Looking for gouge? Ask your Stupid Questions about Naval Aviation here (Part 1)

[Nose]

My info is about 1 year time late, but we (HSL-Mayport) used OLF Whitehouse as our NVG training field.

Also, helo do land with NVGs on. I have popped them off on an "abrupt" landing once, but they stay put.. Multiple bounced do get old though.

When I was at VFA-106 for CATIV, I went to Whitehouse with their LSOs to watch first time students in the night pattern. No moon. What an abortion - darker than the inside of an oil tank. They had a contest to see which LSO could get the most start legitimate comments on a student. Winner was something like:

WO NEP.LOSLOWUOSX

For the unwashed and the P-3 guys:
Waveoff Not enough power on low, slow, wrapped-up, (excessive) overshooting start.

 

[Gatordev]

My info is about 1 year time late, but we (HSL-Mayport) used OLF Whitehouse as our NVG training field.

Also, helo do land with NVGs on. I have popped them off on an "abrupt" landing once, but they stay put.. Multiple bounced do get old though.

To go along more w/ what HeyJoe said, the AN/AVS-9s give you a 20/40 visual acuity, and that's if you're 20/20, If you're worse than 20/20, it goes down from there.

The one thing I could never figure out... If you're supposed to wear glasses, you can get a contact waiver for NVGs. But no one makes you get the waiver/contacts, and you can't wear glasses w/ NVGs (or at least, I don't know how that would work). But no one ever seems to worry about you not wearing glasses when on NVGs.

 

[squeeze]

From what I remember of Whitehouse is that it was horrible to fly to from Cecil. It was only like 6 miles away, but that traversed a very busy VFR corridor used by multiple airports in the immediate vicinity. Taking off in a division from Cecil, -4 was joining up as you were setting up for the break. It was a complete cluster.

The pattern was at something like 1500-2000' and surrounded by TALL pine trees so dense the radalt would bounce off them. This came into play as you'd roll out in the groove with a strange sight picture and not get a good radalt reading till short final. All of this with the nice 90 off crosswind. It was interesting, to say the least, going from flying a real fclp/cq pattern at Orange Grove to flying the bastardized pattern at Whitehouse just a day or two prior to going to the boat for the first time.

It was stick time, but in the end, most of us thought it was a little negative training.

 

[HeyJoe]

From what I remember of Whitehouse is that it was horrible to fly to from Cecil. It was only like 6 miles away, but that traversed a very busy VFR corridor used by multiple airports in the immediate vicinity. Taking off in a division from Cecil, -4 was joining up as you were setting up for the break. It was a complete cluster.

When we staged out of Cecil for CQ and used Whitehouse (pre GPS days), it was indeed a nightmare to find for the uninitiated (especially if you were first to arrive and there was nobody in the pattern to help draw your attention) and if you were coming from the west and overshot the field, you could end up in JAX Intl airspace in a blink of an eye. Once we found it, we were cleared for "the option" after finishing our obligatory passes and sucked up the gear on the last pass, did a low transition and lit 'em up doing an unrestricted climbout to the right to avoid Jax Intl. We had one guy do it to the left which got everyone pretty excited, but Jax approach never said a word to their immense relief.

 

[insanebikerboy]

But no one ever seems to worry about you not wearing glasses when on NVGs.

I don't wear glasses but I seem to recall from the NVD training that since the tubes are so adjustable that the pilot can essentially tune them to the same effect as wearing glasses, canceling out the need for them. I guess they just figure that the uncorrected eyesight isn't bad enough to worry about when looking under the goggles.

 

[HeyJoe]

the AN/AVS-9s give you a 20/40 visual acuity, and that's if you're 20/20, If you're worse than 20/20, it goes down from there.

I don't wear glasses but I seem to recall from the NVD training that since the tubes are so adjustable that the pilot can essentially tune them to the same effect as wearing glasses, canceling out the need for them.

There are several factors that influence how much visual acuity you can get with NVDs, but Dev has it correct. You can certainly (and should) "tune" them for best results, but they can only give you so much visual acuity and it isn't 20/20. You also have to deal with the FOV (40 degrees unless you are one of lucky few with Quad-eyes) and the resultant tunnel effect.

 

[Gatordev]

I don't wear glasses but I seem to recall from the NVD training that since the tubes are so adjustable that the pilot can essentially tune them to the same effect as wearing glasses, canceling out the need for them. I guess they just figure that the uncorrected eyesight isn't bad enough to worry about when looking under the goggles.

