shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) (06/30/90)
From: Mary Shafer <shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov>
Remember, questions to me and I'll post the answers.
Wednesday: I spent about half the morning working on the CAI units
reviewing what I'd done the previous afternoon. Mastering all the
elements necessary to do what I want to do with the airplane requires
learning a lot of elements and then putting them together in the
right sequence. For example, configuring the airplane for an automatic
carrier landing has to include putting the tailhook down early in
the sequence or ALCS Mode 1 can't be engaged. So many things to do!
Into the OFT sim mid-morning. It's an F-18 cockpit with three
visuals--forward left, straight ahead, and forward right. It's dusk,
the lights are on, and the terrain is visible. I close the canopy,
run up the seat, set the rudder pedals, crank up the panel lighting,
curse my aging vision which renders small print indecipherable in dim
light, and ask the operator to put me down at Lemoore last chance. I
take the active, shove it into MIL, and off I go. A nice takeoff. In
a fit of hubris, I decide to do an aileron roll at 300 KIAS. It's a
good speed, but I should have started somewhat higher than 2000 ft
AGL. We reset the sim and I do a couple of landings. It's time to go
to the boat.
There I am, ready to go after just a little fumbling around to get
configured--where's the launch bar? The operator warns me and, two
seconds later, I'm sinking off the end of the deck. I pull back on
the stick, surprised at how quick it was going from zero to flying
speed. I climb out, turn left, and fly over the carrier. It looks
awfully small down there and I wonder how I'm ever going to find it
again. Then I ask the operator to take me to Marshal. I configure
the jet for landing and push over. Autothrottle engaged. ACLS ready.
ACL couple? NO couple. Try again. No joy. Rats. OK, I'll fly an
ACLS Mode 2 approach. I'd planned on watching the system fly me onto
the boat and here I am, having to fly it myself. But again, the HUD
display makes it easy. It seems like I have a crosswind because of
the slant deck. I put the velocity vector right on the end of the
deck and the ghost vector is off to the left, just like I expected.
Closer. Closer. The carrier deck starts to look big enough to land
on. Closer. THUMP. Stop. How'd I do? OK 3 wire. Am I surprised.
Let's hear it for automatic guidance systems.
I think that I wasn't in the window for ACLS Mode 1 engagement, but I
don't have a good enough mental picture of the pattern to be sure. I
came out of Marshal right, but I think I was too high to engage. I'm
pretty sure I got the switchology right; I'd written it down and
followed it.
My hour's up and off I go for lunch, flushed with success and still
surprised. My afternoon OFT sim session gets cancelled when a couple
of real pilots need to be examined on NATOPS procedures before they
can go fly. I'm here on a non-interference basis, so I go back to the
learning center and study the weapons systems again. I'm scheduled to
go to the dome tomorrow morning and the OFT tomorrow afternoon. No
more chasing after blips on the DDI; I'm going after real targets.
It's Happy Hour at the O-Club tonight. My whole class is there and I
get to meet all their squadron mates. I also get to explain why
Dryden sent me, several times. More war stories and a big discussion
on foreign travel. My impression is that you'll see the world's sea
ports in the Navy and that there's frequently time to see even more.
Pinky's last cruise (in A-7s) went from Alameda east to Norfolk, for
example, with a lot of stops. None of these pilots joined for the
tourism, though; they joined for the jets.
Thursday: I zip over to the learning center at 0700 and discover that
I'm the first student in this morning. The rest of the class trickles
in later and some of them look a little tired, since they were still
at the Club at midnight. Makes me feel virtuous about having left
early, since I have dome and OFT time scheduled. I review the radar
and the gun lessons, hoping that I might get close enough to shoot.
Finally, it's time to go into the dome simulator. I walk out to the
cockpit, in this big, dim, echoing dome, and climb into the cockpit.
Strap it on with the big lap belt and review the safety procedures.
Pull the e-seat handle to freeze the action if I loose it, tell the
operator if I have more time, or just close my eyes and let go. I go
over all this, put on the headset, and close the canopy. The ladder
and gangway fold away, the LEX comes up into position, and I'm
"flying" in the F-18. I lay the stick over and we do a nice aileron
roll (I've got enough altitude this time). I fly for about five
minutes and then I ask the operator for my first target. I requested
a non-maneuvering target for my first pass. Besides being a target
that I can probably find and kill, it has the advantage of being
fairly realistic; in by far the majority of all kills the target never
knew he was under attack until he'd taken a weapons hit.
Master arm to "arm", select AIM-7s (I'm carrying 6 AIM-9Ms, 4 AIM-7Ms,
and 586 rounds of 20 mm, so I'm a fighter, not an attack aircraft).
The SMS display comes up on the left DDI, radar on the right, and
tracking info on the HUD. There he is, a little lower than me, off to
the left. I roll on to his heading, losing my extra altitude, and
slide the throttles forward to close on him. I've got the box and
circle lined up and I quickly get a shoot cue. I pull the trigger
twice, launching two missiles. Their smoke trail runs right to the
target and it erupts into a big orange and black ball of smoke and
flame. The target reappears on the far side of the explosion (the
wonders of simulation), I select AIM-9s, and, when I'm in range, fire
again. Got him again! It was obvious that the AIM-9s came off
different stations than the AIM-7s; I didn't think that the sim would
have that much fidelity.
