Combat aircraft

Much emphasis is put on ‘trapping’ on the

carrier and each ‘pass’ is graded. It’s a 4.0

grading system. ‘OK’ is 4.0, the best grade;

‘fair’ is a 3.0, ‘no grade’ is a 2.0 and a ‘cut pass’

is a zero. A ‘wave-o ’ is a 1.0 and a ‘bolter’, if

you miss all the wires, a 2.5. Anything below

a ‘fair’ is not deemed acceptable, and the

Navy is mainly looking for ‘OKs’ and ‘fairs’.

The rankings come from the deviations

on the  nal approach. ‘OK’ means a pilot

has little deviation, ‘fair’ involves a bigger

deviation but is safe, and once you get into

‘no grades’ and below things are getting

unsafe. A ‘cut pass’ is de ned as being

an unsafe deviation inside the ‘wave-o ’

window, which basically means the pilot

did something grievous at a point where

the LSO can’t do anything to help. One of

the most important elements of  ying an

approach to the carrier is the use of the

optical landing system (OLS) or Fresnel lens,

better known as the ‘meatball’ or simply ‘the

ball’, which provides glideslope information

in the  nal stages of the approach.

TRAPPING

the month-long familiarization phase

starts, which consists of 13 day  ights

and three night  ights, with students

swapping to the front seat and learning

basic aircraft handling, aerobatics and

landing skills foundational to aircraft

carrier ops.’

Everything is done according to a

set number of  ights, says Kellgren.

‘It’s an incremental set-up designed

and executed with the knowledge that

they have never  own a jet before.

Each  ight’s goals and parameters are

numbered and set, and they increase in

di culty as they go along.’

Kellgren emphasized the importance of

the carrier mindset. ‘Every landing is about

getting them ready for the boat. The  rst

thing we teach is how to get to what we

call ‘a good start’. This means they’re  ying

on airspeed, on altitude and making an

exact 15-18-second  nal approach. It has

to be that exact because, once they get to

the  eet, every 15-18 seconds is going to

a ect the intervals of the carrier ops and

the aircraft behind them — it has to be like

clockwork. There’s a lot of tried and tested

methods. The pattern has to be disciplined.’

Students take their initial missions

in the back seat, learning how to  y

on instruments. Rich Cooper

The daily schedule at Meridian

emphasizes the size of the task

facing the T-45 squadrons in terms of

throughput of students. Rich Cooper

TRAINING AIR WING ONE | UNIT REPORT

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