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Charlie times and fuel planning
- Thread starter squeeze
- Start date
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
That would imply that he had some idea what his charlie time was and the intention of trying to hit it. They seldom think that far ahead, and they could care less about being on time. Come on Squeeze... you've been off the boat for a WEEK. Have you forgotten it all??
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
Can you feel the love?
Oh how I've tried.
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
Not about gas. About prior planning and being on time.
phrogpilot73
Well-Known Member
I guess it's time for me to weigh in... Do you know how many times I walked out of an APB, with my inputs given and I think that it's a workable plan, only to have every thing shifted in order to launch or recover the jets and some numbnuts scheduled a Phrog to fly for more than 3 hours with no refueling planned?
It's also tough to be on time when you're scheduled for 3 hours that turns into 8 because "Hey, I just need you to carry this one thing/dude over to the other ship" and you check with Flower and he says it's all approved and it's what you're supposed to do - and your Charlie times just went to shit. It's not the Phrog guys, it's everyone on all the ships (Shoes, Grunts, SuppOs, etc...) that fuck everything up. Then you throw in the little decks (Amphibs) and just how fucked up their air departments are, and you quickly find out that it's impossible to plan... Fly one day of inner-ARG PMC and I think it'd make more sense.
Oh, and it's fun to hang out in the D for 25 minutes because you broke the jet and missed your launch time. Had to call Bingo for that - they let me come in and get a drink and then back to the D to give the lawn dart an opportunity to roll to the backup...
Split to allow jet/helo engagements on blame for screwing up deck cycles.
phrogpilot73
Well-Known Member
Truth be told, it's not the jet guys or the helo bubbas. It's AirOps. They're evil.
And if it didn't come through in my last post, that's where most of my angst is aimed at - AirOps, Boss, everything that makes the boat, the boat.
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
Charlie time is when you are supposed to cross the deck edge of the ship. Scheduled in hours and minutes (i.e. 1215) and measured in seconds. "Set state" is the fuel that you will land with measured in hundreds of pounds (2.0=2000#). SOP is a dollar a minute for being early or late. Heinous deviations will get you grounded for awhile. Fines are ruthless. Ask Squeeze.
This all starts well ahead of time. Harriers start 30 minutes prior to launch. They call "up and ready" 10 minutes prior (all takeoff checks complete and ready to taxi to the tramline). This gives some gravy in case you have to roll to a backup. There is seldom more than 1 backup. If you are late other than that (i.e. without Airboss approval WELL ahead of time, and if YOU are the priority, which is rare) then you're a canx. If something makes you late (I'm looking at you Phrog), then your Charlie time does not change. You just get screwed on your flight time.
Harriers start, taxi , takeoff, and land on time. If we don't, screams of "cancel the Harriers, we need to test!!" reverberate down the passageways of the ship.
Being on time is the only way we get to fly.
APBs that are all jacked up are as often our (ACE) faults as the ship. Extremely optimistic planning (folding and stuffing a shitter in 10 minutes, spotting helos on every spot hoping that they all get airborne before the Harrier C, etc) screw us time and again.
Does combat cargo screw us? Sure. Look at the rocket surgeons we FAP down there and it's a wonder it ever works.
Does the deck screw us? Sure. Although our latest deck was great and rarely caused any delays (not the norm).
We used to make sure that there was an AV-8 guy at every APB. It worked great and all TMS flew better than MACP goals. We were directed to stop doing it and ALL flight time went down. The last two months the AV-8s averaged 2-3 hours per month per pilot.
The whole process is delicate. It takes only a minor screw-up or miscalculation (on only one moving part of dozens) to send the whole deck cycle into pandemonium. Seconds count, and full effort is required to make it work. It's a team effort, or at least it should be.
In any event, good luck with it from here. I'm off the boat for good. Squeeze, you have the pickle. Try not to say anything gay.
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
As an ex-small deck guy who often went to the L-Class or CV this was always a pain.
