The REAL Truth About LSOs

since the first naval aviator landed aboard an aircraft carrier there's been a need for landing signal officers lsos for short but where do they come from and how do they learn these specific skills they possess well for those answers we turn to one of my favorite lsos another amigo of mooch kevin hoser miller so jose you were just on the channel a couple weeks ago we were together at tail hook and you mean jello had kind of a freeform round table talking about highlights and what we're doing now and your books and your involvement with dcs and things like that but i wanted to go deep into the world of lsos here with this episode so before we get into the specifics about that let's tell the viewers about your biography a little bit yeah i was one of those guys that always knew um my father was in the navy as was my grandfather but they were not aviators but as a as a small child of five or six uh my father took me to see one of his friends on the carrier uss lake champlain in quantum point rhode island and uh as a as a small boy it made an impression and by the time i was 10 i think i had verbalized when i grow up i want to be a carrier pilot so it's commissioned rotc university of mississippi in 1981 uh went down to flight school flew the t-34 charlie the t2 buckeye the ta-4j they're all gone um got my wings been to the a7 they're gone too um it was during that time in in flight school uh certainly when i was flying the the t2 uh that i you know i learned about this thing called the lens i had a guy an instructor named mike schmanck hank he explained to me how the how the fresnel lens worked and uh i thought it was fascinating i also liked my lsos uh slap sherman the late slap sherman jack super bt-9 and andy ingram and and bt seven uh arsky and jerry peebles and uh so i kind of knew when i got to the fleet is something that i i wanted to pursue i got to my fleet squadron va 82 and uh they had an opening and so i was able to be a trainee along with uh my squatter mate david woody woods and uh so we deployed on nimitz and uh and then i continued my career up through kagala so where you and i were together and then that fateful day off norway exactly so let's back up before we get to you as kag paddles what analogy would you use in terms of the relationship between a student naval aviator and the lso you remember the names you can rattle them off obviously landings matter a lot to a naval aviator certainly there's more rigor and scrutiny put into landing on the boat then there is landing at the field not to hoot on our air force brethren but you know this from the get-go forges a very i don't know if it overstates to say intimate relationship anything stand out in terms of your initial interface with your lsos were they critical were they gentle was it tough love what what was their bedside manner that that struck you tough love and uh hey you know this is this is the fleet and certainly my a7 lso's uh uh marty ellison and and uh craze mason um they're tough stuff on all of us and uh you know you gotta measure up um and uh so but they always would work with you let's fast forward to your in va 82 as you said there was an opening you decided that was something you wanted to do so what is the vetting process how can you can just any pilot decide he wants to be an lso or how does that go and once you say i want to be the squadron lso what happens after that including when do you go to lso school i i got to the fleet and uh you know early on it's a it's a smart thing just to keep your mouth shut and uh you know and fly so i've the way it is typically done in my community anyway your first flight with the co and then if then he'll hand you down to the exo in department heads before you fly with a lieutenant and uh so i think i've been in the squad and we're starting to work up and and i would just kind of hang out with the lsos i went out with uh squadron ellison steve sullivan and pete jerome the white house and the outline field there and just you know watch what they did and then i started vocalizing i'd kind of like to do this so i guess they had seen me uh for a month or so and said okay go ahead and uh that's how i started on nimitz uh full workup and a deployment uh boot hill our shipmate was the cag lso with andy ingram and uh i would just go out to the platform and and watch so you just stand in the back and watch one day uh all right you you want to take the pickle here and yes sir and so uh it's it's on the job training and it takes a full deployment to uh to get your quality of squadron qual and then the second deployment the wing call where you're qualified to wave day and night all the air wing aircraft you're an a7 guy how does an a7 guy at that point figure out how to wave a tomcat or how to wave back in these days we had intruders and we had vikings we had myriad type model series these days all you have to know how to wave is really you would might consider the super horn in the growl of the same airplane i know that's probably this vassal um and the e2 that's kind of it right in an air wing now and you you look back in in our days wwe cold war and we had you know half a dozen type model series that you were waving so how did you get good at doing that stationed at cecil field as i was then the s3s were also there so we'd be out at white house and there'd be an s3 lso and you know we'd work our airplanes and then they'd go back and hot seat and then the svs would show up so you learn from him that way and then on the platform underway uh you know all the air wing aircraft and he asked questions one question uh you know this is uh you know at 14 a's do you give an f-14a a burner wave off if if needed and the answer is no because of the way the cans open but with the f-14b that that was with us on our ike deployment um i asked the question to uh to woody haran and sky crane uh f-14 lso's and uh no the the the