Aircraft carriers pose greatest challenges for pilots

I have always been of the opinion that the single most demanding flying skill is that of landing on an aircraft carrier at night.

I have always been of the opinion that the single most demanding flying skill is that of landing on an aircraft carrier at night.

Last week I attended a pilot’s course reunion lunch at the Avior Club at Kirribilli in North Sydney.

The club consists of about 500 former military aviators and I caught up with an ex-Navy colleague Dave, who recently participated in the latest Exercise Pitch Black, which unfortunately did not yet have our F35s participating but did have some big powerful Indian Sukhoi 30s.

Dave and I flew in the previous Pitch Black flying Lear jets pretending to be Russian fighter bombers.

Dave is famous for an event that occurred in 1980 while flying Skyhawk fighter bombers off the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne somewhere in the Indian Ocean southwest of Sri Lanka.

Dave was checking his instruments as he prepared for the catapult launch in which after confirming his engine was at full thrust he would make eye contact with the deck launch officer and salute, indicating he was ready for launch.

The deck officer, once the steam catapult had full pressure, would give the release signal, but in this event the hold-back mechanism failed before the final “ready”.

Without full pressure this resulted in a soft shot, which meant insufficient forward speed for a successful launch.

With the Flight Deck Command Officer yelling “eject eject” over the radio, Dave did so and with half a swing in his parachute hit the sea alongside his aircraft. The bow wave from the carrier pushed the aircraft aside into Dave, who was pushed under the surface.

All he remembers is that when he broke surface again the carrier was well away.

Dave was picked up by the Melbourne’s rescue helicopter eight minutes after the ejection.

He suffered a fractured L5 vertebrae but recovered and went on to fly Sea Harriers with the Royal Navy.

When I was shown over the HMAS Melbourne years ago I noticed the dent in the stern where one unfortunate navy pilot misjudged his approach.

The Melbourne, as far as carriers go, was on the small side for jet aircraft landings.

The Chinese have recently put in service their superb new carrier with ski jump deck launches and the Indian navy has a former Royal Navy carrier in their fleet. Perhaps as an island continent we could be better served by having an aircraft carrier with F35 Joint Strike Fighters rather than the anachronistic diesel sub­marines we have ordered.

Byron Bailey is a former RAAF fighter pilot who flew B777s as an airline captain.