Flying off of an aircraft carrier is the highest challenge aviation has to offer. But in a helicopter? That seems like it’s cheating. If you don’t like the way your approach is going you can stop, even back up if you like, and think it over. Not like the crash or dash approach in a tactical jet approaching at 140 knots.
But the Navy didn’t want us helicopter pilots on an aircraft carrier to get bored. So they gave us other interesting challenges. Imagine landing in a spot roughly two feet larger than your helicopter while approaching the carrier from the bow. As you get slow you’re actually backing up over the ocean while you approach the carrier. How about taking off perpendicular to the carrier’s path through the water at night in bad weather?
I learned to handle all of that. Then one day I was flying off the USS Wasp (the World War II carrier, not the modern Wasp) in a dense fog. Returning from a tactical flight I flew down the approach path, guided by the calm voice of the radar controller. When we got to minimums the carrier was still shrouded in the fog, I could see nothing. I followed the missed approach but realized this wasn’t going to be any more successful a second time and I was low on fuel.
The controller had me go back to the radar approach but instead of descending at a gentle angle I dropped right down until I could see the water and slowed down far below normal approach speed. I was still being directed toward the carrier but at about twenty feet above the ocean. Someone on the carrier started dropping smoke flares off the stern. A smoke flare floats, has a readily visible burning flame just above the surface and emits a lot of smoke.
As I slowly flew up the track of the ship I started seeing the smoke flares, just like Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumbs, leading to the ship I followed the trail of smoke flares up the wake of the ship until I got so close I could see the water roiled up from the screws. I climbed fifty feet until I was above the flight deck, then eased slowly forward until the carrier appeared out of the mist. I set down on spot 9, the furthest aft helicopter landing zone on the flight deck. I couldn’t see anything forward of spot 8 through the fog. We had about 250 pounds (roughly 30 gallons, about what my SUV holds) of fuel remaining. Enough to fly another fifteen minutes. Piece of cake!