Approach articles from September 2003

Approach archives from September 2003

Ready for anything.
September 1, 2003... Have you ever heard the expression, "You have to be ready for anything, all the time"? Have you ever had a flight that wasn't anything like you had anticipated or briefed? I had one of those flights. I no longer take anything for granted,...

Joker 205 basket hit.
September 1, 2003... Our carrier launch was a standard Case I departure, and we climbed to 20,000 feet and joined on the Omega tanker (a modified Boeing (707). After the XO tanked, it was my turn, and I was declared to the precontact position. It was a...

Forrest gump and safety investigations.
September 1, 2003... Investigating a mishap can be a bit like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates: You never know what you'll get. For example. take a recent refueling mishap by one of our helicopter crews. Two days before a major afloat exercise, I received an...

Max hours in Sheika Isa, the go pill experience.
September 1, 2003... We were winding up our final weeks out of Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB) when we were tasked to covert a boat squadron in the Persian Gulf. Although the det only was a week long, many of us were thrilled to beat-feet out of this desolate, desert...

Clean up, join up, and shut up.
September 1, 2003... Fallon, Nevada -- not exactly paradise but, nonetheless, a work-up location greatly anticipated by carrier aviators. Fallon offers advanced air-wing training, snowboarding and gambling on the weekends, and, most importantly, some of the best...

Hummer Dance Case I.
September 1, 2003... Miscommunications during cyclic operations led to our E-2C doing what Hawkeye aircrew commonly refer to as the "Hummer Dance." This term describes the flight of the E-2C when the carrier staff appears to endlessly drive the Hawkeye around for...

Was that oil or electrical fumes?(Crew Resource Management)
September 1, 2003... Newly qualified as a PPC, I took my crew to the AUTEC range near Nassau for a TorpEx event. We headed down the Florida coast and eastward to the range. As we descended to on-station, our No. 2 engine-driven compressor (EDC) dropped to less...

Will your NATOPS brief work?
September 1, 2003... Navy pilots are introduced to the NATOPS brief in flight school. We memorize the required statements to make on each of the brief items. We expand our brief from there, as we learn our aircraft, how it responds, and how best to manage critical...

Self-medication at its finest?
September 1, 2003... Here's the story of a friend who tempted the gods in preparation for a good-deal cross-country. My friend had arranged an all-JO flight back east for the Easter holiday, after an at-sea workup. During work-ups, he got a head cold that kept him...

Shutting off the wrong engine.
September 1, 2003... In my first fleet squadron for less than two months, I was not looking forward to flying my defensive BFM flight. This flight is a prerequisite for the level two, combat-wingman qualification. My flight time had been limited because of the...

CloseEncounters of the SM1 kind.
September 1, 2003... The weather was sunny, and the seas were calm. What could go wrong on a day like this one? We were one week into COMPTUEX, off the coast of Puerto Rico, and our ship successfully had launched two SM2 missiles. We set flight quarters for a...

Thermal runaway.
September 1, 2003... Our crew was rather melancholy on the morning of Feb. 1, 2003, and not in the best of moods to fly. As aviators, we felt a kinship with the crew of rile space shuttle Columbia. However, we were scheduled for a 10-hour, random-track mission, and...

ORM on the fly.(ORM corner)(operational risk management)
September 1, 2003... As the Squadron aviation-safety officer, I'm often asked how we can tell if this ORM stuff really works. If ORM is designed to stop something from happening, how do you know if it is ORM that stopped it, or if it just wasn't going to happen...

Show and tell.
September 1, 2003... Every Approach article seems to begin with, "It was a clear day," or "It was supposed to be an easy hop." In my case, it was both--which should have set off an alarm in my head. Five years in the fleet had earned me a good-deal tour in...

Brownshoes in Action comix: "the kind real aviators like".(Classic)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
September 1, 2003... The aircraft mishap investigation team reconstructs a cartoonist's ground mishap. Congradulations on yor top hook award. Thanks. "At this point, the hurried sketches and misspellings indicate a bad case of get-home-itis." ...