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Since the runway he was landing on didn't appear to be sliding off to the right? To correct, they'd have to crab slightly to the right to stay with the ship. I assume you'd treat this just like a crosswind?
There's a sweet spot between straight down the deck and straight down the angle (closer to the angle) where the crab is so minimal as to become a very minor concern compared to glide slope, AOA, alignment, and airspeed control.
In the old days, and especially with recips, it was all on the LSO, who had to counter deck movement by his own judgement, and waveoff the aircraft if it arrived at the "in close" point out of position to make a safe landing.
Meaning a barely perceptible crab with the name of the game being to keep the deck in the middle of your field of view?
When did they switch from gyro-stabilized glide-slopes? Was this present in Vietnam when you served in the Navy?
It was there, in theory, in the newer Forrestal class ships, but according to flight crews it, and the Approach Power Compensator, were "not quite ready for prime time". Most carrier landing aids had a tendency to be introduced a little before all the bugs were worked out, leading aviators to look at them with a jaundiced eye.
The LSO is ALWAYS the person telling the pilot what do, except in the case of a carrier controlled instrument approach. Out there in the heaving windy darkness, Mother Nature is capable of gyrations the engineers never imagined. She delights in stepping outside the boundaries of what these systems can handle.
And he could fly them pretty awesome himself. That's why he's the LSO.
I know what you mean.
Not every "hot stick" aviator has the makings of an LSO, just as not every "good stick" pilot has the makings of a good instructor. An intuitive understanding of the physics of flight, an ability to calmly and quickly impart crucial information, a low adrenaline level, an immunity to arrogance, a resilient ego, and supreme self confidence are the necessary ingredients. Ice would, with a little seasoning, make a great LSO. Maverick, NWIH!
OMG! A Bison! Red alert! Red alert! Set DefCon one! Scramble ADC weapons free! Duck and cover!
During A3J's lengthy gestation from concept to deployed weapon system a lot of things changed. For example, the effectiveness of SAMs and radar guided AAA grew dramatically, making the loft bombing option problematical.
One of the things that changed along the way was the significant gain in afterburning thrust of the J79 engine, such that a little aerodynamic tweaking could make supersonic in the weeds a reality. Lots of "high and fast" jets can't handle the dense air at sea level and actually bust mach. The Vige and the Thud could. What do these two birds have in common? Massive air intakes with variable geometry inlet ducting, large volume but highly streamlined area rule fuselage, and very thin wings.
While I have no idea what kind of ECM (or even just RHAW/RWR) the A3J was to be equipped with, but it seemed that the SA-2's threat might have been a bit overblown for a number of supersonic airplanes.
Not exactly. North American seemed to use a lot of cross-pollination in their designs, however. The A3J, XB-70, and F-108 all used an all-moving tail, the XB-70 and F-108 both used ejection capsules and J-93's.
In a loft bomb maneuver an SA2/Ajax class missile isn't your primary threat. Unless it's acquired you before you've commenced your pullup, it probably can't get to "Fire!" in time. Radar directed AAA, OTOH, can, and did account for many of the Vigilante losses in Vietnam.
Surviving SAMs in Vietnam was not so much about avoiding lock as it was about evading the missile in flight. The beam the missile rode was quite maneuverable in "free" lock mode, but once the missile was in flight, was constrained to the missile's maneuver limits. Early SA2s had no inherent homing capability. They were BUFF busters. An appropriately timed high G turn into the missile would place you inside the missile's minimum turn radius, and once your doppler rate in the missile's sensor started to drop, it would detonate, somewhere out behind you. This was not the Vigilante's strong suit (despite the verbiage in Wikipedia), as it's high speed and weight, smallish wing, and high wing loading made for an evasive turning radius best described as "majestic". Defensive ECM, or "deck 'em" was the bacon-saver of choice.
Yes, but it is why you're flying low in the first-place. That said: I wasn't talking about the threat of the SA-2 at low altitude, but high altitude.
Well, obviously -- but if you can inhibit a lock effectively, you might not have to deal with the missile (that was my point).
As far as I understand, the missile was command guided. It used a beam to aim at the target, but the missile didn't maneuver itself to keep itself within the beam by onboard sensors: The command-guidance system told the missile where to go to keep it with the beam (I'm not sure if the USAF realized the missile was command-guided or beam-riding). Regardless, if they thought the missile was as agile as the beam: It might explain why they thought the missile would be so difficult to defeat.
I guess at a later period of time, they gave the missile some onboard capability (I do remember reading about Linebacker II, where they were using EB-66's to use it's own jamming to cover the B-52's jamming strobes, so the SA-2's couldn't be lined up on the strobe). I also remember that they used a transponder at some point (the downlink), which they didn't have earlier.
The DECM would be able to inhibit a lock or interfere with the missiles guidance: I'm not sure how effective it was, but that should have given planes like the B-58 and A3J/A-5 a good shot at coming in high and fast past 1962. I wouldn't be surprised if the SA-2's used in the USSR might have had some features the NVN's didn't have, but one serious concern I could see would be the SA-2E which had a nuclear-warhead provision.
For an RA5C straight and level on a photo run at medium altitude (Death Alley) inhibiting lock with multiple sites acquiring you at once, wasn't in the cards with pilot devoted to maintaining track and RAN occupied with his sensors, as that required spending a lot of attention on the DECM equipment. I'm told that the procedure of choice was to switch on the guidance signals "jammer" at first indications of a launch, which could automatically scan the various guidance signal frequencies and then send out supposedly legitimate, but confusing guidance signals to the missile. It also supposedly sent out every self-destruct signal that SIGINT had ever recorded from east bloc equipment, just in case, as well as attempting to disrupt the beam.
The Vietnam era PECM and DECM we've been discussing didn't exist in their later developed form back in 1962 when the B58 and A5 were removed from the high altitude arena. SAMs were a prohibitive threat.
If you couldn't inhibit a lock, then preventing the missile from blowing you up seems to make sense.
That's a pretty smart move, actually!