That's true, but that only helps w/ your far vision. You still fly a lot on instruments when on goggles, so technically, glasses would still be needed if the individual requires them. It's a lot of looking over and under the dash, basically, as you transition from aided outside scan to unaided (under the goggles) inside scan.

I think it boils down to those that "need" glasses just get contacts and those that are required to wear glasses but can press w/out them just make do, as I did.

 

[insanebikerboy]

That's true, but that only helps w/ your far vision. You still fly a lot on instruments when on goggles, so technically, glasses would still be needed if the individual requires them. It's a lot of looking over and under the dash, basically, as you transition from aided outside scan to unaided (under the goggles) inside scan.

I think it boils down to those that "need" glasses just get contacts and those that are required to wear glasses but can press w/out them just make do, as I did.

Yup, and without being any kind of eye doctor, I would imagine they kind of let the glasses thing go since you're looking only at the gauges and the goggles can tune in for the distant visual acuity.

The whole process of looking through the lenses and then back under to the gauges did take me a few minutes to get used to!

 

[FLYTPAY]

S-3s use Whitehouse for day/night fclp until they decom in '09. I have seen E-2s there for RAG FCLP prior to typically a JFK CQ. T-45s detting out of Cecil use it prior to CQ. The lighting there sucked and in bad weather there was an interesting ASR into the pattern.....pretty sporty.

 

[Tactical387]

Alright heres another one. I did some research on the f-35's and I noticed that there are 3 versions. One is for the Navy, which has reinforced landing gear and a tailhook if memory serves and yet another version is for the Marine Corps which has the potential for vertical takeoff and landing. I was a little confused by this because I was under the impression that the Navy and Marine Corps versions would basically be used for similar missions and would often work alongside of one another...so why the difference?

also, what kind of relationship do the pilots and LSO's have?

-thanks guys

 

[phrogpilot73]

Alright heres another one. I did some research on the f-35's and I noticed that there are 3 versions. One is for the Navy, which has reinforced landing gear and a tailhook if memory serves and yet another version is for the Marine Corps which has the potential for vertical takeoff and landing. I was a little confused by this because I was under the impression that the Navy and Marine Corps versions would basically be used for similar missions and would often work alongside of one another...so why the difference?

also, what kind of relationship do the pilots and LSO's have?

-thanks guys

The difference between the Navy and Marine Corps one is so that the USMC one can operate off of L-Class ships, rather than just carriers. It's replacing both the F/A-18 and the Harrier...

 

[A4sForever]

Alright heres another one.....what kind of relationship do the pilots and LSO's have?

-thanks guys

We had a GREAT relationship.

Once qualified and with "street cred" in my pickle ... the pilots did what I told 'em -- make that exactly what I told 'em -- or they didn't land on my deck. It works well for all concerned, keeps the boarding rate up, makes the BOAT C.O. happy, keeps the ship "safe(er)" and the squadron Skippers happy, too .....

You are welcome ....

 

[HeyJoe]

Stupid Question #52 from Gitmo thread

Pardon my ignorance, whats RTB?

RTB = Return to Base...you've likely done it many times and not known it in back of COD

You also probably did a RON or two or many.....

 

[Intruder Driver]

Piece of cake ... ... we ran the numbers and you can deck launch (the whole deck, not just the angle) an A6 w/ P8 engines w/@ #4500 of fuel, 30 KTS of wind and clean wings .... yeah, I know, we were just spinnin' our wheels after watching a STOOF deck launch ....

But seriously, it's easy to get into OLF CPVL if you were on fire or something similar. Take the gear. They're just going to tow the bird back to NUW anyway ....

For those who don't know, the A6 Intruder was originally designed to land on the carrier without using a hook. If you look at the engine exhaust area on the jet, they slope down (how many degrees I don't remember). Also, there was a side mounted speed brake on the fuselage that would (almost) act like a thrust reverser and "land" flaps that dramatically lowered the approach and landing speed.

It was a grand idea, but ultimately rejected. The fuselage speed brakes were replaced by wing tip speed brakes and the land flap position was disconnected, though every A6 variant's flap control box had land flaps as an option. My first A6 squadron had four original A6E birds that were STARM-equipped (standard arm missile). These were pre-A6E TRAM/FLIR birds. They still had the fuselage speed brakes installed but they were welded shut in lieu of the wing tip speed brakes.

 

[HeyJoe]

Since we're having so much fun talking carrier related terms....I always was fascinated with names given to certain locations on flight deck that were constantly used over flightdeck radio or blaring out from Prifly during heavy flightdeck action.