Close Calls

[teabag53]

When you do it for real the wires may/may not be on the map. The may even be painted to match the countryside. These ones are on the map.

 

[MasterBates]

Having "gog's at the ready" in a 60B would probably not work so well. The cockpit lighting is not NVG compatible, and would just bloom them out if you flipped them down when in the normal configuration.

And when you are going to fly for 6-8 hours a night, you want those f'in things off your head for as long as possible. They get HEAVY by the end of the night when you are the guy staying in the seat all night.

 

[lowflier03]

Having "gog's at the ready" in a 60B would probably not work so well. The cockpit lighting is not NVG compatible, and would just bloom them out if you flipped them down when in the normal configuration.

And when you are going to fly for 6-8 hours a night, you want those f'in things off your head for as long as possible. They get HEAVY by the end of the night when you are the guy staying in the seat all night.

Coming from someone who has done several CV and FFG/DDG cruises I've always thought the difference in goggle usage between communities demonstrated some sad dogma. I never fly at night without goggles. Even after 9 hours in an aircraft the benefit that they provide is invaluable compared to the minor discomfort if you have your helmet fitted properly. I have had a few issues behind the boat where either the instruments or AFCS goes tits up, but the goggles saved us. It's sad that HSL land continues to do so much night flying without NVG's and using non-aided approaches. Too many mishaps read "HSL-XX" "night, unaided" and the crew puts the bird into the water. I really hope for the sake of all your community that logic goes by the wayside as you transition to the Romeo. Heck the SH-60F wasn't NVG compatible, but we made blueglass to fix that problem.

 

[exhelodrvr]

Coming from someone who has done several CV and FFG/DDG cruises I've always thought the difference in goggle usage between communities demonstrated some sad dogma. I never fly at night without goggles. Even after 9 hours in an aircraft the benefit that they provide is invaluable compared to the minor discomfort if you have your helmet fitted properly. I have had a few issues behind the boat where either the instruments or AFCS goes tits up, but the goggles saved us. It's sad that HSL land continues to do so much night flying without NVG's and using non-aided approaches. Too many mishaps read "HSL-XX" "night, unaided" and the crew puts the bird into the water. I really hope for the sake of all your community that logic goes by the wayside as you transition to the Romeo. Heck the SH-60F wasn't NVG compatible, but we made blueglass to fix that problem.

Never got to fly with them; what are the down sides to using them?

 

[lowflier03]

Some guys don't like the weight on their helmets. New guys have to be taught about the limitations of what you see with them so they don't get a false sense of security. ie Depth perception isn't great, your FOV is limited, shading can obscure things depending on lighting, and unshielded lights that are too bright can cause them to "bloom out." However if you know about these phenomenon, you know how to deal with them. When you compare that with the extreme limitations of what you can't see without them, it's a no-brainer. Normal unaided night vision is no better than 20/200 assuming ideal conditions. Night vision with NVGs is 20/30.

 

[teabag53]

^^^^I think you MEAN to say that you can achieve visual acuity of 20/25 with the ANVIS 9's under ideal circumstances.

 

[Pags]

Never got to fly with them; what are the down sides to using them?

Most downsides are heavily outweighed by the capabilities NVDs bring to the table. I hated on NVD vertrep when I first heard the idea, and was a convert the instant I did my first pick.

HSC/HS has gone completely away from unaided night flying. There is no longer an unaided landing currency or an unaided currency.

I don't know many people who miss unaided landings at the boat.

 

[MasterBates]

The "logic" behind it was in HSL, if you practiced/were current unaided, NVG failure/incompatibility no longer became a "oh shit" emergency.

I do remember landing on non-NVG compatible boats, most of them non-US boats though.

 

[Pags]

The "logic" behind it was in HSL, if you practiced/were current unaided, NVG failure/incompatibility no longer became a "oh shit" emergency.

I do remember landing on non-NVG compatible boats, most of them non-US boats though.

That was the logic behind HSC holding onto unaided currencies as well. USNS ships aren't NVD compatible and we didn't vertrep on goggles. I think NVDs have gotten a lot more reliable than the old AN/AVS-6s, but a lot of rules are made with them in mind.

In most cases NVD incompatibility is a non issue. You just have them turn their lights either down or off. When my buddies and I were on a USNS for a few weeks the discussion came up as to how we'd handle launching for a SAR from a ship that wasn't NVD compatible. Would we take off unaided and transition to goggles in flight? Would we de-goggle when we returned to mom to be in compliance? In the end we decided that we'd be goggled all the way because it'd be a lot safer than degoggling prior to recovery. Sure, the LSE wouldn't be aided, but we don't look at him all that much and our external lights will still be the same regardless of whether we're goggled, so the difference is transparent to him.

