Milestone PLANK Owner First F-35C Arrest NIMITZ 03 Nov 2014

[spazsinbad]

Thanks 'JW'. Now for something completely different.... An OldenAge Movie about LSOs USN1963style - view it to see everything you wanted to know about NavAv (herein called Carrier Aviation - how quaint). Watching a Vigilante approach via the PLAT camera had me shaking my head. How did they do it and connect with the BARRICADE?! Gutsy stuff indeed.

Landing Signal Officer 1963 US Navy Training Film; Aircraft Carrier Operations
Published on Dec 5, 2014 Jeff Quitney

"Aircraft Carrier Landing Signal Officer duties are explained in this USN Training Film. US Navy Training Film MN-9920"

[optimist]

With the F-14 having the heaviest trap weight in the US for regular use.

Was the C-130 the heaviest thing to ever land on a US Aircraft carrier?

probably, but the U-2 was cooler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8HMPMYL19E


thank you, I was wondering why it didn't work

[spazsinbad]

Thanks for that 'optimist'. There is a thread or part of on this forum about the U-2s doin' it. I'll get that link soon.
Go here: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=16571&p=212427&hilit=Carrier#p212427

This thread: A brief history of tailhook design & others I'll guess have various bits about Dragon Lady U-2.

Meanwhile for making the Utube video appear just take the URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8HMPMYL19E and change it thusly:

[youtube]L8HMPMYL19E[/youtube (now you just need to add the last square bracket to end the string for it to work)

OK - I see you have done it - cool.

[spazsinbad]

This'll make Carrier Deck Landings probably a lot more accurate - especially with all the gizmos on the F-35C.

Dedicated team delivers next-gen visual landing aid equipment, wins prestigious award
18 Dec 2014 PEO(T) Public Affairs

"NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND, PATUXENT RIVER, Md. -- A Navy aircraft launch and recovery team was recognized for its exemplary work with a 2014 Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) Commander’s Award during a ceremony at Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) headquarters in Patuxent River, Maryland, Dec. 10.

The 45-member Improved Fresnel Lens Optical Landing System (IFLOLS) Phase IV development team met the challenge of supplying the Navy’s aircraft carriers with an upgraded optical landing system through an in-house government effort. The project was designed, developed, tested and fielded by NAVAIR engineers at Joint Base Maguire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey....

...The group will see its efforts come to fruition with the commencement of its first install aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) this month....

...For decades, pilots have relied on the optical landing system on board the Navy’s aircraft carriers to provide glideslope and other critical information and guide them to a safe recovery. IFLOLS Phase IV is the latest advancement to this technology.

"The new Phase IV system will provide the fleet with a significantly improved IFLOLS, which incorporates fully supportable hardware and an integrated system with increased maintainability and availability, resulting in increased boarding and sortie rates,” said Jaime Madera, carrier landing aids program manager and IFLOLS Phase IV team lead.

Madera explained USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) is the next carrier scheduled to have the system installed in 2016, and all carriers will be outfitted thereafter...."

Source: http://www.navair.navy.mil/index.cfm?fu ... ry&id=5806

CAPTION: "The Improved Fresnel Lens Optical Landing System (IFLOLS) provides visual cues to pilots of approaching aircraft..." http://www.navair.navy.mil/img/uploads/1218photo_2.jpg

[spazsinbad]

'apropos of nothing' except maybe I mentioned that one day a new version of the 'how to deck land' PDF would be uploaded? Today is the day. On GoogleDrive is a 2.5Gb PDF (Microsoft OneDrive now only allows me 2Gb files so that is still uploading) with these details:

GoogleDrive SpazSinbad Folder: _How To Deck Land 01 Jan 2015

PDF FILE: HowDeckLand01jan2014.pdf (2.5Gb)

https://drive.google.com/?authuser=0#fo ... VpEd3NpTE0

Please right mouse click on the file to download it to your computer and view the PDF with the latest version of Adobe Reader - now 11.0.10 - obtainable for your Operating System here [only install Adobe Reader - nothing else required]:

http://get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/

Most of the information, except for some extra embedded videos, is from the latest 4.4Gb PDF - a recent version is on GoogleDrive or OneDrive - look in other folders. Now look below for Microsoft OneDrive details - ALL FILES FREE etc.
_______________

FOLDER: _How To Deck Land 01 Jan 2015 2GB PDF

PDF FILE: How Deck Land 01 Jan 2014 2GB

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C ... 7E6%212119
OR
http://1drv.ms/1zWGqsb

[spazsinbad]

The best introduction to NavAv I have seen - from the beginning.

Angle Of Attack - "How Naval Aviation Changed The Face Of War" [1 hour and 49 minutes]
TheWhiplash007 Published on Jul 5, 2013

[count_to_10]

The best introduction to NavAv I have seen - from the beginning.

