Capt Jason Hartwig is a US Marine Corps
student and he’s just about to undertake
that moment on the carrier. ‘I am nearing
my nal stretch. The best elements for me
so far were the low-level pop-up attack
bombing pro les. It’s great ying —
exciting, fun and fast-paced. We’ve recently
own the two-plane ‘road reconnaissance’
ights, where you’re operating in concert
with another jet and notionally nding
and attacking targets. At the other end of
the spectrum, the initial stages of training
were probably the most di cult; honestly,
just getting used to the jet at a time when
everything moves so fast.
‘The way we do it now is all angle of
attack-based, which is di erent to the T-6
[Texan II] learning as that was all airspeed-
based. That takes some time to wrap your
brain around, but at some point it clicks
together and you start use your left hand
and throttle to regulate your altitude and
angle and rate of descent. That’s probably
the biggest mental jump.
‘The bottom line is: practice makes
better. On every ight we’re always looking
to do better. Whatever you’re doing that
day, you might get at least one good
pass and you’ve got to build yourself up
towards going to the boat. Coming from
the sim to the jet was pretty helpful. I
found some things actually more di cult
in the simulator than in real life, like
formation ying. If you can get the hang
of it arti cially, it’s more straightforward
when you have the ‘seat of the pants’
feeling in the jet.‘I’ve never had a time where I
thought, ‘this is easy’. It’s di cult, but that’s
why I came here. In a few weeks, I land on
a carrier. I don’t want to say that it’s nerve-
wracking, but it’s not like anything I’ve ever
done before. We practice the landings here
and we see the carrier box on the runway.
It might be the right size and shape but
it’s still on a larger runway — I don’t think
anything fully prepares you for seeing that
tiny landing area on a ship out there. The
curriculum sets us up well, though — you
can’t go to a carrier without even having
looked at ‘the ball’ at least 200 times. Just
before I hit the CQ phase, that’s all I’ll be
doing — ying a couple of times a day,
re ning my skills in the landing pattern,
ready to go and do it by myself. Then comes
the catapult launch. There’s no practice
catapult on the eld, so the rst time we get
to do that will be on the ship. The students
ahead of me have always said it’s a great
experience.’
With the buzzing sound of spooling-up
Goshawks outside, the operations room at
VT-7 features glass-fronted cabinets. The
bold lettering across the top of each states
‘Future Naval Aviators’ and inside are the
ready-made name-tags with ‘Wings of Gold’
for each student on the course. They see it
every time they walk along the corridor, in
what is a brilliant piece of motivation. The
eagerness to bring ‘Readiness for victory at
sea’, as TW-1’s motto goes, is palpable and
starts right here, with the rm philosophy
of naval aviation being instilled as hard and
fast as possible.CALLING ‘THE BALL’
Below right top
to bottom:
A T-45C taxies
in at El Centro
after a local
mission. It
carries racks
for the blue
Mk76 practice
bombs,
which have
clearly been
expended on a
desert target.
Scott Dworkin
An instructor
and student go
through what
played out in
the mission.
Rich Cooper
Below: A T-45
comes up
initials at El
Centro.
Scott Dworkin eld carrier landing practice (FCLP) —
‘bouncing’ — in preparation for carrier
quali cation (CQ). It also includes the
students’ rst work with an LSO. They
literally get grilled by the LSOs, of which
each squadron has four or ve, and every
move they make in the landing pattern
will be noted and debriefed in the nest
detail. ‘You have to be a special kind of
person to be an LSO,’ says Kellgren. ‘You
have to be able to tell any senior-ranked
aviator if their landing was a ‘no grade’
to their face in con dence, so that they
can trust you that you are going to save
their life.’
Phase two sees training paths separating
depending on the platform a student is
streamed for. Those headed to the E-2
Hawkeye or C-2 Greyhound begin an
18- ight syllabus designed to take them
through CQ. Students going along the
strike- ghter pipeline follow a di erent
path — air-to-ground bombing, tactical
formations, within visual range air
combat maneuvering (ACM), low-altitude
navigation including ridge crossings and
overbanking, and ‘road recce’. ‘One of
the more interesting parts of this is the
‘road recce’,’ Kellgren says: ‘ ights to hit
timed targets — to the second — along a
speci c route. We tend to undertake that
out of El Centro. By now the ‘brake pedal
and red light’ feel for the jet will have
kicked in and the situational awarenessTRAINING AIR WING ONE | UNIT REPORT
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