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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 1225.PDF
FLIGHT International, 19 July 1962 101 For night-time aircraft movements on the deck, glowing red wands replaced the daytime hand signals of the flight deck directors. Blue exhaust flashes spurted back from Sky raider cowlings as the piston-engined aircraft prepared for their free take-offs which, when they did take place, seemed agonizingly slow. And now the catapult launches. First, the build-up of noise again as the red wand changed to green for the final winding-up and release. Then a rush of sparks along the catapult track, for all the world like a kingsize, horizontal Guy Fawkes Night rocket. The white wisps of steam were again visible, and the first aircraft had successfully departed—at an initial height above the sea, we mused, of only 60-80ft. The firework display continued. Without the daytime distractions of the deck, the sea and other aircraft, the night sight of aircraft lights approaching to land- turning into an actual aircraft on hitting the deck—is an intense and near-hypnotic experience. Apparently hovering in the distance, the lights gradually approach and then seemingly accelerate to crash violently down on to the deck. Only then is the spell broken, with a scratch of sparks on landing and a random pattern of further spark pinpricks scattered across the deck as the arrester wire returns to its normal position. "Trap, 309" the Air Boss calls, indicating that aircraft 309 has landed. The call is repeated by the Assistant Air Boss and by the movements logger, whose face is visible in the red glow above the small table where he lists every launch and every recovery. The Pri-fly team is now really working as a team. The Air Boss is primarily controlling the deck, the Assistant Air Boss controlling the traffic. Behind the left-hand seat the arrester-wire pressures are checked and the aircraft movements are logged. Behind the right-hand seat the transparent status-board listing all aircraft which are airborne has been swung around close, so that the Air Boss can see immediately what he wants to know. The background noise is a low, intermittent buzz of brief, con cise messages. "Sometimes you can have too much communi cations," the Assistant Boss had commented earlier, "but usually you can filter out what you don't want to hear." The LSO tells a pilot "Just a little high, Zero Two, just a little high." A particularly hard arrival, and we all hear what has happened—"Zero Four, you have a burst tyre," the Air Boss advises. "A little power, Zero Six" from the LSO. "Trap, Zero Six" from the Air Boss. An aircraft misses the wires for the second time: "How much fuel has he got?" asks the pilot's squadron commander, sitting-in in Pri-fly. "815 is down, one engine is not right, pull him off," calls the Air Boss. Pri-fiy in hi-fi, one feels, would make a fascinating long- playing record. Angle of attack is one of the most important factors during an aircraft's approach to a carrier landing, and this is well shown at night when green, amber and red lights on the approaching aircraft (usually mounted on a landing-gear leg) give a firm indication of aircraft attitude to observers on the carrier. The aircraft's angle-of- attack indicator is linked not only to the external lights—amber correct, green nose-high and red nose-low—but also to two displays A bolter—one of the Crusaders goes round again in the pilot's cockpit; one a quick-reference high/correct/low box, high-mounted near his line of vision to the mirror sight, and the other a conventional dial on the instrument panel, graduated in arbitrary angular units. Some types of aircraft are relatively easy to "set up" for a carrier approach, then using power to vary the rate of descent; but this is not easy with such types as the Crusader and the A3D. My brief visit aboard Independence had included sessions in the squadron ready rooms, and on the Admiral's bridge; among the radar scopes of the CCA room, and on the broad flight-deck itself. But it was in Pri-fly that the overall picture of flight operations aboard the ship seemed to fall into place, and it is from this view point that I have tried to present this story. The Air Boss would be the first to minimize his own importance in this overall picture and to emphasize, in particular, the magnificent work done under hazardous conditions day after day by the deck crews. Non-aviation aspects of my visit presented a more confusing picture. Nothing stronger than milk to drink, for instance. An entertainment laid on during an underway refuelling for the benefit of the crew of the tanker Neosho—this involved a jazz group playing "Won't you come home, Bill Bailey?" the group being raised and lowered cinema-organ fashion on a fork-lift truck the while; and a coloured gentleman known as Flip-Flop who, accom panied mightily by the saxophones and electric guitars of a potent rock 'n' roll group, performed the twist while suspended 20ft in the air on the end of a rope. Ark Royal, with respect, was never like this. An Air Boss on any Forrestal-class ship—among the biggest of US carriers, carrying a peacetime complement of 80-90 aircraft and over 4,000 men—needs always to be at least one move ahead of the situation at any given moment. He has to anticipate what is likely to happen next on and around his flight deck. Usually, any one of several things might happen, and he must know instinctively what decision to take in response to each of these possible situations. It is not surprising that Cdr Sverre Bach, Air Boss of the Big "I," is fond of chess. Launch queue at No 3 catapult—Skyray, Skywarrior and Skyhawk
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