Angle Of Attack - "How Naval Aviation Changed The Face Of War" [1 hour and 49 minutes]
TheWhiplash007 Published on Jul 5, 2013

Interesting stuff at the beginning, but by the end it tailed off into social commentary.

[spazsinbad]

Must admit I watched only the first fifty minutes or so and ran out of time but will watch the rest soon as. Social Commentary? Please explain.

[spazsinbad]

NEVER ignore the weatherpeoples. Seeing as how 'maus92' brought up the topic on this irrelevant thread here: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=14115&p=283698&hilit=comparative#p283698

USS Nimitz SGOT Provides Crucial Support for F-35C Interoperability Test
Dec 2014 Lt. Cmdr. Jonathan Savage NMOC News

"...Tests were extremely weather-sensitive; forecasts and observations made by Aerographer’s Mate 1st Class Brett Madore’s Nimitz Strike Group Oceanography Team played a critical role in ensuring a successful test program. Each night, the carrier positioned itself based on Aerographer’s Mate 1st Class Monica Delcoro and Aerographer’s Mate 1st Class Brian Heiler’s recommendations to achieve best winds for the following day’s test. Engineers and test pilots regularly checked their test plan against the forecasts to ensure their minimum and maximum wind requirements could be met.

Local and divert field weather observations provided by Aerographer’s Mate 2nd Class Marcus Foudy, Aerographer’s Mate 3rd Class Naomi Bedford, Aerographer’s Mate Airman Aurora McCoy and Aerographer’s Mate Airman William Coddington were critical to ensuring minimum ceiling requirements were met."

Source: http://www.public.navy.mil/fltfor/cnmoc ... c%2014.pdf (1Mb)

[spazsinbad]

Over on page 40 of the now very long 'Lakehurst' thread there is a link to this post (in text) that was perhaps overlooked (by me anyways - there was a lot going on at the time)? Here is the link again in case it was missed and worth rerecording on this thread due content:

F-35C Makes First Carrier Traps 03 Nov 2014 SMSgt Mac

http://elementsofpower.blogspot.com.au/ ... traps.html
from:
viewtopic.php?f=57&t=15767&p=281040&hilit=verily#p281040

[spazsinbad]

Some more slomo action for your delectation:

[maus92]

ALIS still a problem area...


The F-35 Has To Phone Texas Before Taking Off
Patrick Tucker – Defense One January 8, 2015
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=66007


"The U.S. military ran the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter through a series of
tests aboard the USS Nimitz super carrier in San Diego in early November. It
performed adequately, with one exception — it needed to send its diagnostic
data to Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas, before taking off. If the most
recent exercises are any indication, the F-35 may need to phone home every
time it sets out on a mission.

First, the good news. The plane flew through its aerial paces well enough
and passed a majority of its flight tests.

“The test team accomplished 100 percent of the threshold test points and 88
percent of the objective points during deployment, completing 33 test
flights (39.2 flight hours) and 124 arrested landings, of 124 attempts,
including one night flight with two catapult launches and two arrested
landings. The results of the test were still in analysis at this time,”
Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Maj. Eric Badger told Defense One...."

"The possible bad news to emerge from the recent tests is this: The Nimitz
didn’t have the plane’s Autonomic Logistics Information Systems, ALIS, on
board and so the team had to implement a “workaround.” ALIS is the F-35’s
notoriously buggy diagnostic system that can ground fully functional
aircraft. ...."

"ALIS has a rather strained relationship with Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher
Bogdan, the man in charge of the F-35 Program, as Military.com’s Brendan
McGarry reported in February, Bogdan has few kind words for the system.

“ALIS doesn’t always work right and it is not the font of all knowledge
about the airplane because I got maintainers out there who fix the airplane,
I’ve got pilots who go out and pre-fly the airplane, and everyone in the
enterprise thinks the airplane is ready to go except ALIS,” Bogdan told a
defense budget conference. In terms of manual overrides, Bogden said “we
need to start doing that… We can’t do that wholesale, but we need to do that
in a measured way.”

The Nimitz testing team’s “workaround” streamed the plane’s diagnostic data
to technicians at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas. That, in turn,
allowed them “to process the necessary maintenance actions” so the tests
could proceed. ...."

"The Pentagon has not yet said whether the issue that kept all the ALIS
equipment off the Nimitz was related to the difficulty of integrating a
shipping container worth of servers into the ship’s structure, the software
(up to 29 million lines of code and counting for the F-35) or something
else. ..."

[KamenRiderBlade]

maus92
What do you do for a living, what special skill sets do you have?
Are you a software developer or even some form of engineer?
What's the longest term most complicated project you have ever worked on?

I am a software developer by trade. It takes time to work out bugs in the system. The more complex your software, the longer it'll take to work out bugs. Even after initial releases, there will be software updates, that's the nature of software. You CANNOT and WILLNOT find all bugs before initial release, that is unrealistic and has a < 1% chance of ever happening in the real world.

