Manual

The LSO Wave-OffIf you fail to heed Rule #1 and continue abad approach, the Landing Signal Officer(LSO) will signal a wave-off. A wave-off isyour cue to forget about this landing andgo around for another try. As soon as youget a wave-off call from the LSO, youshould immediately begin following your“missed approach” procedures asdescribed below.If you ignore the wave-off and landanyway prepare to see your missionscore reduced. This is the Air Boss’ wayof chewing you out. Disregarding a waveoffis a very serious offense and will bedealt with accordingly. Unless you areflying on vapours, it’s not worth ignoring awave-off.The LSO station. These guys are responsible forbringing you home safely. They also score eachone of your landing attempts and post them forall to see.Rule # 2: Unless you are low on fuel, andthen only if you are down to fumes, neverdisregard a wave-off.FOULED DECK: Just as your F-14 is notthe only aircraft in the sky, it’s also not theonly aircraft on the flight deck. Aircraft areshuffled between the hangar deck andflight deck as quickly as possible butsometimes this just isn’t fast enough. Itcan take up to five minutes to taxi anaircraft, prep it for launch, then cat-shootit free of the flight deck. When the flightdeck is full of aircraft waiting to take-off,other aircraft shouldn’t be trying to land.This situation is known as a fouled-deck.In fact, any time the flight deck isobstructed, it is considered fouled andlanding operations are suspended. If thedeck is fouled prior to you entering thetraffic pattern, you are sent to a MarshalPoint holding area until the situation iscleared.If the deck is fouled while you are at anypoint in the pattern, including finalapproach, you are to implement the“missed approach” procedure.BOLTER: Whenever your aircraft touchesdown but fails to hook any of the wires, itis known as a “bolter.” For example, anaircraft which attempts to land at too higha speed may “float” and touch downbeyond the last of the wires.Pilot error is another reason for bolters. Inthe excitement of the moment a novicemay forget to lower his hook. Don’t laugh,it’s happened to me. If you experience abolter, don’t panic. Treat a bolter thesame way you would any missedapproach and refer to the missedapproach procedures described below.MISSED APPROACH PROCEDURES:Missed Approaches are extremely hard torecover from. Why? Because inattempting to land you have configuredyour aircraft to descend until it touchesdown on something solid. Your wings,flaps, trim vanes, spoilers and everythingelse are positioned to set the aircraftdown. Now all of a sudden, you arerequired to move the aircraft in a differentdirection -up! It takes time to reconfigure,time you don’t have when flying low andslow.Obviously, the earlier you identify amissed approach, the easier it will be foryou to recover from. The closer you are tothe flight deck the more difficult yourrecovery will be. You’ll be flying a nearstall speed with a considerable downward