_JPG.jpg)
On carrier qualification, leadership, and reconnection.
Spring 1989, the Middle of the Gulf of Mexico
I had seen her just seven months before, but as the Lexington came into view from several thousand feet above the water of the Gulf, she still looked like nothing more than a dot. Yet the TACAN needle and DME readout (bearing and distance) indicated that what my eyes were seeing was indeed the ship. The reality that within minutes, I would be landing again on this aircraft carrier, which was nearly twice as old as I and barely the length of three football fields, was starting to sink in. As we orbited overhead in a loose cruise formation, waiting for our turn to descend and enter the landing pattern, I took a deep breath and finally had a chance to grab a sip of water after the hour or so flight from NAS Median, Mississippi.
When the call from the ship came that we were up, the instructor in my lead aircraft signaled for me to move into standard formation. We descended in a gentle left-hand turn to 800 feet above the water and aligned the flight with the course of the ship about 4 NM behind her, we needed a minimum of 3 NM per the NATOPS manual. Since the first several passes would be touch and goes (T&G), we still had the hooks up. We leveled off and steadied out at 250 knots indicated airspeed, again in accordance with the NATOPS.
As my lead broke at the bow of the ship, rolling his aircraft into a 45-to-60-degree angle of bank left-hand turn to decelerate, I started counting potatoes, which unknown to those outside of aviation is a very precise unit of time. Seventeen to ensure I had proper interval on the lead, and I did the same. I rolled into a level 60-degree angle of bank turn, which puts 2 Gs, or twice the force of gravity on the aircraft, pulled the throttle to idle and popped the speed brakes. Even on the beautiful, clear day out in the Gulf, the horizon was indiscriminate from haze, so my scan was mostly on my instruments. Rolling downwind on a reciprocal heading to the ship, I lowered the gear and flaps, and descended to patten altitude of 600 feet. Abeam “Tilly,” the crane on the starboard side of the ship, I started my final, descending turn to line up with the angled centerline of the landing area.
Rolling “in the groove,” I made my “ball call,” “718, Skyhawk ball, 4.0 (or whatever my fuel was).” Deep breath. Meatball, Line Up, Angle of Attack was all that mattered at that point.
Carrier Landings 101
The “Meatball,” or just “the Ball,” is a set of lights on the left side of the landing area, which sits just below deck level, that shows the pilot his glideslope relative to the optimum. There are two horizontal bars of green lights with a white or red light in between. Ideally, you want to see the white light aligned with the two green rows, but just ever slightly above, a “cresting ball” was the term. If the white light was above the two green rows, you were high on glideslope, which meant a fair chance at a bolter, or missing one of the four cables stretched across the landing area, which snagged the landing hook. If the center light was red, you were low, which was very bad, as there was a 60-foot steel cliff staring you in the face.
Line Up is just that. The goal is to keep the aircraft on the centerline of the landing area. The challenge at the boat is that the landing area is angled some 20 degrees or so to the left of the ship’s centerline, which means the entire 15 to 18 seconds you are “in the groove,” or behind the ship, you are making constant tiny adjustments all the way down, usually to the right. “Right for lineup,” or “Come left,” where the calls the LSOs used if you didn’t make the proper corrections on your own accord. The LSOs, Landing Signal Officers, graded each landing but were really there to ensure that you got aboard safely.
Angle of Attack, or AoA, is the angle of the relative wind, as the aircraft moves thru the air, to the cord line of the wing. It is indicated in the cockpit with two instruments – a needle on a gage on the instrument panel and, more importantly at the ship, the indexer on the left side of the glare shield. An ingenious instrument, it consists of three lighted indicators: an amber doughnut, a green inverted chevron above, and a red chevron below. If the aircraft is at the proper AoA for landing, the amber doughnut is all the pilot sees. Too high, and the green chevron lights as well, excessively high and only the green chevron shows. Likewise, if the AoA is too low, the red chevron shows in addition to the doughnut, and if excessively low, then only the red chevron shows.
On the platform to the left of the landing area, aft of the Ball, the LSOs watch each pilot like a hawk. The LSO grading the pass talks to a writer, who records the tiniest variations from optimum in a cryptic shorthand notation. Later the LSO will debrief each pilot on their landing. A perfect pass is annotated as an OK, which meant the pilot was rock steady from the start of the approach turn all the way to landing, caught the number 3 wire, and that the LSO never had to say a word. The goal of every carrier pilot is an OK pass every time. Usually most would get an OK, which meant reasonable deviations with good corrections. An (OK), which was fair with reasonable deviations, was acceptable. Anything less was worthy of hanging one’s head in shame.
