MILITARY ELECTONIC ATTACK SQUADRON 129
S
tanding on the
platform at the back
end of USS Carl
Vinson (CVN 70),
a pilot, holding a
toughened phone
to his right ear for
radio communication,
watches as an EA-18G
Growler approaches
the ight deck. Assigned to VAQ-129, the
EA-18G Fleet Replacement Squadron
(FRS), the pilot’s white vest identi es him
as a Landing Signals Of cer (LSO). As any
aircraft approaches the ight deck, the
LSO’s job out on the platform, is to focus
complete attention on the pilot ying the
approach to ensure a safe landing.
Ever since the rst ight deck operation
on board USS Langley in 1922, LSOs have
been an essential part of the aircraft landing
process. Until aircraft carriers were equipped
with optical landing systems, an LSO held
coloured ags or paddles as a means to
communicate directly with the pilot on
approach to the ight deck. Today’s LSOs
continue to be dubbed paddles; their role
in VAQ-129 or any other FRS is to prepare
student pilots to do their rst trap, a term
used for a carrier landing in a Navy carrier-
borne aircraft.
All student pilots on VAQ-129 rst
carrier qualify (CQ) in the T-45 Goshawk
while assigned to a training squadron,
but their course colleagues training
to become electronic warfare of cers
(EWOs) have no previous experience of
the carrier environment.
Lt Drew Schnabel, an LSO with VAQ-129,
said: “It’s different enough for the pilots
doing it in their rst grey aircraft, but it’s a
completely new experience for the EWOs.
A lot more time is spent getting them ready
because they have no boat experience.”
Explaining the preparations involved in
preparing VAQ-129 students for their rst
carry trap, LSO Lt Josh Brown said the
process takes about six weeks: “In theirtraining squadron the student pilot is led out
to and back from the carrier by an instructor.
The student’s only job out there is to land.
In VAQ-129, we teach them how to get to
and from the ship, so they can take off, y
out, get over the ship and come back on
their own. We provide lots of lectures on
how to do that and how to y an approach
to the ship: the building blocks of how
to do everything required. Then we start
simulator training and FCLPs [ eld carrier
landing practice]. Students do seven sims
involving 35 approaches at night and about
140 passes before they go to the ship, so
lots of practice landing in the sim and the jet
during the day and at night. Throughout the
course, students get multiple chock talks
and lectures about how things are done out
at the ship, how to be a grownup out at the
carrier for the rst time.”
Typically, VAQ-129 strives to crew each
jet heading to the carrier for CQ with a
student pilot and student EWO. Lt Brown
said there are plenty of eyes on the aircraftMark Ayton concludes a two-part feature on the training
mission of Electronic Attack Squadron 129, the schoolhouse and
repository of electronic attack in the US Navy
Mark Ayton concludes a two-part feature on the training
Jamming or
Deception
A catapult offi cer signals a VAQ-129 EA-18G
Growler for launch from the aircraft carrier USS
Nimitz (CVN 68). Mass Communication Specialist
Siobhana McEwen/US Navy