To me, landing an airplane on an aircraft carrier is one of the most impressive feats a human being can perform. Hell, landing a plane on solid ground is one of them as well but when you add in the movement of the vessel in both a vertical and lateral sense, the math gets REALLY complicated! Today’s modern fighter jets have immense technology in them to allow the skilled pilots to stick ’em on the deck and get them stopped before they are off the other side. Arrestor cables and pilot skill are all that really keeps a kabillion dollar airplane from becoming a really bad submarine. Now, put the pilot in an airplane that is 100% mechanically controlled and have him perform the task on an aircraft carrier that is roughly half the length of the ones that are floating around today and you have the scene filmed in this video.
Shot in 1944 off the coast of Hawaii aboard the USS Makassar Strait, you’ll see a series of landings that didn’t go as perfectly as the Navy wanted and they classified them as “crash landings”. I am not a Navy veteran or an expert on such things but what does one have to do do have a landing considered as a crash? A couple of theses I’d call crashes but there are others where the pilot may have been a little late but still got it hauled down. This was a confidential film that may have been used by the Navy for training or whatnot and it is very interesting. The guy who gets the “BOSS” medal from us is the one who is way late touching down and goes wide open on the throttles to take off again to give ‘er another shot. Grand stuff here folks….grand stuff indeed!
Here’s the description of the video from YouTube:
Crash landings of Navy airplanes on USS Makassar Strait (CVE-91) during training in waters off Hawaii, 1944
Documentation of crash landings,of Gruman Wildcat (F4F) airplanes,on the USS Makassar Strait (CVE-91) during a training cruise, off Hawaii, in 1944. One almost veers off the deck completely, and one the involves a nose-over. In one instance, the pilot comes in too hot, on one wheel, and prudently executes a “go around” for another try. Location: United States. Date: November 1944.
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE PILOTS LEARNING TO LAND ON WWII AIRCRAFT CARRIERS AND NOT EXACTLY GETTING IT RIGHT –
When I was in the Navy I worked with the guys who maintained the flight deck camera system. There are hours and hours of disaster and near disaster video out there. Before there was an internet they had an informal sharing network on film and later tape. You could run this stuff every week and never run out.