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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 0733.PDF
FLIGHT, 20 April 1951 NAVAL AVIATION TODAY . . . at 30-second intervals into the down-wind leg. As the first aircraft lands-on, the four aircraft of No. 2 flight are suc- cessively breaking off into the down-wind leg. Implicit in this method is the fact that aircraft are landed-on at 30- second intervals (or less). \ v When the pilot is abreast the carrier on his down-wind leg (180 deg station) he starts his turn-in, and when he arrives at the 90 deg position, that is to say, when the carrier is at 45 deg on his port bow, he looks for the batsman. This officer, whose proper title is the Deck Landing Control Officer, is stationed on a small platform on the port side of the flight deck right aft, and in him is vested virtually the ultimate responsibility as to whether the pilot makes a successful deck landing. The D.L.C.O. holds a pair of yellow "ping-pong bats" with which he gives informative and mandatory signals to the pilot: these signals (illustrated in detail on pp. 464-465) are of a kind as to be virtually self-explanatory. Immediately the first aircraft has landed, the hookmen dash to the tail to dear the hook from the arrest :r wire, whereupon the aircraft is taxied forward as quickly as possible, being passed from the guidance of one P.O. director to another stationed along the port side of the flight deck. As soon as the aircraft has passed the safety barriers, these are immediately raised in preparation for the second aircraft which, by this time, will be just about to land-on. As each aircraft is brought aboard it is, therefore, rushed up forward with the absolute minimum of delay, and this, as may be imagined, demands both a high degree of training and no little co-ordination. Having arrived up forward, the aircraft are directed by the Flight Deck Officer to their parking positions, and this, too, calls for some considerable degree of skill, in that if too much space is used up, there simply might not be sufficient room left for the penultimate aircraft to move forward of the barrier, and so allow it to be raised for the final aircraft to land-on. Having got all the aircraft aboard and parked forward, the next thing is to check for serviceability, after which half of them will be moved aft and refuelled, the remaining half being refuelled at the positions in which the/ are standing. Those aircraft which have been rendered unserviceable are "struck down" to the hangars, and are replaced by serviceable machines : refuelling completed, the forward aircraft are moved aft and re-spotted for take-off preparatory to being re-armed. As already mentioned, the turn-round time for this sequence of operations is critical, in that the whole routine must be completed and the aircraft once more be- come airborne before the aircraft which have returned from the second strike can be brought in. In this connection, if emergency conditions arise—such, for example, as an air- craft crashing on landing and so preventing the remainder of the formation landing-on—it is imperative that they get down without too much delay, for they may not have sufficient fuel left to wait until the deck is clear, particularly if the crash has been really serious. In such circumstances, it is usual in a task group to have one carrier as a "spare deck", this more often than not being, during the day, a carrier which is normally working night ops, or vice versa. There are, of course, a number of other emergency conditions which can arise, and which have the same ultimate effect, but that cited is sufficiently representative to point the problem. Sufficient has been said to make it clear that the whole business of flying aircraft from carriers demands the most highly organized training on the part of, literally, every single man concerned. Not to put too fine a point on it, the Naval pilot has to be an absolutely first-class man at his job, and he is not alone in this. Every man-jack of a carrier's ship's company has to be up to scratch; there is simply no room for the second-rate in Naval Aviation. Having thus briefly reviewed the essentials of aircraft operation from carriers, and given a synoptic survey of task force and task group structure, we must now examine the shore-based foundations which back up the sea-going effort and make it all possible. As shown in the chain-of-command diagram on page 483 of this issue, these foundations are 455 Naval airmen ratings training at Lee for the Royal Tournament field-gun competition. The all-time record is held by Naval Aviation. Co-education on a Derwent in the Pilot's Mates' course at Yeovilton. -^^.^Flight" photographs Wren air mechanics training at Yeovilton. The IMT^VIIMI/MIM >>III»II was the first jet aircraft in the world to land on a carrier deck. vested in the Home Air Command, the C-in-C. of which is the Flag Officer Air (Home), with headquarters at Lee-on- Solent. It is manifestly impossible to give a complete picture of everything that goes on at all the Naval Aviation shore establishments, and there is little doubt that the most expeditious method of presenting a broad perspective of the Home Air Command is to divide it up into its three compo- nent branches, in order to survey the work of those branches as typified by the activity at selected stations and establish- ments which can be taken as being representative of the greater number. We will deal first with Ground Training,
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