 

[Gatordev]

Some guys don't like the weight on their helmets. New guys have to be taught about the limitations of what you see with them so they don't get a false sense of security. ie Depth perception isn't great, your FOV is limited, shading can obscure things depending on lighting, and unshielded lights that are too bright can cause them to "bloom out." However if you know about these phenomenon, you know how to deal with them. When you compare that with the extreme limitations of what you can't see without them, it's a no-brainer. Normal unaided night vision is no better than 20/200 assuming ideal conditions. Night vision with NVGs is 20/30.

Part of it is a difference in experience. I don't mean to say "I have more experience than you..." but instead just what you know. The HSL community is starting to lose the unaided handicap and the requirement will eventually go away. That said, I'd rather be unaided over the deck of a small boy than aided. Why? Because... a) the lighting is actually the same aided and unaided and b) I'm looking under the goggles 75% of the time anyway. I've brought a HCS-4 guy to the back of the boat aided (ie, someone VERY experienced w/ goggles) and he even said he's peeking underneath at times. Now, the approach... yeah, aided is much better, but as someone who was brought up to shoot approaches unaided, I know not to rely on the goggles on the approach. Can you get away w/ peeking up through the goggles on the approach? Sure, if it's not crazy dark, but some nights the goggles won't do much for you until .2-.3 anyway, which is where you'd come out of the cockpit unaided anyway.

I don't know many people who miss unaided landings at the boat.

See above. Over the deck, the lighting isn't much different, and I'd rather be unaided. But the 2.9 hours before that, sure, it's great to have them.

In most cases NVD incompatibility is a non issue. You just have them turn their lights either down or off. When my buddies and I were on a USNS for a few weeks the discussion came up as to how we'd handle launching for a SAR from a ship that wasn't NVD compatible. Would we take off unaided and transition to goggles in flight? Would we de-goggle when we returned to mom to be in compliance? In the end we decided that we'd be goggled all the way because it'd be a lot safer than degoggling prior to recovery. Sure, the LSE wouldn't be aided, but we don't look at him all that much and our external lights will still be the same regardless of whether we're goggled, so the difference is transparent to him.

Again, I think it's a matter of perspective. For me, taking off unaided, goggling up and doing the mission, then degoggling isn't that big a deal. Optimal? Of course not, but not a huge deal. For the generation that came through after me, they were brought up flying goggles from the start (ie, HTs) so they tend to miss them more. That's not a bad thing, just a matter of perspective.

 

[MasterBates]

The E-2C is in no possible manner NVG compatible, and I am OK with that.

That being said, when I brought in my "nice" helmet to be swapped over to E-2/C-2 comm cords, they looked at my NVG mounts/wiring and I got the "WTF is this shit for" questioning.

(they have since given my nice helmet to someone else, and I have to fly with a certain offensive smelling Hummole's gear anyways.. Bastards)

 

[Flash]

A little background: when my Prowler squadron was shutting down we were getting the hand-me-downs from other squadrons that were about to go to depot. We would fly them for 2-4 weeks and then do a X-country to Jax or St Augustine to drop them off. Most were in rough shape but we squeezed enough flight time out of them to have fun. Of course they were still painted in the old squadron's colors, that comes up later.

We were flying in VAQ-139's old '501' bird one day on a L/L (VR 1355), I was flying in the back with another JO and our token USAF pilot flying was flying in the front with the Skipper. We come out of the mountains at the end of the L/L into a typical NW overcast and set up for a TACAN. When we drop the gear at 10 miles we all feel/hear a big *thunk* come from bottom of the plane, like a sledgehammer hit it/ran over a pothole. This is not usual. The two mainmounts show down and locked but the front gear is still baberpoled. We fly towards Bird Island to hold and start running through the checklists, all cockpit indications are normal except for the nose gear. Our recently departed XO hears us on approach and offers to help, joining up on us he lets us know the nose gear is only slightly in trail and there appears to be nothing else wrong, no leaks or anything. We slow down a little more and the nose gear finally comes down and locked, confirmed by the XO. We ask tell the field we are going to trap but can wait for the other planes in holding to land first, we have plenty of gas. They clear us immediately to the duty runway, even after reminding them that we can wait, so we do a visual and trap. While waiting for the crash gear the CO and pilot discuss if we should taxi back, CO is okay with it but the pilot says that we should be safe and let maintenance tow her back. The crash crew shows up after a little wait and the first guy out glances at the left mainmount, looks at the pilot and motions for him to shut down. We do and we climb out.

