This latest (and quite nice!) shot of Chad's goes some ways towards settling the question as to whether the unevenness depicted in the trail formed by the approaching aircraft's lights in many of his previous pictures of this type were the result of flightpath variations or were caused by the ship's motion. I don't think it's coincidental that when the sea is as smooth as it is here that the plane's path appears to be remarkably steady and even.
"That's so stupid! If they're so secret, why are they out where everyone can see them?" - my kid
Ftrguy From United States of America, joined Aug 2003, 358 posts, RR: 0 Reply 2, posted (6 years 3 months ago) and read 2055 times:
Well, the sea state is quite calm which would mean that the ship is making the wind over the deck and the approach would be quite smooth.
I can actually tell you alot about this approach and the deviations. The lights you see from this approach are only from the last 5-6 seconds of the approach. An F-18C's anti-collision light blinks about once a second. At the beginning of the lights you can see the pilot made a slight right turn to probably account for line-up with the ship. Where the lights meet the horizon there is a settle in the glideslope, probably where the aircraft went through the ships burble. Once in the settle, the pilot didn't give it quite enough power to catch it and went a little slow to a full slow once over the the back end of the ship. Since he was probably a little high at the start of the picture, right on in the center, and he flew through down the glideslope at the ramp. He probably caught a 2 wire.
(HX-IM) SIC (LO)SLOAR in LSO terms. In English, A little high start to in the middle. Settle in close. A little low, full slow at the ramp.
RotorImage From United States of America, joined Jun 2006, 40 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (6 years 2 months 3 weeks 1 day 7 hours ago) and read 1872 times:
If I'm not mistaken, the entire meatball assembly is gyro-stabilized, so its glide slope stays at a fixed angle in space regardless of varying deck incidence due to sea state - which "should" yield an equally stable approach if flown properly.
I've flown some shore-based meatballs before (Naval Air Stations often have them installed for Field Carrier Landing Practice) and they are definitely a different animal from your standard VASI/PAPI/etc. They're much harder to see so you only "call the ball" at quarter-mile or so....and at as Ftrguy mentioned, at a quarter mile out you're only 5-6 seconds from touchdown. I also believe that the glideslope the device projects can be altered dependent on the type of aircraft flying the approach....but I may be mistaken.
Ftrguy From United States of America, joined Aug 2003, 358 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (6 years 2 months 3 weeks 1 day 6 hours ago) and read 1853 times:
Quoting RotorImage (Reply 3): If I'm not mistaken, the entire meatball assembly is gyro-stabilized, so its glide slope stays at a fixed angle in space regardless of varying deck incidence due to sea state - which "should" yield an equally stable approach if flown properly.
I've flown some shore-based meatballs before (Naval Air Stations often have them installed for Field Carrier Landing Practice) and they are definitely a different animal from your standard VASI/PAPI/etc. They're much harder to see so you only "call the ball" at quarter-mile or so....and at as Ftrguy mentioned, at a quarter mile out you're only 5-6 seconds from touchdown. I also believe that the glideslope the device projects can be altered dependent on the type of aircraft flying the approach....but I may be mistaken.
You are very correct on nearly everything. You can usually almost always pick up the ball inside a mile and sometimes more. The ball call is made a 3/4 of a mile which should give you no more than 15 seconds of groove length (final).
2H4 From United States of America, joined Oct 2004, 8950 posts, RR: 62 Reply 5, posted (6 years 2 months 3 weeks 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 1843 times:
If you open the large version, and look very closely at the horizon on the right side of the photo, you can see the beacon from the SAR helo. Although the helo is flying at a constant altitude, the beacon leaves a curved path due to the boat rising and falling on the swells.
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