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Stupid Questions about Naval Aviation (Part 3)
- Thread starter Top_Gun_1_0_1
- Start date
Underway on a smallboy on a helicopter detachment with 3 H2Ps (copilots), we got into a good 3-day groove with regular morning and evening SSC patrols on the flight schedule:
Day 1:
0540-0600 landing safety officer ("LSO," the station with the glass and metal bubble sticking out of the flight deck, control the RAST and talk on the radios with the helicopter) for morning launch
0920~1000 LSO for morning recovery (lasts about 1/2 hour longer than launch because you have to straighten and traverse the aircraft back into the hangar)
Day 2:
0430-0930 brief and fly a 3.5 (wheels up at 0600, land 0930, waterwash, paperwork, debrief after)
1740-1800 LSO for evening launch
2040~2200 LSO for evening recovery (lasts about 1/2 hour longer than launch because you have to straighten and traverse the aircraft back into the hangar)
Day 3:
1630-2130 brief and fly a 3.5 (wheels up at 1800, land 2130)
Didn't really do a daily "duty officer" on a det, no point in that with only five officers and the ship's company usually had a pretty good idea who was the right person to answer which question.
In foreign port: 3 section duty so remain onboard the ship every third day. Maybe get shore patrol on the duty day, which is a pretty good deal.
Sometimes the ship dudes don't see flying as analogous to standing watch on the bridge/CIC/engineering. Whatever.
On the carrier, we pretty much stood 2x a week as a H2P (more junior guy) and about 1x per week as HAC (a more senior guy). Usually it was squadron duty officer for a 12 hour shift; several of the more seasoned and trusted guys would stand "Romeo" which was a different watch with slightly more impact. If I recall that was an 8 or 12 hour watch.
Monitor the flight schedule throughout the day, coordinate with maintenance control to facilitate changes/aircraft fallout, keep the front office in the loop, and generally if someone is having an in flight emergency, they will radio you to let the squadron know what is going on, and in some cases, to have you read them through emergency procedures or troubleshooting. You are also the answering machine for a wide variety of generally "wrong number" type of calls.
Pray that the flight sked goes well and that nothing happens that would require him to be yelled at by the SWO/OPS/XO/CO/Wing/Base or release a message. It's a thankless job that you can only break even at.
Mmmm....East Coast induced pain. If I'm flying the dawn patrol on day two, why am I flying at night on Day 3? I think there's even some sort of instruction about this. It's signed by the CN-er something or other.
Also, as a HAC, the 2P doing the water wash can straighten. I'm pretty sure that's in the U.S. Code.
And also be the primary shitscreen on weekends/holidays for whatever buffoonery and shenanigans Seaman Snuffy gets into out in town or at home. Waking up Skipper at 2 in the morning because someone got arrested. Rousting YNs out to release OPREP-3 UNIT SITREPs when someone is having suicidal ideations, etc.
And woe betide the SDO who doesn't know the caller ID for their fellow JOs' cell phones. Funny how when people are sitting around the ready room on a maintenance perma-slide bored out of their minds, the number of random "wrong number" calls to the SDO desk spikes.
No
My goodness... In Fallon, we had a landline phone with no caller ID on it. Heard my buddies next room over laughing their asses off at what I thought was their 5th attempt to reach me on the duty phone. On said 5th attempt, I cussed them out... turned out to be my brand new XO. Fortunately, he heard me answer it professionally the first 4 times and gave me the benefit of the doubt. Great guy. I've never felt so small as when I could hear his voice.
Austin-Powers
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Is the T-6B hard to fly?
Not nearly as hard as the T-34C. And not nearly as easy as the F/A-18.
It's all Power, Attitude, and Trim (Trim, Trim). It's a pretty basic aircraft to teach you the basics of flying. Don't sweat it.
In a stick and rudder sense, not really. It's responsive, predictable, and requires only light control forces through most of the envelope (provided you trim appropriately, as others will tell you). The torque requires significant rudder, but once you learn how to manage it, the airplane is pretty easy to get a feel for. However, the Flight Management System (FMS, which is how you interface with the displays and avionics in the aircraft) can be an ass-kicker at first, especially if you've never flown a complex and high performance airplane before.