Approach articles from March 2007

Approach archives from March 2007

From our aviation directorate ...(The Initial Approach Fix)
March 1, 2007... ORM: Program Update The Naval Safety Center is the ORM model manager for the Navy. Here are several initiatives the ORM team is working on. ORM model--This model is designed to improve ORM knowledge and application throughout the...

Painted into a corner ... paddles gave me the words I had convinced myself I wouldn't hear, "power back on ... bolter, bolter, bolter.".(BLUE THREAT)
March 1, 2007... I was a nugget on my first sea det with my fleet squadron. We were in our first week of tailored-ships-training availability (TSTA) off the coast of Southern California. In keeping with typical June weather for the area, a consistent overcast...

Mishap flight lead on a low-level.
March 1, 2007... Being a flight lead is an immense responsibility, a lesson I relearned the hard way as a division lead on a low level one winter morning in Japan. On the second half of an out-and-in, I briefed the route portion at Misawa Air Base. To my...

Foul-deck landing.
March 1, 2007... Taking a trap on the active runway is not how I had expected my strike-fighter weapons and tactics (SFWT), level III check flight to end. It was a cool, clear and windy March day on the Virginia coast, and my wingman (the evaluator) and I were...

Patient 296.
March 1, 2007... The jokes began as soon as the flight schedule was published the day earlier and continued through the brief the following day. Only one member of the five-person crew was under 30. And the only reason the 23 year old 2nd crewman had been...

Dehydration will ruin a mission.
March 1, 2007... I just had arrived for the first time at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, from USS Enterprise (CVN-65), in support of an Operation-Iraqi-Freedom (OIF) detachment. The transit was a 4.5-hour flight from the carrier to the desert. In the past, I would...

Doc, my neck hurts.(aircraft pilots)
March 1, 2007... Introduction As a flight surgeon and physical therapist, respectively, with a fleet-replacement squadron (FRS), we know neck injuries are a common occurrence among aircrew. When questioning instructor and student pilots, a majority...

Staying ahead.(ORM Corner)(operational risk management)
March 1, 2007... When I was preparing to leave for flight school, I remember a close family friend, who had been a pilot for many years, telling me, "The three most useless things to an aviator are the altitude above you, the runway behind you, and 10 seconds...

Music please, maestro.
March 1, 2007... It was a good deal hop. I was one of the designated E-2C air-power-demonstration pilots, and the conditions were perfect for sharpening the air-wing-demo program. The airshow went well, the formation separated, and all aircraft made their...

Uneventful until.
March 1, 2007... It was 2330 on a dark, cloud-covered night, and we were en route to Corpus Christi International for a few touch-and-goes. We had departed an outlying field after doing a practice-precautionary-emergency landing (PPEL) and were at cruising...

Hot switch.(military operations)
March 1, 2007... The sequence of events leading up to my night flight did not violate any instruction, SOP guidance, or CRM check. However, I found myself in a situation no aviator ever wants to be in while on a flight deck. My last flight had been exactly...

Strangers in the night: the big lesson I relearned was to keep my head outside of the cockpit.
March 1, 2007... I was in the hawking pattern, overhead mother, doing the tanking thing--it was Viking hog heaven. Your standard, real dark, stormy, Adriatic night was playing boogieman outside our canopy, but we were undaunted. "All-weather tanking,"...

Too close ... just too close: when I was a JO, I had read an Approach.(Crew Resource Management)
March 1, 2007... It was a standard stormy winter in the Northwest, and we were about two thirds of the way through the field-carrier-landing-practice (FCLP) period for the next fleet-replacement-squadron (FRS) carrier qualification (CQ). After two weeks of bad...