burner wave off with now is a valid call on the f-14b and it was so we would have training uh in wardrobe one and we talked about these things these characteristics of aircraft uh such as the e2 you hear a popping with the e2 that means not enough right rudder and and how to look at the light uh displays as a you know as aircraft are coming aboard at night and you can tell if they're on speed um after i remember after a training session on that deployment uh we needed to uh to give an f-14 a burner wave off and uh and probably would not have done that had we not had the training of all 30 lsos there on the ship back in our day you had a scribe that would write down i guess we call him a writer would write down every pass somebody would fly by and you would just basically think out loud for the next 15 seconds uh so pretend like me and chilly mcdonald just came aboard at night at um not to put the who in it but um sort of go through what it would sound like as the writer is writing this down and we'll talk about the shorthand of of how you would copy down what you said but how what would the cadence and what would the words be for grading a pass after the aircraft traps you know your eyes are always in the groove so you put the handset you know up to your ear and you're looking out into the groove and so the guy's next to you and you kind of you know it's 30 knots of wind so uh high start too much power in the middle high fast nose down and close to at the ramp as an example uh three wire or whatever it was typically uh after a recovery uh the cag lso and and i did this at the end of my career you go down below uh before you uh you travel throughout the ship spreading joy and good chair in the debrief you would uh say okay let's talk about uh four zero four you know you remember four zero four remember what he did there in the middle then close you know let's you know he he's pretty high there so you know we gotta or i remember one zero five you know he came around the corner and and he was uh you know he he was low wrapped up but he made a good correction and he got a three wire so let's reward 105 uh for making a good correction and he didn't give up on the pass so that's the kind of discussions that we would have and then we would go debrief but the other thing is the past would ultimately get a grade right so let's go good to worst what are the grades that a pilot would get for a pass above average okay average fare below average no grade uh unsafe inside the wave off window is a wave off um or a cut pass on unsafe i'm sorry uh wave off obviously is uh okay we're not unacceptable um and then there's a bolter which you can fly a pretty good pass and right at the end you'll find yourself uh fast and flat and uh and bolter so so those are the grades there's also okay underline and that's a perfect pass and and uh you know we're talking you know you know we're on fire with only one wing and you get a board you know that's the kind of scenarios there i think uh exactly you guys gave him okay underlined for that yes yes there's also a numerical value right for each one of those and so pilots all have a grade point average and in every ready room there is what we call a greeny board although in some cases it's more like a yellowy board where you get a little disc associated with that pass and it's right there for everybody to see as you walk in the ready room you know everybody's passes are all lined up there with these little medallions that are different colors you know it's kind of this is high pressure ball right and it never lets up through a pilot's career you know it's not like oh you got your wings now you're good to go for life you know we we've seen squadron cos that were on the watch list because they were in a slump and the analogy i like to use is either a baseball player with his batting average if he's in a slump or a golfer i think listening to pilots talk about ball flying reminds me of two golfers talking about swing techniques they're all kind of little subtleties and variations inside of meatball lineup angle of attack again as a rio when we got into that phase of flight regardless day night case one two three we were co-pilots and and so we had to be aware uh it was in your best interest to be aware uh obviously the stick in the back didn't control the airplane but it was in your best interest and also you were there to get your pilot to that next grade up so a good rio can turn a fair into an okay or you know a no grade into a fair this is something that you know just goes on and on i just saw a video because people these days are like well you know super hornet's easy to land compared to the tomcat or the a7 but then you throw on pitching deck you throw in as you said one mile vis or less i just saw this video of this super hornet trying to come aboard clara at the ball call me can't see the ball and generally what paddles will say like you sound good keep it coming you're clear at the ball call which i never loved that call you know this guy comes and he's got this huge come down he's in full blower and he basically winds up leaf blowing the flight deck as he goes by you know canted upwards in full blower so to me it's like oh it's still hairy at times out there in spite of these technological improvements and all the other things that make it let's just say safer than it used to be so let's talk about a day in the life of an lso so remind me each squadron has two each fixed-wing squadron has two lsos and so on staff there are two lsos right there's there's two cag lsos and each squadron has two maybe three and uh uh and then and the third one might be a a trainee uh some squatters might have two trainees so it it varies um typical day most squadrons or will uh will work their lso every every four days you have lso duty so that's how that works and there's there's lso teams so you have an lso team leader and you might be in