I was sitting in the left back seat and I climb out and find myself standing right next to one of the crash crew who motions towards the left mainmount. What I saw made me turn a little paler than usual, at the bottom of the let mainmount was a rapidly expanding pool of hyd fluid. I am not talking about a little bit either, it looked like the entire hyd system was bleeding out before our very eyes in a nice dark red pool. As we stood there it kept growing at a steady pace until it was about 5x5, at which point it seemed to slow. Mind you, it wasn't more than 3-4 minutes between landing and me first seeing the pool of hyd fluid. One of the hyd lines in the left main's wheel well had snapped but apparently mostly held in place until we trapped, our hyd gauges in the cockpit had never gone down at all.

At least we had a little laugh at the end of the day though. Unbeknownst to us, while we were dealing with our little emergency in the air VAQ-139's 'new' 501 bird had a problem too and trapped on the off-duty runway about 5-10 minutes before we landed. When the crash crew showed up to our bird, still painted as a 139 '501' bird, there was a lot of confusion since there were two of them, both trapped on separate runways (we couldn't see each other). Apparently it was Whidbey's version of 'Who's on first' for about 15 minutes while tower, the crash crews and both squadrons tried to figure out the mess. To add to the whole fiasco, since both runways were fouled 4-5 Prowlers had to divert to McChord, including our XO. We found out when he called us a few hours later from there, none too happy.

I had a very hairy approach and hairier takeoff from Misawa, both in heavy snow (one Prowler and the other in the EP-3) as well as a hyd failure in the EP-3, but none shook me up like this one did.

 

[Joe Kaposi]

Had a few, but 2 stand out.

1. As a nugget awake for 48 hours, :sleep_125 double cycled, then a fouled deck wave off at 0430 and now really pissed off, :icon_rage I (stupidly) promised myself I would trap next pass... no matter what! :dunce_125

Water, water, steel, steel, throttles to idle for the #1 wire, thinking I was finally done, then........ Hook-skipped all three wires - still at idle!!! A CUT IN THE WIRES! Dribbled off the angle without flying speed as LSO "Hot Dog" was screaming "BURNER, BURNER, BURNER!!!!!

Rammed throttles hard to full AB, pulled aft stick, and immediately reached with my left hand for the D-handle to eject. (Really should have pulled it; surprised my RO didn't). After all my lights disappeared from the plat camera beneath the angle, the next thing you see is an F-4 (now really light on fuel and better than a 1:1 thrust ratio) looking like a Space Shuttle launch reappearing from the black beyond and from below the angle deck, going seemingly vertical in bright orange max-burners!

The amazed deck crew later told me we made a huge hole in the water as we scooped out!

Took a deep breath, turned downwind and got an OK-3 next pass. Told the skipper that night maybe I should be in another line of business. He countered by saying i would be on the next night's schedule. And I never had any problems like that ever since.

Although I had a great cruise 'greenie board' this cut-pass-underlined kind of stood out for months, ... as did the never ending replay of the plat camera tape of me that cruise. It was better than some nights movie. And it is still well remembered today by all my old squadron mates who still remark about it 38 yrs. later ....




2. Launching out of NKX turning right for the departure in an F-14A, I raised gear and flaps. Gear came up ok, but one side of flaps/slats did and the other side didn't. A/C kept rolling. Full stick, full rudder, full asymmetric power couldn't right us. Reached for the D-handle, but we were now mostly inverted and only a few hundred feet above I-805. So I didn't/couldn't eject. Pushed hard negative G to keep from crashing inverted. As speed increased, A/C slowly rolled upright with increasing control input response.

Now upright, I decided to eject once feet wet a mile or two ahead. Found increasing speed made A/C controllable. Called base. Skipper said my choice, eject or try to bring it back. Lots of gas, test flew 'slow flight' at 20K for a while. Realized I had control dirty down to about 230kts.

Decided to land on NKX's 12K runway.... and did at about 245kts. Taxied to the ramp, wrote up the gripe, then drove to the o'club.

TINS

And then there was the time................

Great anecdotes. Any PLAT footage of said close calls? Even a hairy bolter pass looks great on my big TV.