When we got up to the deck, it was a complete mess, high winds, high waves and a COD trying to bring parts aboard. After a couple wave offs for pitching deck and a sketchy hookskip bolter they sent him home. At that point the Boss tossed the launch plan in the circular file and told anybody that was ready to call up. We were closest to the cat and got to go 2nd behind an S-3 off the waist. As we taxied up to cat 4, I saw the skipper's head pop up from the cat walk. He seemed stunned to see us getting ready to launch and my RIO gave him the ultimate Forrest Gump wave.
That was winning. -Benny
Sounds familiar. Only time we never got aboard in Japan. But it was Nov 1996 during the typhoon off Iwakuni, right? Bud Light tried twice. I tried 5 times. We only dragged hook once, but saw the Indy screws a few times. Only time that I ever saw them out of the water. The seat cushion was nowhere to be found, pucker factor emergency. Code brown. LSO’s saved us all 7 times.
I heard the popcorn machine dislodged and fell & broke in the wardroom due to high seas, right? Biggest tragedy of the day.
My airplane was destroyed from hail, and after we hobbled the plane airborne from Iwakuni back to Atsugi, we saw Elmo’s Fire jump around in the cockpit for about 20 minutes in an ice storm.
We had a prop fire and had to be vectored around Fuji because we could no longer hold altitude. The prop fire kept returning when we were trying to deice the blades, so we were trapped in an alternating cycle of severe icing and fire.
I vaguely remember that a Tomcat slid across the deck in the typhoon, was that you?