In the groove, behind the ship, power controls glideslope, or the Ball; left and right on the stick controls Line Up; fore and aft on the stick controls AoA. Meatball, Line Up, and Angle of Attack are all that matter.
CQ (Carrier Qualification)
Time has this nasty habit of blurring details, especially when recalling from over three decades later, and I honestly don’t remember much of the finer points about the two days that I completed carrier qualification in the TA-4J Skyhawk. However, intensity of experience has a way of pushing back against time and cementing detail in one’s memory. Certainly, even without the photos, I will always remember seeing the Lex from the air. The first sighting, seven months earlier in the T-2C Buckeye, was something of a, “Holy shit I’m going to land on that!” experience. Even without my logbook, I remember that after completing the single touch and go, and two traps, actual landings, on the second day, LT Perry, one of the squadron’s LSOs, jumped in my back seat and flew most of the way back to Meridian. I got to relax and enjoy the ride from the front.
But three other things really stand out in my memory about those two days, April 24 and 25, 1989. The first is the initial catapult launch in the A-4, which literally knocked the wind out of me. The cat shot in the T-2C was firm, but smooth. The catapult accelerates the aircraft over some 400 feet to an end speed off the deck of about 120 knots. The A-4, which has a much smaller wing, requires an end speed of about 150 knots. Without going thru the math, suffice to say the acceleration required is about 150% of that in the T-2. Somehow, that finer point escaped my attention during the academic portion of CQ. On that first cat shot in the A-4, it took me almost until abeam Tilly before I finally got my breath back.
The second thing that stands out was when I was on deck between a landing and a launch. Which day I recall not. Students in training are not allowed to taxi on the ship, that privilege is saved until one earns their wings and CQs in a fleet aircraft. So, the aircraft handling crew, or blue shirts, pulled or towed us around while on the deck of the Lexington. The nose wheel strut of the Skyhawk is nearly in line with the back of the front seat, so in the front seat you are actually sitting a bit forward of the nose wheel. I have no idea how the blue shirt sailors managed this; however, I remember vividly them pulling my aircraft nearly to the edge of the elevator so much so that the nose of the jet, and myself, were hanging out over the water! I distinctly recall positioning myself in the seat properly, hands covering the ejection handle between my legs, just in case! Somehow, they must have managed to pull the nosewheel nearly to the edge of the guard rail, then turn it almost 45 degrees to pull it along the guardrail, before finally turning the jet around to face the landing area.
The last thing that I vividly recall is one particular landing pass, with the hook down. I want to think that this was on the second day, but I’m not sure. What I do remember, is that this was going to be a perfect pass. I had done everything correctly from the cat shot, to downwind, and the start of the approach turn. The AoA was a constant amber doughnut all the way. The turn was smooth as silk, and I hit the midpoint of the turn exactly at 450 feet. Rolling in the groove I had that perfect cresting ball. I was one with the jet and the only words out of the LSO's mouth were, “Roger ball,” in response to my ball call. I crossed over the stern of the ship, and several yards ahead I was “in the wires,” or over the number 1 arresting cable. Just about that point, I saw the rows of vertical lights on the ball start to flash red, indicating a mandatory wave off, or go-around. I instinctively pushed the throttle in my left hand full forward. The problem was, the Pratt & Whitney J-52 engine sitting behind me took about one and a half potatoes to spool up to full power. Even though I responded correctly to the LSO’s wave off signal, I knew I would catch the number 4 wire. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. After I raised the hook, and the blue shirts had pulled my aircraft out of the landing area, I asked the LSO over the radio why they had waved me off. It turns out the wind over the deck dropped below the minimum for students, which I think was 25 knots. It is the visual “movie” of that landing that persists in my memory, not the grade from the LSO, nonetheless, I suspect I still got that coveted OK grade on that pass.
As LT Perry flew the jet back home the afternoon of April 25, I felt proud that no matter what, I had now achieved what very few in aviation ever get to do, I earned carrier qualification. My logbook shows a total of 10 traps and 7 T&G during training; 4 traps, 3 T&G in the T-2C, with the remaining in the TA-4J. All the landings were on Lady Lex, otherwise known as the Blue Ghost.
