Looking back between the tails after a catapult 2 launch – from whence we came. USS John F Kennedy, currently cold iron at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard Inactive Ship Facility.
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Blog thoughts of a transplanted southerner , former naval flight officer, father of two, right-wing reactionary and all-around adequate guy! Write me at wpaisley @ comcast.net
Alert 5 // Aug 29, 2011 at 8:29 am
From the looks of that turn, I’m hoping you came off cat 1.
Pinch // Aug 29, 2011 at 8:46 am
Alert 5,
Take a look at cat 2….steam is billowing! billowing, I say!
Bow cats, right hand clearing turn, waist cats, left hand clearing turn.
It was one of the very last bits of info I’d pass to the pilot so he’d have that in his head and there would be less of a chance of a brain fart – “Side number 104, we’re on cat 2, right hand clearing turn” just to make sure we are all on the right page.
Kevin // Aug 29, 2011 at 7:08 pm
Pictures like this, albeit from WWII, and with an earlier Grumman, inspired me to become a pilot. I thought it was pretty cool to be able to look back at such a view.
During my Discovery Flight on November 12, 1985 I saw the exact same same thing. Well,…maybe not the “exact” same thing. I guess this photo minus the Grumman and the JFK and replaced with overcast skies, a C-152 and Polk Army Airfield. It was still pretty cool.
Juanma // Jan 27, 2013 at 9:25 pm
Pinch,
Do you remember why the deck is almost empty?
Pinch // Jan 27, 2013 at 11:08 pm
Juanma,
The ship would sortie out from Norfolk periodically for a few days to do their own thing – Kennedy was an oil-burner so they didn’t have to worry about core-life or any of those Nuke things, so they would do that it seems more often than a Nimitz-class boat. When that happened, the airwing would usually send out a half-dozen aircraft to work the deck for them, run a bunch of cat-trap-cat evolutions for a few hours. We’d send out guys who either needed work or were close to being out of qual for some training. I’m pretty certain that was the case here and we were one of the last aircraft to leave.
Pinch