Night Carrier Approach and Landing

Video Title :	Night Carrier Approach and Landing
Description :	Thousands of miles out to sea - a night instrument approach and landing during Nimitz class aircraft carrier operations - one of the most demanding tasks in all of aviation. Any night trap is a challenge, but a generator failure made the pass and this vid a little more interesting (hardly by design). Comm was wired directly from my oxygen mask whilst flying the approach and landing aboard the USS Carl Vinson on the Indian Ocean. The dimly lit ship is barely a speck in the night at about three miles. Warning tones are (1) radar altimeter (set to 1200' and 375') and (2) a rapid warning tone from the radar altimeter due to a generator failure. LSO calls for "Wing lights," which were lost due to the electrical malfunction (unknown to LSO). Expeditious emergency procedures for an electrical failure to regain lost electrical buses were completed while performing demanding tasks involved in landing a jet aboard the pitching deck of an aircraft carrier at night. "Where do we get such men? They leave this ship and they do their job. Then they must find this speck lost somewhere on the sea. When they find it, they have to land on its pitching deck. Where do we get such men?" - Rear Admiral George Tarrant 1954; in James Michener's "The Bridges at Toko-Ri"
Views :	53956
Rating :	4.58
Keywords, Tags :	Navy Night landing aircraft carrier A-6 Intruder F18 Super Hornet wipeout crash blue angels instrument flying
Video Length :	4 : 0

Comments :

i shit my pants just watching it.

DAMN..it was dark as shit...looks soo intense.

Dam thats crazy i didnt even see the runway til he was like right on top of it. Awesome vid!

To be able to this after being put though forces the human body was never meant to endue, life and death decisions being made at the speed of sound, physically spent and emotionally drained your still required to land your +$50,000,000 plane on to moving boat with 1/3 the distance needed to stop. For an additional challenge {like the pilots don't have enough to deal with} the deck there suppose to land on is heaving up and down. These are some vary special people indeed!

well said ,I dont know about other pilots but i love flying ifr its what i live for.your correct when you said that it takes a special person to do this but if you love what you do as much as i do then it no longer is a hard thing to do.NOt to say that this is not dificult,hardly this is probibly one of the most intense 10 to 15 minutes in ones life.also all this is bieng done after long 6 ,8 hour missions.kudos to these guys and girls im truely envy them.

My father was a Lt comm in the Navy and he said the hardest thing he ever did in his life was land on a aircraft carrier...... at night

your dad is a legend mate! i wish i could have been in the Navy flying off carriers.Fucking 2 eye opperations made sure that i would never see the decks and the seat of those beautiful super hornets.shit i would fly anything!that can make it onto a Nimits class.oh well boo hoo right but believe me when you find out the one thing that you love the most will never be within your reach trust me when i tell you "it is the saddest day of your life" well guess i will have to settle for "CFI" teaching.

dont take it so bad buddy. their are others in the same boat as you. I was at the AF Academy but some a hole hit my car while i was on leave at home. I ended needing to get brain surgery for an avm in my head. oh well so much for flying right? Still though to be a navy pilot... I didnt even want to go and do this. This is some insane stuff they do everyday.

major concentrarion. must be very intense to land at night on a flat top.

I'd be just as scared to be the LSO charged with guiding these guys down. *gulp*...