I make one more pass on a non-maneuvering target and then ask the
operator for a maneuvering (but not aggressive) target. He obliges
and I start looking for the guy. I find him about 2000 below me, at
my 5 o'clock. It takes a little more maneuvering but I finally get
angles on him and can launch the AIM-7s. I then press the attack with
AIM-9s. Getting a little cocky with my successes, I select guns and
close on him. Now this is a little harder than getting him with a
missile, but finally the shoot cue flashes up on the HUD and I fire
about a hundred rounds at him. He obliging blows up! What a
surprise! I never expected it to work so well. I make another guns
pass, from his 9 o'clock, and get another kill, this time using fewer
rounds. Then I reef it around, to make a pass back the other way, get
low, and fly under him. Just as I'm climbing back up, the operator
tells me that my time is up. I can't believe that I've used the whole
hour, but he's right, and I open the canopy, wait for the ladder and
gangway to fold into place, and regretfully leave. The pilot with the
next slot congratulates me on my guns kills and I feel so
_accomplished_.
After lunch and more time in the learning center I go back to the OFT
and try a couple of regular carrier landings. I'm invariable too high
and fly gracefully over the deck, about 100 ft above it. I decide to
try conventional landings at Lemoore and do a couple of these. Much
easier. The operator offers me a cross-wind and I try that. I keep
the velocity vector on the end of the runway and fly right to it.
This is the same as landing on the carrier, where the slant deck makes
it look like a cross wind.
We get the word that the squadron's having a flyby at 1100 Friday and
will stand down for a picnic, etc, at 1200. Accordingly, I plan to
go home Friday rather than Saturday, as I'd originally scheduled.
Friday: I check out of the Q, load my car, and drive to Bldg 43 for
the last time. I review the classified weapons topics again, since I
can't make notes. Then, at 1030, we all walk over to the ramp area
for the flyby. All 30 of VFA 125s F-18s take off in quick succession,
as does the TA-7 photo chase and the four "Ducks". The sky is filled
with F-18s, taking off, forming up into 3-man and 4-man flights. One
F-18 taxies back, the plane captain runs out to it, talks with the
pilot, inspects the back of the aircraft, and then sends him back off.
I've been talking to a couple of captains and they're laughing about
it, watching the emphatic gesture of the plane captain. All the
planes clear the area and we chat desultatorily about the reduced
amount of maintainence that F-18 need, compared to older aircraft; bad
formation pilots these two have flown with; and a variety of other
topics.
Finally out of the west come the F-18s, in a formation of 30 aircraft.
The TA-7 is above them, off to the left, and the Ducks are nowhere in
sight (there've been a lot of jokes about the Ducks). The sky is
_full_ of F-18s and the sound is quite impressive. The F-18s fly
overhead and, as they dwindle out of sight, start a big 270 to make a
pass from the north. Just about then, here come the 4 Ducks, chugging
along in tidy formation, as we all laugh. The Ducks make a much
tighter 270, staying in sight. Here come the F-18s again! They
overtake the Ducks just before they get to the runway, so all 34 are
really fairly close together. What a beautiful sight. The TA-7 photo
chase trails more smoke than all the F-18s together. They go on south
of us and the big formation breaks back up into the original 3- and
4-mans, which then fly into the break, getting into the pattern. We
watch as we walk back to Bldg 43, unable to go inside until they're
all on the ground.
I go back to the learning center and finish watching a videotape of
Randy Cunningham and Steve Ritchie speaking at Red Flag about their
experiences in Vietnam. Fascinating. I find that I've learned a lot
in this week and I'm better able to synthesize their stories into a
coherent account. (Having read "One Day in a Long War" helped, too.)
I'm really impressed with how much I learned and how easy it was to
learn. The CAI, the self-pacing, the availability of pilots for help--
all these made it easy.
Acronyms9z and other encryptions:
ACLS Automatic Carrier Landing System
AIM-7 Sparrow missile (radar guided)
AIM-9 Sidewinder missile (heat seeking)
BOQ Bachelor Officer's Quarters
CAI Computer-Aided Instruction
DDI Digital Display Indicator
FAC Forward Air Controller
HUD Head-Up Display
IP Initial Point
KIAS Knots Indicated Air Speed
NLO Navy Liaison Officer
OFT Operational Flight Trainer
PTT Partial Task Trainer
Q BOQ
RAG Replacement Air Group
SMS Stores Management System
UFC Upfront Controller
--
Mary Shafer shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer
NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
Of course I don't speak for NASA
"A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all"--Unknown US fighter pilotsysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney) (07/03/90)
From: sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney) In article <1990Jun30.054231.5492@cbnews.att.com>, shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) writes: >Master arm to "arm", select AIM-7s (I'm carrying 6 AIM-9Ms, 4 AIM-7Ms, >and 586 rounds of 20 mm, so I'm a fighter, not an attack aircraft). What's the difference between the -9L and -9M? And is the F-18 cleared to carry AMRAAM/AIM-120s? Doug