in vf 143 might be the team leader and the other typically an lso from each other of the fixed swing squadrons form a team so you always have some expertise there on the platform you might fly the first event and then the rest of the day and night you're going to be on the platform waving airplanes recovering airplanes and you'll do that all day and night the following morning you'll you'll wave and then you're free to be scheduled to fly and that's that's probably it allows everyone to fly every day and that that helps the schedule riders uh duties there typical day is uh you'll you'll go out there for a recovery so the launch is still going on and the flight deck is is just uh you know overwhelming noise decibel level the launch is going on you get yourself up on the platform tower paddles radio check the flight dead clears and then we watch the games begin as the aircraft overhead they cycle down and come into the break uh not saying a word zip lip of course and uh recover all of them aboard after the recovery we'll uh we'll go below there's a little vestibule by by ready we remember kinda and we'll have our little powwow okay let's take a look at the book and usually the catalyst will make his little changes the day he wants to or hers and uh and then hand the book to uh to where it was waving that recovery and we'll make our way forward so we'll stop into ready eight and say okay who was in uh in 107 and and uh and then debrief there uh yes mooch i i have memories of uh debriefing pilots and in 143 and and you are standing off to the side listening and uh so you know i'm i'm debating from the pilot you know looking at him and i'll say hey um you know got a little uh or maybe oh you got wrapped up there on the start and then you know over control that makes it really hard for you but a nice job you know getting aboard fair three and so you try to end it you know with a uh you know even like a 1v1 debrief on on and up note um if you really have to deliver a message then you have to deliver a message um and then then we would leave and and you guys i'm not sure what you said but uh but yeah you were able to to hear it and then then talk with your your air crew about how that worked and so we would make our way forward uh finish up and ready one next to the wardrobe maybe get a quick bite and then go back out for more and so that's that's typically how that worked out every day i will say that while you note i was off to the side you sort of monitoring that relationship was pilot to pilot right it it was not it is powerful yes it was not an nfo's place to go now hey hold on you know what i saw was you know that that was not something that i would ever have done right um this thing is sacrosanct uh this is you know single anchored a single anchor but i would just monitor to sort of get my own trends for the guy i'm crude with right so maybe what i could yield out of the debrief is what you're trying to school them on is the trend you know is is or is it low starts is it underpowered in the middle is it over correcting you know for a high what are the trends that we're seeing that maybe i can get ahead of when i put on my co-pilot hat at three quarters a mile and and so i i yes as we say i i was very cognizant of the debrief i wanted to be there to hear it but i'm on the periphery right i'm not i'm not like you're not debriefing me you know it's it would be inappropriate for me to imagine uh that i have any real standing in that in that dynamic and that brings up another point you know the whole ready room is listening to this the the seal next though everyone in the running room is is listening to the debrief of of all the pilots that just flew that that brings up an important point which is and this is where particularly both well i think this is where we get to who becomes an lso so an lso it's a blank canvas to start you know any pilot in the squadron could say i want to be an lso and maybe the timing's writing like okay sure go ahead try it um but effective lsos are those that and it's kind of like you guys should be in white lab coats right there's it's almost like a doctor-patient relationship and you have to have a good let's just call it a bedside manner so you have to be firm but fair you have to sort of exude authority without being overbearing about it so when you walk in and i remember because you guys got your white float coats on and your hair is always blown and ruddy cheeks because you know like you said it's blowing 30 40 knots out there and you know you've just done the quickie debrief and you got the book and we're just about to start our debrief with the flight and so there's all kinds of things going on in the ready room you know and and so you guys would walk in and it's kind of like you know city officials walking in to a town hall meeting you know and and i just remember your demeanor was just so i don't want to overstate it to say professional but you had a countenance and a sort of your posture was one of okay i'm gonna tell you what your past was and it's not really up for debate you know this is here's the answer to what you just did now if you want to push back or go sideward that's certainly okay but i'm not here to go do you agree with me right so you've got to kind of be able to set that tone without being heavy-handed because obviously we're dealing with some pretty extreme personalities in the form of carrier pilots you are always my poster child as i've said several times on the channel for the lso and the debrief and the way you comported yourself both on the platform and how you did debriefs so were there any hard cases that you remember without putting the who in it necessarily where it's like pulling the pin on a grenade during the debrief was there anything like that that you remember you know with with you know a hundred personalities like that on a on a in an air wing uh sure from time to time each of