Approach articles from September 2008

Approach archives from September 2008

The initial approach fix.
September 1, 2008... Since July 1955, this magazine has been the voice of naval-aviation safety--your voice. Back then, it was called "The Approach, U.S. Naval Aviation Safety Review," and was introduced to the fleet during a time when the aviation-Class A mishap...

The gear solution.(Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization)
September 1, 2008... I was the MV-22B instructor on what seemed like a routine familiarization flight at a local civilian airport. My student was an Air Force major doing his transition training from the MH-53. In the back, I had a crew-chief instructor and two...

Fly or swim?(Personal account)
September 1, 2008... Witnessing a mishap, or even a near-mishap, involving a fellow aviator can be a gut-wrenching experience. You get a certain feeling of helplessness when you see, from close range, aircraft come within inches of disaster. Your only response in...

Training to tactical.
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Flying in the Operation-Iraqi-Freedom F(OIF) theater provides several challenges to squadrons. One of those challenges is the quandary between accomplishing training while keeping enough assets to support the combat...

Where'd who go?(Personal account)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As I sat in the airplane on a peaceful early evening at NAF El Centro, with my Hornet shut down and my helmet off, I appreciated a quiet moment of reflection. Unfortunately, the only thing that came to mind was a...

Electrical nightmare in the Gulf: the fun immediately began following the cat shot.
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The FA-18 is an electrical jet. Nearly every aspect of its operation incorporates an electrical system. Coincidentally, the electrical system probably is one of the least understood by Hornet pilots. We all know the...

Helmet fire.(Personal account)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The turnaround period between the T-6A Texan II and the mighty T-1A Jayhawk is relatively short for student naval-flight officers. As I stepped to the plane for my second flight (my first low-level, visual-navigation...

To tempt fate.(Personal account)
September 1, 2008... Like all the pilots whose stories have graced the pages of this magazine, I never thought the day would come when I'd describe a mission where we tempted fate just a little too much. Still, I'd much rather write about our close call, than have...

A long Norwegian night.(anti-submarine warfare)(Personal account)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) flights are few and far between these days for most P-3C squadrons. Over the course of a few weeks that fall, however, ASW missions were the only flights on the schedule for combat...

The 2 stupidest things.(air piloting)(Viewpoint essay)
September 1, 2008... If experience truly is the best teacher, what do you rely on to keep you out of trouble while you get it? NATOPS procedures, SOPs, and common sense are a good start. You also can learn quite a bit from the experiences of others who may have...

The green light to avoid: the number of handheld lasers in the general public is growing rapidly, and some consider them little more than a toy.(ORM Corner)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] We enjoyed another typical fall afternoon at NAS Whidbey Island, in the Pacific Northwest. Our P-3C crew was scheduled for a four-hour bounce flight, and sunset was at 1636. The Prowlers had field-carrier-landing...

Almost a fatal lift.(Personal account)
September 1, 2008... As a C-130T loadmaster with seven years and 3,800 hours of experience, I was preparing for just another seven-day NALO mission. A week earlier, I had received the lift message: Pick up cargo at NAS Roosevelt Roads, continue to Andros Island,...

90 days to contemplate.(Personal account)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] By the time I came on the controls, the collective was coming to the stop. The helicopter was leveling out, but we were descending too fast to prevent hitting the runway. The sideward drift (that I had not picked up)...

The wheel spun freely.(Personal account)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] On an ideal "standard" day, when you fly out of your home field on a training mission or do a little dedicated field work, you take several factors into consideration on a normal takeoff. These factors include...

The high cost of [not following] procedures.
September 1, 2008... Aviation mishaps are the most expensive category of mishaps tracked by the Naval Safety Center. Given the cost of aircraft, this information comes as no surprise. From FY03 through FY06, aviation mishaps made up 87 percent of the total Navy and...

New guys can talk, too!(Crew Resource Management)(Viewpoint essay)
September 1, 2008... My story starts on a warm September day in Korea. We were on an SH-60B weapons detachment, operating with Hellfire missiles and Army Apache helicopters. Our goal was to integrate with the Army to become a more efficient team. It was my first...

Business-class FOD.(foreign object damage)(Personal account)
September 1, 2008... We began airways-navigation planning for our cross-country flight. Our Hawkeye crew needed to reposition to support an exercise 2,000 miles away. The exercise timeline required a transit on a federal holiday, which meant all the Air Force bases...

From four engines to two.(Personal account)
September 1, 2008... After three hours on-station off the coast of Nassau in the Bahamas, we finished our fourth attack of our TorpEx. We started a climb to 10,000 feet, with the 2P and I in the seat. It was a beautiful day, and we looked forward to a smooth...

When competing ideals collide.(Personal account)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] We had been on the LHA flight deck for more than an hour. Behind me stood several CH-46E Phrogs full of grunts and a couple of AH-1W Cobra escorts, all of us turning and listening intently on the squadron frequency...

A matter of survival.(BEST PRACTICES)(Personal account)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When walking to a jet, most aviators aren't mentally preparing to spend the afternoon camped out on a mountain 200 feet below the freezing level. However, that mountain is where I found myself after I was chosen to...

VMMT-204.(Bravo Zulu)
September 1, 2008... The crew of Crossbow 31 was lead on an Osprey formation-training flight in eastern North Carolina. Their aircraft's conversion actuators for the nacelles failed during movement from airplane to conversion mode. During a level turn at 500...

VT-27.(Bravo Zulu)(Training Squadron 27)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Marine 2ndLts. Christopher Stoddard and Kyle A. Maschner of Training Squadron 27 were on their initial T-34C solo flights from NAS Corpus Christi. When low, unforecasted cloud layers moved into the local training area, the pilots received a...

VT-21.(Bravo Zulu)
September 1, 2008... While Lt. Ryan D. Merrell, a T-45 strike-flight instructor from VT-21 based at NAS Kingsville, stood CNATRA duty landing-signal officer (LSO) at NAS Key West, he was notified that a student naval aviator (SNA) was diverting from USS Theodore...