OK3
“OK3” is the grade received by a Navy
aircraft carrier pilot for an excellent landing. This requires the utmost skill and precision in one of the most
demanding environments that man places himself.
This page has two sections. Click on
the topic that interests you to go to that section.
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Landing on an
Aircraft Carrier
OK3 is a grade received by a Navy aircraft
carrier pilot for his or her arrested landing.
“OK” is an excellent landing; “3” refers to the arresting wire caught by
the tailhook of the aircraft.
Usually the pilot is shooting for the “3 wire”
– the third of the four arresting wires on the aircraft carrier deck. You
can see the wires in the Final Approach photo below.
Catching the 3 wire means the aircraft’s tailhook landed
right in the middle of the 4 wires, a distance of only 40 feet at a closure
rate of over 130 mph – a very precise accomplishment.
Thus, “OK3” represents utmost skill and precision in one of
the most demanding environments that man places himself.
This is the way it looks to a Navy pilot. The first link below is to a full-sized image of this thumbnail
view from the cockpit just before touchdown (known as a “trap”) on the U.S.S.
George Washington. The four arresting wires can be seen on the deck. On the left, the “meatball,” a yellow light
which moves vertically between green, horizontal datum lights tells the pilot
whether the plane is on, above or below glide slope; this plane is just barely
above glide slope because the meatball is slightly above the datum lights. The plane might be a little high or the
ship’s deck may have dipped downward – this “runway” moves with the waves! [from
www.scenery.org accessed 6 Oct 2004] The second and third links are views of two other carriers.
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Final
Approach to the U.S.S. George Washington (photo, 99KB download)
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Final
Approach to the U.S.S. Enterprise (photo, 53 KB download)
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Final
Approach to the U.S.S. Shangri-La (photo, 56KB download)
The next link is to a
video over the right shoulder of a pilot in the final seconds of an approach
and landing on the aircraft carrier. This landing, a good one, would have
been perfect if the plane had rolled out right on the centerline of the angled
deck – they stopped a little left of center. But who’s complaining?
What we don’t get in this short video is the extremely exacting flying that got
the plane on the required precise altitude, attitude, airspeed and on
glideslope for the typical, short final we see here.
The video gives a little feeling for the nature of the “trap” as the
pilot’s head reacts to the force of an aircraft hitting the aircraft carrier’s
deck at speeds in excess of 130 mph and decelerating to a full stop in a matter
of yards. The pilot applies full power
as the plane hits the deck – in case the hook does not engage a wire and he has
to go around for another landing (this is called a “bolter”). [from
http://www.boeing.com, accessed 13 Feb 2006, copyright Boeing]
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F/A-18
Carrier Landing (video, 4.1MB download)
This YouTube video was shot by a pilot who “strapped a Super 8
camera to my canopy jettison handle in an F-4J Phantom II, Mediterranean Sea, 1968,
aboard USS Forrestal, CVA-59… OK 2 wire... Look at the ball, it drops in the
last few frames.” [from
www.youtube.com, allensk, accessed 28 Dec 2006]
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F-4 Carrier Landing (video, link)
This video is shot by the copilot of an S-3 Viking and shows a trap
in a larger plane. The pilot makes it
look easy. President George W. Bush
flew aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in 2003 in the copilot’s seat, the first
sitting President to land on an aircraft carrier. Click here for the story from CNN. (His father, President
George H. W. Bush, made many carrier landings in World War II as a Navy pilot
flying the TBM Avenger; he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross.)
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S-3 Carrier Landing (video, link)
This link is to MySpace video of an F/A-18 trap taken from the
deck. It gives a better impression of
the landing than shots taken from the island.
[from www.myspace.com, Joshua, accessed 30 Dec
2006]
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F/A-18 Carrier Landing (video, link)
Landing at
night is the ultimate test of the aircraft carrier pilot’s skill – it is never
fun. The horizon of a daylight open sea
and other visual cues aren’t there, so the flying is largely on instruments,
the ships centerline lights and the meatball.
The video shows you how it is – faint lights in a black void becoming a
flight deck at the last moment.
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Night
Carrier Landing (video, 2 MB download)
Sometimes, an aircraft carrier landing can go terribly wrong – and
it happens in an instant. The slightest
mishandling of the aircraft controls can result in the scene in this
video. The pilot went low and left in
close but over-corrected in the last second of this approach to the U.S.S. John
F. Kennedy causing an accident that could have had even worse
consequences. Cameras located in the
deck in the landing area and on the island over the flight deck capture the
moment.
