aircraft
Aircraft Carrier
Landing on an aircraft carrier at night in heavy seas?
Wow, I just watched an episode of the PBS series “Carrier.”
The aircraft carrier was steaming home from the gulf and ran into heavy seas. The deck was heaving up and down ten feet. So they sent the pilots out to practice landing on the deck. Lot of guys missed and had to circle back again and again.
Pretty amazing stuff. What do you think?
It is great training for the whole crew. You had to be ready if you hit those conditions in a real war situation. The night ops were the worst. Most of what we did was training.
When I was in I can remember air ops in worse seas then they were in. I was on a destroyer doing plane guard behind the carrier. If the carrier pitched a little bit you can believe us tin cans were probably under water or maybe flying.
In the 18 month I was on a tin can chasing a carrier we only lost two planes. One, during rough seas, flew into the fantail of the carrier. The other was in the Med. The plane had a flame out and went down. The pilot was picked up later.
It was not only during night ops. I remember seeing planes go around a time or two during the day when we were in rough seas.
USS Nimitz Navy Aircraft Carrier Operations