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Overnight Open Thread - 03/07/2025
[Roger Ball]

“ROGER BALL, HORDE. LOOKIN’ GOOD. KEEP IT COMIN’”

It’s been a little while, so this will be aviation heavy. Keep WeirdDave in your thoughts; he’ll be back soon. If you are not ‘aviation oriented”, just leave some snarky comments and await Pixy’s excellent daily post. Even if you are an aviation geek, consider this a buffet: just choose what looks tasty.

That picture is the “IN CLOSE” position on approach to CV(N)-65, the USS Enterprise. We called her “Big E” and, as our first nuke carrier, she had some unique qualities. One was that island which was almost as big as a parking garage. It was built to accommodate the first phased array radar system. However, with the ship making its own wind, the turbulence (burble) coming off that island required aggressive anticipation to keep from taxiing to the first wire, which would be an automatic “NO GRADE”.
The BIG E was also unique in that she had eight A2W nuclear reactors, unlike the Nimitz class and above having only two A4Ws or A1Bs. Of course, the BIG E was decommissioned in 2017 and is berthed at the Newport News Shipyard, awaiting final scrapping.

For the “naval curious” HORDE (note…not navel curious—that’s a different thread), if you’ve wondered about “Roger Ball”, wonder no more! The naval aviation magazine APPROACH, from February 1975, supplied a somewhat humorous definition.

Heh, I noticed that page is from a 1975 “Approach” magazine. That was the year I went to Pensacola in July-August to start officer candidate school (as an AVROC I, if anyone remembers that program). I didn’t see that magazine at the time, though. I was a little busy doing PT and getting yelled at by D.I.s. Good times!

Note: LSO’s have also been affectionately known as “Paddles” (see picture) and not so affectionately as “Blind Lying C^cksuckers” (picture not provided). So.

LSO’s are like air traffic controllers for the final approach to the ship. They are also the SMEs and instructors for all things about carrier operations. Civilian and military air traffic controllers usually don’t have to worry about the instructor duties. Ever wondered what the process is to become an air traffic controller?

Okay, to the point. What does it really take to become a controller? It most certainly isn’t 15 hours until you solo, but more along the lines of “Zero to ATP” in two to four years… Just remember, ATC isn’t for everyone. Just because people believe it’s one of the most stressful jobs, only means they limit themselves before they plug in.

There are plenty of recent examples of good and bad piloting and controlling. One might think the sky is falling, oops, bad analogy…that’s things are suddenly going wrong. But, errors have happened ever since Orville and Wilbur took to the air. The difference now is that there are cameras almost everywhere and everyone with a phone (i.e. everyone) is a Cecil B DeMille. With a plethora of audio and video recordings, minute dissection of every event is now common. All this went on before now. We just didn’t know about it until it was a catastrophe.
Here’s an example of poor air traffic control at Westchester, New York. If you are not familiar with KHPN, it is the business jet mecca on the east side of the Hudson, with Teterboro holding that title on the west side of the Hudson. There are hundreds of millions of dollars of private business jets based at each airport. While I know y’all have seen the close call at Midway, it’s just as bad for the controller when the pilot asks for a phone number.
LAHSO (Land and hold short.). This could have been a disaster had the pilots not been situationally aware. They were lucky this time. The controller, not so much.

I think this is the first time I heard this from a controller(at 20 seconds):

I’m pretty sure you will not find sh^t in the PILOT-CONTROLLER GLOSSARY.

The military has had their issues too. The recent Hornet shootdown by the USS Gettysburg (CG-64) is a big deal with implications far beyond the loss of a Super Hornet. Here’s a recent video from Ward MOOCH Carroll (CAPT, USN (Ret)). Now MOOCH and I are not of the same political persuasion, if you get my drift, but he does a good job with his channel (664,000 subscribers). You may think this interview is “too much inside baseball”, but if you have any interest in the event you should give it a look-see.

There were several striking revelations in the discussion. One was the state of readiness and proficiency of the ship, as in “not great”. Two, the known equipment and communications deficiencies that the crew had to deal with. And three, the Red Sea is a high threat environment where the ship is basically on alert 24-7, so exhaustion is a factor. Take a look.

Speaking of ‘bad”, what’s up with Space X?

SpaceX’s Starship spiraled out of control while in space during a test flight Thursday, marking the second launch in a row that the vehicle has run into a fatal problem on its way to orbit… The [FAA] agency told TechCrunch that it is requiring SpaceX to perform what’s known as a mishap investigation into the failure.

Investigation: good plan.

It’s not all bad news. Overland commercial supersonic travel got a little closer on January 29. Obviously, an old story so I will invoke the “buffet” analogy. If you have already seen it, skip off to the dessert bar.

American aircraft company Boom Supersonic proved their name by successfully flying their civilian jet, the XB-1, faster than the speed of sound over the Mojave Desert Tuesday…The test flight out of the Mojave Air & Space Port took about 34 minutes and reached 35,290 feet in altitude, with the XB-1 reaching a max speed of Mach 1.122, about 750 mph, Boom said in a release.

Good effort, but the aviation geeks among us will remember that the Concorde carried 100 people at 2.04 Mach. Not to be a shimmy damper, but BOOM’s proposed OVERTURE will [may-it hasn’t been built yet] carry 80 people at 1.7 MACH. They have secured advanced orders from American, United and Japan Airlines so there may be a future. Apparently, Delta is taking a different approach.

Amelia DeLuca, Delta’s Chief Sustainability Officer: “While Delta is focused on doing what we can today to address our carbon footprint, it’s critical we also work with a variety of partners to advance revolutionary technologies, like JetZero’s blended-wing-body aircraft, to solve for a significant portion of future aviation emissions.”

Umm…It’s not unattractive. I guess. I don’t know about all those middle seats, though.

Let’s take a short trip over to the desert bar. Now this is admittedly non-aviation but seems relevant to our “world situation”. It might even evoke a WTF?: Ukraine’s soldiers are losing arms and legs – then returning to war

Somehow, Monty Python never gets old:

I recently watched IKE, with Tom Selleck. I think it was well done, although many would not like it as a "war" movie. There’s no shooting or booming. It's about the planning for Operation OVERLORD, which remains the largest amphibious landing in history (at least until the CHICOMs take Taiwan. ed.). You would have to have some knowledge of history to fully appreciate the movie.

In a scene that could easily take place today between President Trump and SECDEF, Ike (Selleck) and Omar Bradley (James Remar) are watching the 1944 movie adaptation of Shakespeare’s HENRY V.

At one point, Remar leans over to Selleck and says: "Do you ever get the feeling these Europeans have been at this War thing for a hell of a long time?"
Selleck replies: "Too long. It's almost as if they like it."
Hmmm…

If we have learned nothing from Ukraine, we can know for sure that drone warfare has been redefined for us. And this scene from “Angel has Fallen” has always made me…uh…uncomfortable:

You?

Here’s an idea for the drone wars: but this could cause some concern amongst the population. Well, maybe do some laser eyes or something.

And if that’s not creepy enough for you, how about this diminutive bugger?

Yikes.

Looks like the Chinese have the whole drone thing well in hand. They even have ‘subtitle” drones.

Watch this incredible display of unmanned aerial drones (UAVs) light up the night sky in Shenzhen, China. All of the drones were programmed and controlled by a single laptop during the magnificent performance.

Double yikes.

Time to pack it in, HORDE. Say good night and farewell to the awesome JRM Mars: , the last of the giant Martin JRM MARS aircraft flew to Arizona to be placed in the PIMA Air Museum.

KEEP THE BLUE SIDE UP!
ROGER, OUT.