I can count on my hands how many times I launched and recovered per the briefed/scheduled time on cruise. SWO's cant make winds, can't find the CO to give green deck, CO won't give green deck for one of 100 reasons, etc.
But they forgot that if we launched late, there is only so much time a helo can make up. In the 60B endurance was not often the factor in getting somewhere (the 60 does not suck that much more gas to go max-blast than max-endurance, at least nowhere like a jet does) but the fact that you could only get so many extra knots if you stepped on the motors hard, and a 10-20 min launch delay would often cause you to be late.
I have come bustering into a big deck and basically had to do a quick stop to Spot 4 and still be late/have boss angry. They don't care if its not your fault, and I can assure you most Shoes on the small boy don't care how much you piss off Boss as long as they get their PMC to and from the CV.
I have been put in the penalty box more times than I care to remember, just because we angered the man due to the SHOES fvcking away our launch time.. Helo manned, up and ready 15 min prior to takeoff.. and we could not get green deck..
I can count on my hands how many times I launched and recovered per the briefed/scheduled time on cruise. SWO's cant make winds, can't find the CO to give green deck, CO won't give green deck for one of 100 reasons, etc.
But they forgot that if we launched late, there is only so much time a helo can make up. In the 60B endurance was not often the factor in getting somewhere (the 60 does not suck that much more gas to go max-blast than max-endurance, at least nowhere like a jet does) but the fact that you could only get so many extra knots if you stepped on the motors hard, and a 10-20 min launch delay would often cause you to be late.
I have come bustering into a big deck and basically had to do a quick stop to Spot 4 and still be late/have boss angry. They don't care if its not your fault, and I can assure you most Shoes on the small boy don't care how much you piss off Boss as long as they get their PMC to and from the CV.
I have been put in the penalty box more times than I care to remember, just because we angered the man due to the SHOES fvcking away our launch time.. Helo manned, up and ready 15 min prior to takeoff.. and we could not get green deck..
Hey we're not feeling the love here...
I was Air Ops on the JCS for 2.5 years. We really watched out for our helo bubbas as no one else seemed to. We also always got pizza from our COD bubbas. The ship has to remember they are a service oriented organization. We are the airport, thats it, plane and simple.
I got friends in low places...
I'm sneaking away...maybe no one will notice....
Perspective from the air dept: as I was fond of yelling at tower flowers (and ACE CO's for any of you who knew Grumpy) "THERE ARE ONLY SIX SPOTS ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE BOAT."
Every failed airplan (and let's face it, the plan is useful only as a point from which to measure deviation...) can trace back to that cold, cruel fact. Airplans that included catching and stuffing shitters in 15 min or less, ready spares that were changed to a bird in the hangar; you all know the list. Nothing was more frustrating to us than being handed an airplan by the RON's that we had already told them couldn't possibly work, then get yelled at because we couldn't somehow flex the deck to meet it.
We often got made out as the bad guy as we told some poor sucker he had 5 min to launch or fold, but let's face it, often if the ACE could have had some semblance of cooperation in the air planning meeting instead of continually cockfighting over their rice bowls then maybe we could have avoided a lot of those errors.
On the boat side, our biggest problem was that we would be pussies to the embarked staffs. Too often we needed the CO's backing to tell them "nope, that can't work" but didn't get it and wouldn't keep fighting for it. It is no wonder that to the first or second cruise captain on the flight line, when he sees an approved airplan go to hell at the first hurdle, he looks to the flight deck (and thus "the boat") and wonders how the hell they can be so incompetent that the plan can't survive the slightest contact with reality.
Throw in having a line of six birds broken down and ready for launch 5 early, but suddenly getting a red deck because the OOD thinks he sees a fishing boat 10 miles off on the horizon, and it is easy for folks to get pissed at each in week one of cruise, let alone month 5.
On the bright side, I am almost 5 years removed from my last float and won't be back, so I can just chuck turds from the monkey cage now...