Approach articles from September 2005

Approach archives from September 2005

Admiral's corner.(Column)
September 1, 2005... A Navy C-2 Greyhound (COD) recently departed Naval Station Norfolk's Chambers Field on a seemingly routine mission to fly 20 aviation maintainers to Florida. Suddenly, the mission became anything but routine. It evolved into an in-flight...

How are we doing?(Brief Article)(Illustration)
September 1, 2005... HOW ARE WE DOING? Aviation (Rates = Mishaps Per 100,000 Flight Hours) Class-A Flight (FY05 thru 31 August) Service Current Rate FY04 FY05 Goal * FY02-04 Avg USN: 12/1.38 12/1.29 ...

Work zone.
September 1, 2005... The aviation directorate at the Naval Safety Center has the analysts and subject-matter experts to support your aviation safety programs. Our aviation staff and their contact information appears on the inside front cover of this magazine--their...

Dying to get the "X".
September 1, 2005... We had a beautiful day in the Northwest, the first day of the annual "three-day summer season." The typical summer fog had formed on the water at the end of the runway, teasing us all day long, moving in and out and occasionally making the...

In the goo.
September 1, 2005... It wasn't like this flight was my first solo: I had done solos in T-34s. Besides, I had someone sitting next to me in the TH-57B Jet Ranger. I was excited to test my skills with a copilot who wasn't a flight instructor. The Pensacola weather...

No kidding.
September 1, 2005... We had a perfect day for a basic-fighter-maneuver (BFM) hop: cool, with clear skies and unlimited visibility. I was pumped. After six months in the fleet-replacement squadron (FRS), our class was nearing completion. Only a few more BFM hops and...

Hook 43, you're on fire.
September 1, 2005... I promised myself if I ever wrote an Approach article, it would not start out, "It was a 'good deal' cross-country." But it does. The plan was to take a Prowler from Cherry Point to Miramar for an airshow. The trip was funded, and all we...

Human factors--a personal look.
September 1, 2005... Every day, with every flight schedule, we assess the readiness and ability of crew members to fly their missions. We also conduct quarterly human-factor councils (HFCs) that assess each crew member's ability to perform his/her duties. I have...

Pickled.
September 1, 2005... I lucked out: Only one of our birds was up. The supply ship had supplies to vertrep to all four ships in the battle group, and I was on the schedule to fly that day. We knocked out the carrier and the first of the small-boys with no problem....

Stack the deck.(ORM Corner)
September 1, 2005... The events started with a phone call during the first week of counter-drug operations. What promised to be a routine fly-day of hunting down bad guys quickly turned into a helicopter-aircraft-commander (HAC) board scenario. Initially, the...

Lost in the haze: the purple color of dusk was setting in, and the horizon completely was obscured in haze.
September 1, 2005... Many late summer flights in the northern Arabian Gulf are flown in hazy conditions, especially just before sunset. We were scheduled for a quick hop to the amphibious-readiness group (ARG) flagship for a parts swap. Our two helos had performed...

I'm not nervous, I'm hypoxic.
September 1, 2005... I was formation lead on a three-plane ferry flight from NAS Meridian, Miss. to Salina, Kan., for a weapons detachment. The forecasted weather was 100-knot headwinds at altitude and isolated thunderstorms at our destination. We had a standard...

Bad case of the blues.
September 1, 2005... Cross-countries are as good a deal as you can get in the Navy. A cross-country to an island paradise is even better--all naval aviators will attest to this fact. Each trip offers great flying and fun times with good friends. Our operations...

Confessions of a skipper.
September 1, 2005... Frankly, I feel like hell. For the past few minutes, I've been sitting here with my thoughts, and I don't seem to like any of them. You see, when I woke up this morning, I thought right away that it was going to be a fine day. It was...

The recalcitrant aircraft.(Crew Resource Management)
September 1, 2005... In mid-November 2003, six months after returning from deployment during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), our squadron had a lot of hours to fly and training to do. We needed to maintain our readiness status. Our jets had been ridden hard during...

Mishap-free milestones.
September 1, 2005... Mishap-Free Milestones WMFA(AW) 27 years 100,000 hours VP-16 40 years 260,000 hours VAQ-132 35 years 57,000 hours HSL-47 5 years 22,000 hours VP-26 43 years ...

Bravo Zulu.
September 1, 2005... HMLA-773 Maj. Charles Daniel and Maj. John Pitchford were Dash-2 in a section of AH-1Ws on an afternoon combat flight to reposition aircraft from a forward-operating base in eastern Afghanistan to Bagram Air Base, near Kabul. The 100-mile...