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Landing Accident (video, link)
Here is an absolutely unapproved approach to the carrier, U.S.S. John C.
Stennis:
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Don't
Try This At Home! (photo, 34KB download)
This link is to
a Web album of photos of aircraft carrier landings and aircraft carriers.
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Aircraft
Carrier Photo Album (photos, link)
TAKING OFF from an aircraft carrier depends on the skill and precision of
the ship – the pilot is just along for the very short, high-acceleration ride
down the catapult. It is called
“launch” for good reason. The plane is
catapulted from zero to over 140 mph in about 100 yards. Below are four links. The first is a link to a MySpace video of a
“trap” followed by a “cat shot” viewed through the HUD (head up display) of a
T-45, the Navy’s basic jet training aircraft; the audio is interesting – the
LSO (Landing Signal Officer) can be heard saying “Roger, ball,” acknowledging the
pilot “calling the ball” (telling the LSO he has the “meatball” in sight). (Often carrier landing operations
(“recoveries”) are conducted “zip lip,” without radio communication between the
pilot and LSO.) Listen also for the
student pilot’s reaction to his first cat shot [from
www.myspace.com, Charlie Escher, accessed 30 Dec 2006].
The second is a link to a Boeing video of a launch looking back as
an F/A-18 pilot salutes the Catapult Officer, indicating his plane is ready to
go; the Cat Officer, himself a pilot, acknowledges by saluting back. (Most Cat Officers will accept a flip of the
bird instead of a salute but the pilot gets the same in return!) The third link is a Boeing download of an
F/A-18 launch taken over the pilot’s shoulder [both from www.boeing.com,
accessed 13 Feb 2006] and, the forth is a link to a MySpace
video taken from the deck as an F/A-18 launches [from
www.myspace.com, Joshua, accessed 30 Dec 2006].
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T-45 Landing and Launch (video, link)
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F/A-18 Launch Looking Back (video, link)
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F/A-18
Launch Over the Shoulder (video, 3.3MB download)
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F/A-18 Launch from the Deck (video, link)
Breaking the Sound Barrier
The following links show a Navy aircraft breaking
the sound barrier under unusual conditions. A vapor cone formed around
the aircraft for an instant as its speed increased beyond the speed of sound
(Mach 1). The plane is in “transonic
flight.”
The best detail of
this phenomenon can be seen in the following still shot of an F/A-18 Hornet
assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron One Five One (VFA-151) breaking the sound
barrier in the skies over the Pacific Ocean, July 7, 1999. It was shot by
Ensign John Gay, photo officer for Fighter Squadron Two (VF 2), from the O-10
level weather deck (the uppermost deck on the “island”) of the aircraft
carrier, USS Constellation (CV 64). It was shot with a Nikon N-90s with a
Nikon 70-300 ED zoom lens, using Kodacolor 200 negative film. The camera
was set for manual exposure of F/5.6 at 1/1000 sec. The image was
acquired with a single shot, panned from left to right, prefocused at
approximately 200-300 yards off the port side of the ship, where the aircraft
flew by. [from
www.chinfo.navy.mil accessed 20 Mar 2001 and www.defenselink.mil accessed 30
December 2006] Both
photos are the same resolution, 300 pixels per inch; one image is larger than
the other.
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F/A-18
Breaking the Sound Barrier (800 x 600 pixels, 54KB download)
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F/A-18 Breaking the Sound Barrier (2100 x 1500 pixels, 610KB download)
Here is a video of another F/A-18 experiencing the same
phenomenon. In this and the F-14 video
below, you can pause the video and advance it frame by frame using your
keyboard arrows.
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F/A-18
Breaking the Sound Barrier (video, 1.4MB download)
Much like the F-18 photo, this is an F-4 Phantom II breaking the
sound barrier with the vapor cone formed around it. [from
http://faculty.rmwc.edu/tmichalik/physmov.htm
accessed 3/20/01]
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F-4
Breaking the Sound Barrier (photo, 57KB download)
In the following video of an F-14 Tomcat, note the water on the
ocean surface being kicked up by the pressure wave ahead of the plane as it
approaches the ship near the speed of sound.
Note also that the vapor cone forms twice as the F-14 passes the ship in
transonic flight. [from
http://faculty.rmwc.edu/tmichalik/physmov.htm
accessed 3/20/01]
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F-14
Breaking the Sound Barrier (video, 1.3MB download)
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page have been accessed 
times since 22 May
2001 and was last updated on 20 April 2007.
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