Originally Posted By: shell_user
Astro, you never said which carrier you were first deployed or on. Also, could a pilot land a F-14 with wings fully retracted on a carrier? When did a pilot fly a f-14 with the wings fully retracted? Did you have a nickname like "iceman, goose" etc? So I take it from what you posted above, it was only the cream of the crop got to fly a F-14 or should say you had to be pretty da** good or fly somethin else eh?
adam
My call sign was "Astro"...derived from my college major (Astrophysics) and the name of George Jetson's pet...cleverly reflected in my BITOG user name...
Full aft wingsweep landings on a carrier simply weren't possible. The engineering limit for a Tomcat landing was the strength of the airplane hook and the ability of the arresting gear machinery to decelerate a 54,000 lb airplane. Those factors yielded a max engagement speed of 119 knots. In other words, the relative speed of the jet to the ship couldn't exceed 119 kts if the jet was at 54,000 lbs.
So, if the plane was lighter, then that speed could go up, but not much. Best I remember was about 126 at 51,000.
The airplane had to be at 15 units AOA for the landing - hook engagement angle, pilot eye height, landing gear compression, fuselage clearance were all calculated and verified based on approach AOA.
With the wings fully aft, the jet had an approach speed of roughly 220 knots at 15 AOA.
SO, to get a relative speed of, say 125 knots, there would have to be 95 knots of wind over the carrier deck...nuke ships are fast, but not that fast...
A Tomcat with no flaps and wings forward had an approach speed of 165 knots, and 40 knots of wind was very realistic...God bless those Westinghouse AW-4s when you needed them...
Now, we could fly the jet slow, well above 15 AOA, with the wings back, for important reasons, like looking cool...but we couldn't land it a ship that way.
I've had a few no flap situations, never had a wing sweep problem where they wouldn't come forward...it was a sturdy mechanism powered by 3,000 PSI Hydraulics
Airplanes? Was qualified (at various times) in: T-34C, T-2C, TA-4J, F-14A, E-2C, F-14B, F/A-18C. Also flew the S-3B, HH-60, TH-57, F-5E, F-16N.
In civilian life, hold type ratings for: 747-400, 757, 767, A-320. Have also flown, Piper Warrior, PA-44, Cirrus SR-22, Cessna 172, 182, and Citation.
Cruised/deployed on CVN-71, USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT and CV-67, USS JOHN F KENNEDY. Have landings on CV-16, USS LEXINGTON, CV-61, USS RANGER, CVN-65 USS ENTERPRISE, CVN-69, USS EISENHOWER, CVN-70, USS CARL VINSON, CVN-72, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (actually, that was a shake-down of nearly 3 months), CVN-73, USS GEORGE WASHINGTON and CVN-74, USS John C. STENNIS (another shake-down). I have also been to sea aboard CVN-75, USS HARRY S. TRUMAN, and CVN-76, USS GEORGE HW BUSH.
Looking at that list, I feel old..