sherpa

Not that anyone cares, but this non skid stuff is kind of interesting. A friend of mine, also a carrier aviator, was involved as a civilian in the F-35 program. During testing, the carrier suitability tests are done at Pawtuxet River MD. They do normal carrier landings and very hard ones at the runway there prior to sea trials. Everything was fine. When they started sea trials on the F-35 there was an unexplainable and dramatic increase in engine damage because the engine mounts to the airframe were failing. Months and millions spent, and nobody could figure it out. One day this Navy buddy of mine was working on it and he was watching the carrier landing testing at Pax river. He mentioned to his cohort that the only thing different in this environment was the lack on non skid on a runway. They did the testing and found that the non skid on the carrier was causing a harmonic through the landing geat that was vibrating the airframe to levels that were causing the engine mounts to fail. Solved the problem. Saved well over a hundred million bucks. Carrier aviation is weird. There's an old quote from somebody years ago. "Carrier aviation. It gave me moments of extreme exileration and moments of extreme terror, but either way, it will always be with me."

Almost never. If they are re-spotting in heavy seas, and they don't unless necessary, they'll put a guy on each wing carrying chocks, and if something goes awry, they run up to the main gear and get the chocks under, hoping to stop it. I can remember a few times when the deck was really moving and after I landed they had our guys with chocks follow me throughout the entire taxi to a parking spot. Once you park, you are immediately chained, every time.

Sure. I guess you're referring to the Truman based F-18 that went overboard. At sea, airplanes are chained to the deck on the flight deck, anywhere from a four point to a twelve point tie down. So four to 12 chains, depending on sea state. When they go below to the hangar deck they are also chained. When they have to be re-spotted, (moved), without the engine running, they put a maintenance guy in the seat as the "brakerider." The problem is that if the engine isn't running, they have no hydraulic power, and thus, no airplane brakes. They use a "tug," which is a big low built byt very heavy vehicle to tow them, connected through a tow bar which hooks to the nose gear. To re-spot an airplane to the flight deck from the hangar deck, it is towed to one of three elevators, goes outboard to that elevator and is raised to to the flight deck. They don't do this in heavy seas for obvious reasons. Anyway, it looks like calm seas, a re-spot tow underway and the ship, for some reason, Truman an abrupt maneuver, which caused a significant list which was enough to exceed the braking capacity of the tug, which is significant. Tug driver and brake rider bot jumped out and remained aboard. Tug, tow bar and F-18 deep sixed. As an aside, after about two months at sea, the flight deck loses a good deal of it's "non skid," which is a thin layer of abrasive material to give ample traction to the steel deck. After a time, this wears off and the combination of small jet fuel leaks, hydraulic fluid and other lubricants can make the flight deck quite slippery. When you launch, you man a chained up airplane and the chains don't come off until taxi to the catapult. If this ship is moving because of sea state or turn, this can get quite interesting. That's why we always arm the ejection seat when getting in. I can clearly remember one day at sea and the deck was quite slippery. I was taxiing to cat 4 for launce and the ship started it's pre-launch turn into the wind. Airplane started slipping sideways and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Fortunately, whoever was at the helm eased the turn and all turned out well. Next day they cancelled the morning schedule and hosed the flight deck using sea water. They always apply new non skid during port calls at places that have the stuff.

No offense to you because you are just reiterating what the NY Times reported after "investigating." What they "concluded," and what was linked to above, is completely false, and totally not supported by the voice recorder. That is what happens when you get people "investigating" something they know nothing about. This crap happens all the time.

I understand your attempt at humor, but the situation is far more complicated, and these people are not stupid. Moving airplanes on an aircraft carrier is done with great care. If the carrier needs to maneuver very quickly, and it is unanticipated, ie., when repositioning a hangar deck airplane, where the the engines are not running and no hydraulics, stuff can happen. Back to basics, it is a boat, and boats can do things that cause the deck to be inhospitable to towing airplanes.

I'd be all over it. Jack Kemp made a compelling case against it, but in the decades since, it has gotten way more desirable, and I think, necessary.

That is what I am suggesting.

Not me. We need to attract the best people for public service. Denying them the opportunity to participate would be a major deterrent. My view is that a blind trust should be established, managed by a competent, approved group. The Representative is allowed to participate to whatever level they desire, but has no influence over the portfolio.

I really regret the way the administration has not informed our country on how obvious this situation was, and that something absolutely needed to be done. We were getting abused by China, India and the EU. A response to this is absolutely justified. China is the worst, but our other trade partners are nearly as guilty, and the situation needs to change. The Treasury Secretary was on CNBC for an extended interview this morning and his most informative comment was that when they started looking at this stuff, he couldn't believe how bad it has gotten. This gets worked out, but it wasn't moving in that direction.

Russian intel is pretty good. Having a phone number isn't condemning to the person.

No offense intended, but this is an incorrect conclusion from the reality. It was a checkride. You don't "refuse" on a checkride. She simply didn't respond immediately. It was a stupid process, but the reason was the switch to a different runway and not holding the helo at that point, well out of the way. It wasn't "her."

Even that premise is ridiculous. The comment I made about enlistment rate trends being a positive were a direct and immediate response to someone claiming such a situation was a bad thing because it was budget busting, which is preposterous. After that, the pure fiction began.

So you invent quotes that were never said. Create viewpoints never expressed, and now demand responses, as if you have any qualification to do so. The point is I don't care about Hegseth. What I do care about is cabinet level influence at the Pentagon, which ultimately goes downstream to our services. I do care that the past four years were marked by political appointments that were identity driven and not positive nor effectual. Much the same as other gov institutions. If Hegseth can reverse that and redirect the focus on fighting wars instead of social experiments, I'm OK. If not, or if he proves to be a risk to that goal by lack if discipline or incompetence, fire him. Not complicated. I care as much about him as I do about you.

Add another to the list of things I've never said.

Stop the senseless judgement. You're wrong again.