An Aside
CQ was not always the last event in the syllabus. In fact, I had ten flights left after CQ. They were a combination of AirNav, (cross-country instrument flights), ACM, (Air Combat Maneuvering), and ONAV, (Operational Navigation otherwise known as “Road Recce”). As a total aside, those last two AirNav flights were with LT Susan Kilrain (then Erklens), who later went on to fly the space shuttle on missions STS-83 and STS-94 in 1997. I flew three other flights with her during my time in VT-7, and she was the only one who could get me to fly the ACM flat scissors maneuver correctly.
Over the Finish Line
And while at VT-7, suffice to say, life threw me a few curve balls. Tried as I did to keep my head down, my nose in the books (I studied more and harder in Navy flight training than I ever did in college or even later in grad school), I sometimes fumbled. Despite having above average grades and tying for “Top Hook” in my T-2C class, my flight grades in the TA-4J were not quite up to average. Thanks to some pointed leadership and counseling from the Operations Officer in those last few weeks, I made it over the finish line and earned my Navy Wings of Gold.
My last flight in the syllabus, a Road Recce, was on the morning of May 12, 1989. It was my grandfather’s 72nd birthday and the winging ceremony was later in the afternoon. He and my grandmother had driven down the day before from Sevierville, TN. They got to see me fly that morning and were there for the ceremony in the afternoon. I am so thankful they were there.
Life continued to throw curveballs, as is its habit; nonetheless, I went on to have a great flying career. I have literally flown all over the planet, had Chinese J-8 fighters off the wing of our aircraft, buried a WWII hero at sea, taken the first U.S. military aircraft into a former Soviet base, taught Afghan military pilots, and so much more. And for the better part of three decades, I’ve carried a debt of gratitude toward that Ops O for helping me over the finish line. Had it not been for him, my life would have been very different indeed.
That officer and instructor was LCDR Luke Ridenhour, the same who authored Over the Horizon, which I recently reviewed. I never felt as if I properly thanked him, especially on that May afternoon in the deep south of Mississippi when I was designated a Naval Aviator.
Until…
Over the Time Horizon
Social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. has taken a well-deserved figurative smack in the face of late. As one who cut his professional teeth in the tech industry, albeit on the hardware side, and who later served 20 years in the Navy, I am more than aghast at the behavior of many of these companies. Regardless, the promise, the potential for good, of tech is so much more than ways in which it is currently being used. Sometimes, one is fortunate enough to catch a tiny glimpse of that promise. Such is the case with Luke Ridenhour and myself.
Just over a year ago, as I was adding connections to my LinkedIn network, Luke’s profile came across my list of potential contacts. I sent him an invite with a note about being a student at VT-7 during his tour there. Not long after, he accepted the connection request, sent me a short note on the LinkedIn message app, which included his phone number and an invite to call and chat.
On June 17, I took him up on the offer and gave him a ring. We talked for maybe 45 minutes about flying mostly, and being flight instructors. But also, the state of the world. And life after flying, which in Luke’s case includes writing. He told me of his book, which I ordered as soon as we hung up. I know the date because my Amazon account shows the purchase date of the Kindle version.
At that point, I has only written three articles on my LinkedIn profile, all dealing with COVID, but I knew I wanted to write more. After talking with Luke, I felt encouraged. My primary inspiration for writing has always been Neil Peart, and although both my uncle and mother have published books, I never felt influenced from their writings. Luke Ridenhour was someone who had walked a similar path in life, had written about it, and spoke with passion about that experience. The conversation was a bit like tapping afterburner on my writing.
As we’ve talked more over the last year, I find that we share much in common and the rapport reminds me of a mentor who I had at Applied Materials, which I will share with the reader another time. One day in the not too distant future, I hope that Luke and I can actually get together to share a Macallan and conversation in person. After 30 years over the time horizon, I finally got to say a proper “thank you” for helping me over the finish line. Had it not been for LinkedIn, or perhaps Facebook, it is quite likely that we would have never reconnected, and for that I am grateful.
Namaste folks and thanks for reading,
Mark
July 24, 2021
I love reading and hearing your stories of flying. What an incredible accomplishment.
Exceptional and exhilarating storytelling here, Mark. I enjoyed this immensely. Thank you. ...Xandi