Originally Posted by IMSA_Racing_Fan
15 inches?
3.5 degree glideslope, Nimitz class carrier.
If you're 15 inches high, you catch the 4 wire. 15 inches low, you catch the 2 wire.
Yes, you have to be within 15 inches of perfect to be on the three wire.
With a 54,000# fighter at 140 knots, dead on centerline, within 2 knots of airspeed, or the geometry doesn't work.
While the ship is moving.
And the air moving around the hull and the island create turbulence, and there is a crosswind created by the angle of the deck in relation to the hull centerline.
I've actually heard USAF guys say, "it's easy, there's never any crosswind and you never have to flare".
While it's true about the flare, the crosswind claim is patently false, and they actually have no idea what else is required.
I've actually heard a USAF F-15 driver, at the Oceana O'Club say, "I don't see what's so hard about flying the ball you guys talk about. I had green lights all the way to touchdown. It's just a poor man's VASI."
Which means that he was so far off, that he never saw the ball itself, which is yellow, and extremely precise. We actually talk about minutes of arc, not degrees, in carrier landing geometry.
He saw only the Datum (reference) lights, and had no idea that he was never within the parameters to actually see the ball during his landing.
It's like a guy looking at a Starrett combination square, and saying, "so, that's kind of like a poor man's ruler, then?"
Yeah, my Starrett is just like your dollar store ruler...
And the meatball is just like a VASI...