my cruises you know the two is a lieutenant and one cag lso cruz where i was in lso i knew all the air crew in the air wing and it's great it's great to go in the red room you know everyone you know all the pilots certainly all the all the nfos in the day i did not know who was in a particular airplane sometimes yes but typically you do not know who's flying at night you you do know who's flying you you can say all right you know who's who's in 111 and and you get it okay got it typically uh you know the um the story is you know old cag lsos are the toughest to debrief and uh so often times it's the junior senior thing when i was a lieutenant commander on the cag staff you know again you have to you have to uh um earn the trust of the air wing and then once it's earned okay do i want to take on uh this guy who's working for cag pilot's senior to me from time to time would and uh it it's not typically an issue but sometimes it was and and in those cases uh if if i learned that they were trying to you know browbeat my junior lsos uh during the debrief i might take the book from the junior lso and then debrief that particular pilot and then hand the book back and i'm not sure if that was was noticed by anyone but but i would do that so in those situations uh typically there would not be a heated moment another thing about grading during deployment and during workups you start hard like i mentioned earlier so early in workups deployment the okay window is narrow but as the deployment goes on you open up that okay window and you and you look for for reasons to to give a guy a break that that's that's working hard um okay yeah that was a that was a kind of a fair deviation but you made a nice correction let's let's you know we've been out here four and a half months now let's uh let's not make a a hard day harder um at the end of our uh our 91 92 deployment of course you and i went up to norway and the deck is bobbing like a cork and in those situations everything's in okay i mean if if but if you get a board and you know you're flying a safe pass you know everyone's working hard out there in the air and and on deck is just just tough tough conditions so uh you know training is over we're going to finish this and go home so let's let's give okay to the max extent that introduces and we've talked about this briefly we talked about this during our hook episode that we did with jello moveless and we described that when the deck's moving whether it's feet or degrees per second the lens the automatic fresnel lens stops being reliable so you have to take over with a manual system that's the acronym is moveless which is manually operated visual landing aid system physically what is it is it a handle that you attach to something it's a handle on the platform and so you raise the handle up to show high all the way to the bottom to show low and in front of the lens a uh a apparatus a box of lights is is placed in front of the lens so using the existing green datum lights and now i'm going to manually show what i perceived in glyssa i think i perceived that guy high so i'm going to show him i and then if i were to look behind me i would see amber lights above the green datums indicating a high in 1992 off norway as we were it was uh scott the cena slick the cena and i as kag lsos were doing all the mobiles and at that point training is over we had our squadron lsos that were backing us up is very important but uh but but we were on the mobius and and i remember at the end maybe we were invested fjord and the seas calm down a little bit and then we would you know it's like you know letting the uh the guys have the you know to come up for a pinch hit on the on the mobis here and get some experience because it's going to be the next deployment when those guys are are kaggle of those and they're going to be on it the whole time so that that's how the way it works is i have to to look in the glide slope and at night there's no horizon but we would often put a destroyer after the ship as we know and that would be our horizon so you can see the airplane and and uh and there the horizon is that that cluster of lights of that destroyer and i would show him what i perceived him to be roger ball you're working high you're high power back on and now i'm lowering the the ball and so i'm i'm thinking i have to converse what i want to convey uh over the radio and then you know the muscle memory of of uh of the mobilis uh apparatus there uh another technique would be uh as the ramp is made and the aircraft is coming down you can just push the ball down just a little and pilots will come up on the power making a correction and it'll cushion their landing uh we would also say okay let's try to put this guy on the two wire and uh and see if how guys did as an example what what passes for fun on the lso platform that technique and that the ability to do that with where you put the ball is is next level lso performance we know that in naval aviation history using mobilis lsos have showed high balls to the degree that they fly airplanes into the ramp inadvertently um and and so there's a lot of responsibility on your shoulders when you're the guy showing the pilot who's coming aboard what his glideslope is right so this is very serious business and the weight of that has got to be uh pretty daunting you made me think of a time uh and it was march 10th 1992 and and uh daytime ops our first day of teamwork and uh uh captain cross up on the bridge is trying to you know you know it was rough and they said okay well maybe if i speed up i might be able to smooth out the seas or slow down i have a memory of a prowler just hovering over the ramp and in 55 knots knocks of wind i mean you know tropical storm winds is you know it's a you know typical day and night out there um he uh toward that afternoon he called it inside for him and said hey hoser what do you think and and i said sir we're