Watching the movie Final Countdown. I noticed fairly large yellow disks mounted on starboard side landing gear of the aircraft carriers helicopters. The disks were on the rear of the gear. Dish shaped. Some radial cutouts round the edges. Maybe 2 foot in diameter.
No results from various Google searches.
What was the purpose of these?
I enjoyed seeing actual operational footage in this movie.
Can you find a screenshot, it might jog my memory. I was on the USS Ranger (CV61) not too long after that movie was filmed.
Our copters were used for special Unreps (Underway replenishments (getting supplies)), Search & Rescue, ASW (Anti-submarine warfare) and transport. I got to fly ahead as a passenger once to prepare for shore power.
Later scene shows the disk connected to a yellow tube maybe 2 feet long which the end of is the attachment point to the gear pod.
At time 1:24. Also earlier in the film.
That looks like one of our ASW copters. Probably the same vintage as ours. At the 1:25:09 you can see more details of the object in question.
I think it is the sonar that they lower for ASW.
I have no answer, but can share a little bit of cool Navy culture…
In the Navy, ships often do underway replenishment, where a supply ship comes up alongside the vessel as both are steaming along at a matched speed (think “in flight refueling” but for ships). They have all kinds of hoses and lines connecting the two ships as both goods and fuel are delivered to the receiving vessel.
At the end of the replenishment they always terminate with an emergency breakaway drill.
“Emergency breakaway! Emergency breakaway!”
And then as lines are cast off and the ships part, tradition is that a song that is special to the receiving ship will begin to play on the 1MC (PA system).
Wanna guess what we would hear on the USS Nimitz when we did an emergency breakaway?
Yep…the theme song from The Final Countdown. It was a really good one too, worthy of a US Navy ship.
Take one guess as to what they would play on the USS Enterprise.
We may have used the William Tell Overture, we did for pulling out of Port at least. A shout out to the Lone Ranger TV Show.
ASW equipment? Maybe. With that big disk, would it mean the helicopter remains stationary when it is deployed? Dragging it would seem impractical for purpose. Remain stationary and let it sink?
Star Trek theme?
Correct, remain stationary and let it dip. They dropped it down I think from a height of 30’-50’ but I was an Electrician Mate and this was 40 years ago, so I’m a little fuzzy on details now.
This picture shows a deployed buoy and makes me rethink my statement above. It looks like the yellow shallow basket disk is something else, possibly tied to the buoy, but not the buoy itself.
Thanks.
Oh yes. The thing I am referring to is still in place in that picture. But thanks still for your input.
Yep, that’s the only appropriate theme song for the Enterprise.
We probably had the Final Countdown theme playing when pulling out of port. One thing was for certain, they showed that film on the cable TV system whenever we went to sea.
It looks like the device might be rigged to rotate downwards. Could it be a physical detector to indicate a close distance to ground contact?
Could that helicopter do in-flight refueling (as the tanker, not the receiver)? The yellow disk looks like the drogue that gets unspooled behind a plane for another aircraft to plug into and transfer fuel.
Unfortunately, my web search is only showing helicopters receiving fuel. I’m pretty certain I’ve seen pictures of helicopters that deliver fuel as well, although I’m not sure if it would be worth the trouble to do it with a helicopter that small.
Next Gen or the one with Roddenberry lyrics?
Must be that. Those are for listening for the sound underwater – if they were moving, the seawater they were moving thru would drown out the sounds of enemy submarines that they are listening for.
P.S. My brother was stationed on the Ranger, too. Was there when Queen Elizabeth came aboard.
Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD). Here is a picture of it deployed in use. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/SH-3H_HS-8_with_MAD_deployed_1980.JPEG
