ELECTONIC ATTACK SQUADRON 129 MILITARY
Jamming or
Deception
as it approaches the ight deck, in the tower
and on the LSO platform: “But ultimately
they are on their own. Any time an aircraft is
behind the ship and you’re on the platform,
all of your attention is on that pilot to make
sure they get on board safely. Our priorities
don’t change from the eet to what we do
with a student pilot, the difference being a
student pilot is a little more unpredictable.
We know they are going to deviate more
than a eet pilot; we don’t know how, so we
have to jump on the radio and give the pilot
correction instructions.”
According to Lt Schnabel, LSOs acquire
the skill set required for the job by watching
thousands of passes on the ship and even
more at the eld: “As a new LSO, you have to
see a lot of passes to recognise the deviation
of the aircraft. It’s all about repetition, that’s
all it is.”
Both the Growler and Super Hornet can
y what are known as mode 1 approaches
during which the aircraft is coupled to
the automatic approach system untiltouchdown. The jet lands itself with the pilot
monitoring to make sure it maintains the
glideslope all the way down. Another semi-
automatic landing mode is auto throttles, in
which the pilot makes control stick inputs,
but the throttles manage themselves with
monitoring by the pilot.
Throughout their time with their training
squadron and FRS, students are not allowed
to use any type of automated approach
mode. Everything a student pilot does in
129 is old-school manual, which allows the
LSOs to judge if the student has successfully
learned and accomplished the task of safely
landing the aircraft on the ight deck.
To achieve carrier quali cation, a pilot
must achieve ten traps and two touch and
goes in daytime, and six traps and two touch
and goes at night. This quota usually takes
two days to complete, because a student is
restricted to ten daytime and four night-time
traps in a 24-hour period.
Lt Brown said the process ideally takes
two days: “We like to get six daytime andthe rst four night traps done of the rst day,
followed the next day by four more daytime
and two more night traps and the student is
carrier quali ed. It doesn’t always work out
that way, because we run out of deck time.
CQ can be a long evolution, some students
take ten hours in the seat [the time required
to get checked out], and others achieve it
with two hours.”
VAQ-129 LSOs and instructors expect
a 100% completion rate for each trip to
the boat, but that’s just an expectation. If a
student does not CQ or is disquali ed (DQ)
on the rst boat trip, he or she returns to
129 and trains up again for the next boat. All
students get two attempts to CQ.
Not all students who receive a DQ do so
at the carrier, as Lt Schnabel explained: “A
eld DQ is another option. As we monitor a
student’s progress through the syllabus and
before the boat, if we feel the student is not
safe to y behind the boat or requires more
time, we can hold them back. That helps
prevent people setting up for a failure.