Everything that the article states is just early teething problems ranging from bugginess in the software to the fact that they haven't figured out a installation process appropriate to the carrier.

These are not outstanding issues, just day to day issues that will be resolved over time.

Again, you're blowing things out of proportion, making every little thing seem far bigger than it really is.

[spazsinbad]

What a load of old cobblers: that 'Phone Home' shows that the author is just ignorant. Firstly there is a thread about ALIS where this ALIS article should be placed IMHO. However when I first read it I thought it was still a load of cobblers and went to find other articles about ALIS from that time. Firstly the author [needs to do some research] talks about the OLD VERSION of ALIS; because of course a new expeditionary capable version - still under development - has yet to be released, which by other accounts is working much better. But hey let us just dwell in the past, ranting about the old version - quoting an OLDen 60 Minutes - because it was always worse back then eh. Secondly NIMITZ does not have ALIS installed like any other ship (whether it is going to be in a shipping container sized compartment or not) so there is that. Here is the other 'news' about ALIS on NIMITZ. ALIS V 2 is recorded elsewhere as being the version to be used for USMC IOC: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=26749&p=283386&hilit=ALIS+peripherals#p283386 & viewtopic.php?f=22&t=8159&p=280276&hilit=ALIS+expeditionary#p280276

INFO about ALIS v. 2: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=8159&p=278624&hilit=ALIS#p278624

Lockheed Martin delivers improved ALIS for F-35
17 Sep 2014 Dan Parsons

"...An expeditionary version of the ALIS system is in production to allow the US Navy and Marine Corps to install the system aboard ships. Hardware changes to make the system smaller, more portable and modular were needed for shipboard use. The engineering work to compact the necessary hardware has been completed. Certification testing on the expeditionary system should be complete by March 2015, with deployment in support of the USMC's initial operating capability objective.

The expeditionary version of ALIS will be deployed to all future users as the standard iteration of the system after summer 2015, Horter adds.""

Source: http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... 35-403800/

Cats, Traps & a Rooster Tail
Dec 2014 Mark Ayton, Air International

"AIR International’s Mark Ayton reports from the USS Nimitz during the F-35C Lightning II’s first carrier suitability development test period referred to as DT I...

...Support Onboard and from Ashore
DT I was supported by a pre-production, nonfleet representative version of the Autonomic Logistics Information System known as ALIS 1.03. According to the F-35 Joint Program Office: “Standard ALIS functions were in place and used to support F-35C operations and maintenance onboard USS Nimitz. The functions were accessible via approved Department of Defense network and cyber security policies and authorisations similar to ALIS support for F-35B STOVL deployments to the USS Wasp (LHD 1).

“In addition, standard operating instructions and procedures were in use to support F-35 operations during situations when ALIS functions were not immediately available. There was a combination of F-35 ITF and Lockheed Martin personnel on board and ashore to support operations aboard USS Nimitz.”

Chief Test Engineer Tom Briggs told AIR International: “ALIS was not fully integrated with the USS Nimitz for this test detachment. However, the test team used the ship’s ability to transmit data to and from the shore in order to link to an ALIS server in Fort Worth. This allowed us to maintain configuration management of the aircraft and to process maintenance activities, such as pre-flight inspections, repairs when necessary, compliance with time-based inspections, and routine post-flight inspections. These are the same basic capabilities for which we use ALIS at our test sites in the SDD portion of the programme.”..."

Source: pp 42-47 Air International Dec 2014

[quicksilver]

As Maus well knows, David Martin (his last 60 Minutes piece liberally quoted in the article) mischaracterized ALIS in a number of ways, and cub reporter for this article didnt do enough research to know the difference between the science and the science fiction.

In very simple terms, ALIS aggregates into one system what current aircraft rely on from multiple systems. The functions include maintenance management (to include aircraft health reporting codes), supply chain, and mission planning. Like most current aircraft today , the pilot takes a pre-planned mission data file to the aircraft in a storage device (on some aircraft today it's called a 'brick') transfers that data to the aircraft before/during start-up, and similarly takes that brick out of the jet and back to maintenance control and mission planning when he or she is done. That brick records lotsa stuff from the aircraft and the flight that is downloaded back into the larger database for tracking and future reference.

There's nothing that cosmic about it. Most jets do these things today, they just rely on separate disconnected systems to do it. Martin mistook a laptop-like portable maintenance device used on the flight line for something spooky like an R2D2 (conjures an instant image doesn't it?) and no one corrected the thought.

ALIS cannot physically shut the aircraft down, it cannot "say" no -- it is simply an information system. However, in terms of maintenance practice, by policy, if there are discontinuities between data elements (e.g. part numbers) those discontinuities must be resolved before the aircraft is signed off (by human beings) as "safe for flight." That helps ensure sound aircraft maintenance management.

Has it had some bugs? Yes. But people should understand that the level of performance demanded of it in terms of data fidelity is perfection. It's getting there.