A day on the Big E — one deck cycle, minute by minute
The Enterprise runs her air wing on a loop of her own: park, taxi, Cat 2, pattern at 260 m, 3-wire, park. Here is one full cycle for KNIGHT 501, SAWBUCK 700 and PROVIDER 30, with the deck crew who work it.
Park a jet on the Enterprise and walk away from the keyboard. Nothing stops. The air wing runs a loop on its own clock, and if you know the script you can read the whole deck like a timetable. Here is one lap, from the data.
The cast
- KNIGHT 501 — the VA-52 A-6E. First off the deck: its wait timer starts at 6–14 seconds, and it flies two laps of the pattern.
- SAWBUCK 700 — the VS-37 S-3B. Waits 70–110 seconds before it taxis, two laps.
- PROVIDER 30 — the VRC-30 C-2 Greyhound. It never starts on deck at all: it joins already airborne on the downwind leg, 2,400 m off the port side, and flies one lap.
One cycle, in order
Park, then taxi. The jet leaves the port row through whichever gap is widest, with a 13 m clearance rule, and it holds the brakes if anything — the air wing, a wingman, you — sits inside its bubble. The yellow-shirt director works the cat-2 lane and a wingwalker marches the starboard wingtip. You can watch all of it in the colored shirts entry.
Hold. Cat 2 on the starboard bow; Cat 1 stays yours. The blast deflector goes up, the holdback is on, and the cat officer will not fire until the wings are fully spread. Then the radio: CAT 2 — YOU’RE AWAY.
Shot. The steam stroke accelerates at about 28 m/s² and tops out at 74 m/s, with the ship’s wind over the deck adding to it as the jet leaves the bow. Gear comes up at six seconds, and after fourteen it turns downwind.
Pattern. Break over the bow, then everything at 260 m (roughly 850 ft): upwind, a port downwind past the stern, base, the final gate. Only one jet works the groove at a time; the rest stack up, and if you are on short final they hold a lap and wait for you.
Trap. Down the 3.5° slope to the angle deck and the 3-wire. Miss it and you hear BOLTER, BOLTER and the jet goes around. Catch it and it is TRAPPED ABOARD, a rollout, a taxi clear, and parking. Then the wait timer restarts and the whole thing begins again.
The crew behind it
Thirteen handlers are on deck for the cycle: yellow shirts (two shooters, two directors, one wingwalker), green shirts at the jet blast deflectors, blue handlers on the tie-down chains, red ordnance crew by the island, and a brown plane captain and a purple fuel crew on the port row. The air wing entry covers how the squadrons got here, and The Big E covers the ship.
Try this: start any carrier sortie, taxi to Cat 1, and just sit there for five minutes with the external camera on. Count the traps before SAWBUCK 700 gets its shot.
— HB