And terrifying...night carrier landings behind the carrier are pure insanity. After Every single one at least one of my legs was shaking uncontrollably!
You really need to mention that you're a navy carrier pilot. In the world of pilots, navy carrier pilots are the heroes.
My hat's off to you, I have the qualifications but have always hesitated to apply to my nation's pilot programme. The sacrifices military personnel make are really extraordinary when viewed from a civilian point of view.
I also work outside IT field (I'm an architect). Before everything I see HN as a place where you have the smartest online community in the world (I think I am not exaggerating) with a very low amount of noise (with some complains from highly tech oriented and nostalgic users forgetting that non-tech people most of times enrich the community), sometimes even with stories/comments/news told in first person (like here) making the knowledge frontiers available to anyone curious enough to dig it.
As far as I am concerned, there can never be too many online memoirs about carrier night landings. Please write up your stories for us chairbound types!
"... They are all of the same general shape and internal composition, and when looking down upon them, I couldn’t help but think of flying over suburbs of the US ..."
"... When I emerged from the near empty Officer’s Mess after our Thanksgiving meal, I wandered up to the hanger bay and was shocked by what I saw. Enlisted sailors, many of whom had spent hours painting the walls, and cleaning the floors to present an image of perfection to our superior, were standing in an endless line hundreds deep waiting to get their meal. A meal that was due to close minutes later. I had never seen a line so long on the ship before. Somewhere the logistics chain failed, and priorities were askew. I did what I could for a few of them, but many still missed out on their meal. As a leader of these men and women, I felt ashamed. As far as I know, General Petraeus didn’t get wind of this – had he, I wonder how it would have turned out. ...."
I'm surprised by this. Non provisioning of the enlisted on a major US celebration. Could be mistaken as a sign of shite leadership. Your descriptions of Petraeus on the other hand speaks the opposite.
"... Our suspicions were unfounded. Later on the transit home, in the hour of nothing but straight and level fight, we discussed this within our two man crew. The running could have been kids playing as they are wont to do around campfires everywhere. How do you balance the benign with the threatening? ..."