at the limit and uh not long after that we we knocked off for that day uh we we had another week and a half of that but we but you know we kind of okay let's let's just stop today and and we had some lessons learned and then passed them throughout their writing rooms i i think on that exercise the the worst boarding rate that we had was fifty percent in in the in heavy pitching deck we flew tac air daytime and hummers hoovers and hilos at night all night but a typical boarding raid without that uh you know pretty varsity pitching deck in the the 75 to 90 percent so that's i think that's pretty good and uh that's very good yeah that's uh yeah you know it is you know the air crew is working hard we had been together for a long time and it just worked out well for us so you mentioned that you didn't go to lso school until after your first cruise when you'd waved a bunch and you're glad you did it that way sort of seems like going to get your mba after you've worked in the private sector for some years then what they're teaching you makes more sense so what did you learn at lso school that you didn't know going into it and what's the basic construct of the syllabus there there are three classes for lso so there's the initial squadron call and then when you become an frs lso you go back to lso school and okay now you're and then there's a cag lso course where you are paying close attention i mean you know you're the guy and so you're you're hanging on to every word i think um glideslope geometry uh how to uh how to analyze the plot analysis and you can you can pilot landing aid television it's on in every writing room so you know you can it's always on and uh your eyes are drawn to it day and night when aircraft are in the groove and uh by using geometry you can tell just how far away that aircraft is you can you know see the airplane doing things at night you see lights doing things and you just how far away it was so you're able to analyze that i also we there was the the the psychological aspect of being an lso and and how to give an effective debrief which which transfers to you know what you and i did as tactical aviators on the tactical side air to air and air to ground and you know we no one wants to screw up on purpose but you know human beings do and and uh you know you throw a bomb or you miss the intercept and and instead of saying how could you you know you you say well all right well here's here's what happened the brief was this and this is how it went a technique next time um is this and and uh so let's go get a slider and and brief tomorrow and and that's that's the way that that uh you have to do it you can destroy a young pilot and a young lso if you you know humiliate them this is this is all new and so um we we we did not want to do that of course and and the the the heated moments on the ship and they happened again we've been been gone a long time it's human nature you you work to limit those and and for the most part people do so how long nominally is lso school i know you different phases that you've described but about how long are those courses the initial one i remember uh two weeks uh it was at cecil field when i went through and now it's at oceana virginia um for the the frs and the kagala so course i uh probably a uh a week you know typical navy school you know three days of information and in five days um but we we got it done there yeah so when you were skipper did your kag lso experience inform obviously how you would conduct yourself when you were getting debriefed but would you also instruct your jo nugget pilots in in any ways in terms of the way they should conduct themselves when they're getting debriefed i think leadership by example and uh you know the lsos will come in and i'm like oh paddles come on in great to see you you know can we get some coffee you know some some fun thing like that and uh and maybe i knew that i had thrown an awful pass at him and so you know here it comes but uh i i would take it and yes you know everyone is listening when the ceo gets gets debriefed and i said palos is just what i saw thank you so much and uh and that's that's really the the only way to do it uh so about but sure i think we had ready room discussions about it but the but leadership by example my exo mike shoemaker another guy that you may have heard of uh he uh just an outstanding ball flyer and uh another former cag lso uh we we thought our very room was a friendly place for those guys mike shoemaker later the air boss academy classmate of mine you also mentioned slick facing another academy classmate of mine so class of 82 featured prominently in this episode so hoser thank you for the time look forward to talking to you again soon all right enjoy it have a great one all right that's going to do it for this episode if you're a first time viewer please ring the bell and become a subscriber give me the likes and comment check the links below for official channel merch and where to get the punks trilogy in fact the naval institute press just handed me my first copies yesterday love the way this edition turned out and when you order use the discount code punk yt p-u-n-k-y-t and this is when you order at usni.org that link is below so check it out cheaper than amazon cheaper than anywhere else if you use that discount code also if you'd like to help this channel please consider using the super thanks the heart icon with the dollar sign below or become a patron at patreon.com wardcarroll and i look forward to talking to you again soon [Music] you

Channel: Ward Carroll

Views: 141,589

Keywords: Ward Carroll, F-14 Tomcat, F/A-18 Hornet, F/A-18 Super Hornet, A-6 Intruder, EA-6B Prowler, E-2 Hawkeye, aircraft carriers, fighter pilots, landing signal officers, LSOs, paddles, U.S. Navy, Naval Aviation, squadrons, tailhook

Id: yjL4muLPHRI

Length: 32min 58sec (1978 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 21 2021