There’s a saying that culture eats strategy for breakfast…
And one must not fall into the analytical trap and proclaim that there’s a single path to glory.
There are a lot of systems that work, out there. But no system is perfect and one should at least be open to new ideas.
In aviation, we can proudly proclaim to be safer than ever. But considering where we started, only about a century ago, it’s does not come as a surprise that things have improved.
But the paradox in aviation safety these days is that there are not enough accidents and incidents to learn from, so the focus has started to shift towards analyzing why we are successful in our everyday work environment. That doesn’t mean we stop learning from our accidents, though…
I think I got like…70% of that. Let’s see if I got this right:
They’re on tanking duty (“5 wet” and “big girl”).
First event they’re fueling strikers up on the front side of the ship’s airspace (?) until they’re state 4.7 (“tank down” confused me because normally it’s “tank up”). Fly bingo profile to trap and refuel on deck.
Event 2 launch, offload 15k of gas, trap.
Event 1 (?) recoveries but also mixed with Event 2 birds (?). No idea what a Penny Benjamin/Dorothy is but partially deployed decoy on a recovered jet fouls deck operations.
Event 3 launch, and he’s resolved himself (this seems different than brevity “commit” call) to try and get a drone kill for bragging rights since he’s in the “big girl.” They offload more gas, but picture is clean so no kill opportunity.
Who’s Papa? “Strike” as we know it from the Raven One campaign?
No idea what a “shotgun” ship is, but clearly refers to the CGs/DDGs and they stayed 15nm away from them as directed.
Random Q: descent on final bearing is usually 250. Do the 5-wet birds get 300 because they’re heavier? Or is Rhino profile in general different than Tomcat/Legacy days?
The rest is pretty straightforward. The beginning there, though, I thought I was listening to Creole or something.
I guess Papa is strike, but what is a Zyn can? I think that shotgun must be escorts, like riding shotgun. I had no idea that the big girl carries AIM-9s. That’s pretty cool. Were S-3s ever armed for A2A? I knew that they did anti sub warfare, but I can’t remember them with AIM-9s. Makes sense though.
Everything you wanted to know about Defensive Counter-Air Operations, with a link to a 644 page textbook on countering UAS. I need the executive summary.
Zyn is just caffeine and nicotine, no tobacco. There’s a funny phrase amongst the people i know who use it- “Zyn is sin”. Nearly every cop I know uses it.
So apparently “front side tanking” isn’t in relation to the carrier, it’s in relation to the cycle. Front side being the event that just launched. I assume back side would be event that’s recoverying.
Also “shotgun” refers to ships pulling air defense duties. I wonder if the etymology comes from skeet shooting?
Not saying it is not real or it is real, or even that I have any idea what I’m talking about, but wouldn’t your first response to a threat like that be to manoeuvre rather than ask the WSO/NFO (whatever they’re called now) if they want to eject? Depending on how far into the recovery you were I guess (e.g. configured vs on the run in)?
Suspect it comes from the old US “Wild West” practise of mail wagons having someone sitting beside the driver “riding shotgun” (literally, armed) to prevent robbery?
Still 250 pushing out of the stack, but it sounds like they were operating with an open or flex-deck so the traditional marshal stack and recovery rules don’t really apply. He likely would have checked in to recover and immediately been given vectors for the approach.
It’s just a Super Hornet with a ton of gas, might as well strap a couple Sidewinders on to make it another shooter if required.
You would think… but then again, they’re fairly low altitude, low airspeed, and have five external fuel tanks hanging off the jet. I can’t stress enough how much of an absolute pig the jet is in this configuration.
The jet is also setup for landing, not combat. The time to get combat systems (and yourself) to a point where you could reasonably execute a coherent defense, at a threat that close, would likely be more than the time of flight.
It’s certainly not the normal SAM defense but, in my opinion, ejecting probably saved their lives.
I always see Hornet and think “fighter”… even though our RAAF bought them as a strike aircraft to replace the F-111. On thinking about it, yeah - fitted as a tanker it’s going to be distinctly sluggish!
