Flight deck operations

I have written many stories about my time in the navy.

Up until now, many have read them and enjoyed them, but perhaps not been able to visualize them.

Most of us old-timers have heard the saying, “What did you do in the war daddy?”

Well this 28 minute video of air operations off Vietnam in 1966 is what I did.

The ship is the USS Intrepid, while I was on the Kitty Hawk, the flight deck operations were the same.

When you see all that goes on on a flight deck throughout the 28 minutes, I think you will be amazed at how dangerous it can be up on deck.

Planes land at up to 160 mph and stop within a few hundred feet.

Flight deck sailors are just 20 or 30 feet away from this going on.

Operations are controlled chaos, as are landings.

The video is a navy documentary, so you don’t see all of the things that go wrong, but watching the film you will get the idea of how easy it is for accidents to happen, and they did.

I must admit that I was young and it was exciting and I did not give a lot of thought about what could happen there, even when accidents did happen.

I suppose it was the youthful immortality thing.

Here is the link to the video,

Naval Air Operations