I have a media-related technical question about President Bush’s recent landing on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. There seems no dispute that there are four arresting cables across the landing deck. On the day of the president’s landing, FoxNews poked fun at The New York Times for what FoxNews claimed was an erroneous report in The New York Times claiming the president’s pilot caught the “last,” “or #4,” or farthest forward wire of the arresting gear.
The FoxNews reporter claimed the “fourth” wire is the one closest to the stern of the aircraft carrier’s landing deck, not the wire closest to the front of the angled deck. FoxNews seemed quite sure they had caught The New York Times in another mistake. However, when I watched video of the landing, it sure looked like the pilot landed long and caught the wire farthest forward. So which reporter was right?
An experienced Marine carrier pilot who sits next to me at work swears the #1 wire is the farthest aft. He also swears that catching the farthest forward or aft wire is a bad landing anyway. The forward wire is too close to a full miss, resulting in a “Bolter.” The aft wire is too close to a crash into the stern of the ship. He says that only a #3 wire landing is an “OK Pass” landing.
So, did the president’s pilot hit the aft wire, forward wire, or one in between? Also, if the pilot did catch the #1 or #4 wire, was that considered a “bad” landing, and have there been any repercussions for him?
I bet that the pilot had a few traps under his belt before this assignment, so it is my opinion that this might of been a shallower glide slope, on purpose for the comfort of the president, which resulted in catching the 4 wire.
Your marine friend is right. The arresting gear wires are numbered from aft to fowward. The barricade is often referred to as the 5 wire but is not rigged except when doing a barricade landing. My memory is a little fuzzy but IIRC it was between the 3 and 4 wire on the Ranger and Constellation.
He caught the #4, the farthest forward. He said he would have caught #3, but the hook skipped over it. That happens, but he was probably saving face. Catching #4 is not “bad” and would have no repercussions, catching #1 is considered dangerous.
The pilot of the president’s airplane did hit the #4 wire (farthest forward as above). Note that the pres. himself was not flying the plane when it landed as he was ANG and thus has never been qualified to do carrier landings. There has also been some discussion on this board about whether the roll-out after catching the wire was longer than usual. I thin the general concensus is that, yes it was and that that was done for the comfort of the President as well. So, yeah it wasn’t the prettiest landing in the world, and normally the pilot would have been knocked down a bit in his ratings for something like that, but there were unusual considerations for this particular landing.
H&B, making a shallower than normal approach would be extremely dangerous and there is no provision for making one anyway.
A shallower than normal approach angle makes it harder to touch down at the correct point. Too far forward is not biggie, just go around again, but too far aft puts the plane at risk of a catastophic collision with the edge of the flight deck called a ramp strike. I feel pretty safe in saying that comfort would have been a non-factor as safety of the CinC was the only concern of everyone involved in that operation.
Sorry, a pet peeve of mine but the roll out was not longer than normal. I watched the MSNBC video which gave that illusion by showing two clips that were not edited together in real time. There was a time overlap because the second clip showed the plane still rolling after it had come to a stop in the first clip.
I can assure you that no one “tweaked” the landing to add a marginal amount of comfort at the expense of safety. I’ve seen the result of an arresting gear set incorrectly. It resulted in the loss of an F-14 after a perfect landing by the pilot and nearly cost the crew their lives. They only survived by ejecting with a fraction of a second to spare.
Thanks to all who wrote so quickly. I was amazed to see seven replies in 28 minutes. I welcome more comments about arresting gear and the specific technical aspects of the Bush mission. (I’m not much interested in the politics of the mission.) The “threadid” for the previous thread about the mission is 181230.
Long ago and far away, I had an occasion to be on an aircraft carrier. I was made aware that contacting the “round down” with the arresting gear was an undesirable thing. I was also shown the results of short-approach ramp strikes: large dents in the aft section of the flight deck. If the carrier is within feasible flight time of the beach, losing your tailhook is not such a bad thing (other than a possible bad FitRep), because you get to RON at some exotic spot. But if you are way out in the middle of the briny blue, you get to trap aboard after the 1MC announces, “Rig the barricade!” For the definitive answer about the pilot’s grade on the landing (yes, they are graded for each and every carrier landing), the LSO will probably take a look at the footage shot by the deck camera. This is a camera installed in the flight deck and it captures all the little nuances of maneuver that occur just prior to touchdown. I did not see the report of the CinC landing on the “Abe,” so I don’t know what kind of aircraft he was in. Do they use the S-3 for COD (carrier on-board delivery) nowadays? Do all carrier aircraft still use ACLS (automatic carrier landing system) and do the pilots still “call the ball”?
I can answer the last question. Yes, they still “call the ball”. CNN had extensive on-board coverage leading up to the pres’ arrival. I’m not sure about ACLS; if that is the “meatball”, then yes.
Sorry - I should have been a little more clear about my questions. IIRC, the ACLS was a “hands off” landing system that essentially took control of the aircraft flight controls and landed the aircraft. I seem to recall that the dang system was so accurate that it would guide each aircraft of a sortie into the exact same spot on the deck, and so had to add in a little “dispersion factor” to prevent damage to the flight deck. The “meatball” system of mirrors and lights was used during a manual approach. On the F4B, J, N, etal., the lights were on the nose wheel gear door.