Das Boot

Last Thursday/early Friday morning, I finally did the thing that puts "Naval" in Naval Aviator: I landed on the boat. I have officially been in the Navy for 3 1/2 years, and have been commissioned for over 2 now, and this was my first time on a naval vessel, believe it or not. As part of the Fleet Replacement Pilot syllabus, we need to get our initial deck landing quals before we head out to our fleet squadrons. So we took off at about 4:30 that afternoon to head out to the USS Simpson. It was almost 70 miles away, so it took about 30 minutes at the 150 mph that we were doing. Since I am headed far, far away, I got to do my landings first. The day free deck landings were pretty simple; it was just like landing on a spot with a slight pitch, roll, and 10 mph forward motion. After another guy did his landings, I grabbed some boxed lunches for the crew, and we headed back to shore for some gas and the other student that needed to do his boat quals. I was excited for the boxed lunches until I realized that there were pringles, and I was in the back with the door open, and we were doing 140-150 mph. I opened the box, and chips went flying everywhere. Needless to say, I had to wait to eat until we were on the ground. Once back at Mayport, we fueled, and I ate my lunch in the short time that there was no wind blowing it away. We went back to the boat, and took turns doing day RA landings (RA landings are when you use a cable, often during high sea states to help bring the helo safely down). While the first student was trying to do his night RA landings, the trap broke, so he had to orbit overhead, leaving two of us on the boat, so we caught the first part of the Lakers-Celtics game. Finally, the trap got fixed, so we all got out night RAs done, and had to head back to base to drop off one student and get more fuel. We got more gas, and got back to the boat about 11:30 pm. There, I finally got my night free deck landings done, and finished my boat quals. We headed back to base, and I finally set out for home around 1:15 am. It was a long day, but in one day I stepped on a navy ship for the first time and also became qualified to land on one. By the way, the picture is of an SH-60B taking off of a frigate, just as I was doing. The only difference is that they are from HSL-46, and I am in HSL-40.