ship stable (relatively) is to make way, get speed on. There is an acceptable wind envelope for rotary wing operations, so the course the ship is steering is not as restrictive as when launching an fixed wing aircraft. In Ian's case you'll want winds coming down the port bow. In most situations there are always two speed solutions that will get winds down the port bow. One going into the wind (slower) and the other going with the wind (faster), the course and speed or BRC that the ship will use depends on the operational situation.
In Houston's video, you gotta land sometime, either you do it or you run out of fuel. If you run out of fuel, make sure you tell us before you run out .so that we can get you refuelled to give you three more hours to try to get back on to the ship if the weather stays like that the whole time.
Bjorn Smorgendi
Well-Known Member
Just finished my DLQs last week. Not fun when the ship is pitching and rolling. Pretty interesting though
bunk22
Well-Known Member
My old skipper at VRC-30 was a former helo pilot. He flew E-2C Hawkeyes and later C-2A Greyhounds and said landing a helo at night on a small boy, in bad weather was always more difficult than landing our planes on the decks of aircraft carriers. I've landed C-2's on the boat at night and it was never easy so I can't imagine!
Congrats man. Looks like a rewarding experience.
As far as guys on the ships being weird, depending on a couple of things, this holds true. 1st is time underway. When you're on a small (frigates, cruisers, destroyers, and subs are small) packed in with a bunch of other people for months on end, it can get weird.
2nd, and probably the more likely factor here, the guys on these small boats are the nerds. The HIGHLY intelligent weird, nerdy, "Nuke types". Not all, but with the complexity of the systems those guys run, they're generally the above 90 on the ASVAB types. Then you have the "bottom rung" class... The cooks, QM's, weps guys. Not a lotta "middle class" on those boats, if you're following.