Aircraft carrier tradition?

[PM2K]

Here's something for you aviation/navy/military folks out there.

I never heard of this before... apparently, if a plane lands on the wrong carrier (in a non-emergency way) apparently it is tradition for the carrier's crew to mark it up. Is this true? Anyone have or heard of stories like this to share?

Here's a pic I found, which was with a blurb describing the practice...

[schlamm]

Couldn't tell you as it never happened on any of the three I was on

[kham]

Yep

Paul Gilchrist details the tradition as it were in his book "Feet Wet" where he was the unfortunate recipient. It only applies to non-combat screwups, since shot-up aircraft don't get to pick the deck they can use sometimes. However.... confusing which boat is which, well that's a no mercy thing. Plus, the LSO gets a case of his favourite booze if he can get the trap. There might be a rule for day-only, I can't remember but thats what those huge numbers on the deck and island are for In addition to paying up, the poor bird in question gets the full treatment, as illustrated, usually a lot less polite than displayed here. In his case, I think his was a brand-new F9F in dark blue. Oh , the humanity


**** Must Be Air Force ? Oh, that'll leave a mark

And, It AINT Chaulk ....

[jadokast98]

Army here, but I recall reading this in an article. The pic I saw was the a/c & Pilot were back on the Cat after a debrief. :-/ kinda funny if you ask me. The pic was Korean War era and daylight... so... no break given.

[kham]

A few others

The modern one of the Tomcat tail, is even worse; apparently they confused the big 69 on their home boat with the big 64 on Connie. Thats worse than sounds, since they also continued the approach and trap, despite the smoke coming from the stack....which would be somewhat different since Ike is a nuke boat

[PM2K]

Thanks for the insights. I find this stuff fascinating.

[jagfiles]

I remember in the movie TORA! TORA! TORA! on one of the Japanease carriers just before the attack a group leader was holding up silhouettes of American warships and the pilots were shouting the names of the ships in unisen.
Then the leader held up a carrier. At first no one said anything. Then a pilot shouted out "ENTERPRISE!" Then the guy in charges said "No you idiot that's your own flagship."

[kham]

That was a good scene. He's an even bigger idiot, considering the size of Japanese carriers' islands. Small doesnt begin to describe. Akagi's island was one of the smallest ever built . Her entire bridge had less floor space than the living room of my house

[Duncan Edwards]

Such a thing is increasingly unlikely to happen now simply because the US carrier fleet has dwindled to the point that having two carriers deployed together is almost unheard of.

I asked my dad if he ever witnessed this and while he did not he did tell me of an occurrence on the USS Lake Champlain right before his first deployment. Apparently the pilot was held hostage until a delivery of "medicinal alcohol" was agreed upon. The home nest of the offending pilot said they didn't want him back so the plane was held instead.

[kham]

Apparently the Pukin Dog's crew was similarly held hostage for new movies on Connie, since this was back in the day of long deployments and movies were of the Reel to Reel kind that were harder to get than stuff today. A similar exchange was made, with the crew dumped from a cargo helo on the flight deck (yes, dumped; as in not even landing ) They blamed CAG since apparently he noticed and didnt bother to tell them. Payback came a few months later, when he trapped and forgot to retract his flaps, resulting in a major crunch (flaps up BEFORE sweep wings on deck...) and crane-off when return to Norfolk.