Back on topic.
First, you can be a pretty good ballplayer, but have no business being in the NBA...and so it is with pilots. Kara Hultgreen, Planet, and others might have been pretty good pilots, but they had no business flying on carriers. It is, simply, the most demanding environment in aviation, bar none, and not every pilot is up to that challenge.
The difference of course, is that if you're weak on the court, you get boos and your team loses while still getting paid ludicrous amounts of money, while if you're weak at the boat, you die.
Still scratching my head trying to figure out why those NBA guys get millions, but that's another topic...
Landing Signal Officers, LSOs, are charged with "The safe and expeditious recovery of aircraft aboard ship". To that end, they are trained, and in addition to keeping landings safe, they grade every single landing, with detailed comments (too numerous to go into here, but there is an LSO shorthand, which describe approach attitude, power, glideslope, and lineup) so that trend analysis and pilot coaching/training can be conducted. Every landing aboard ship is closely watched, and every landing is carefully, fairly debriefed to the pilots. Each pass gets an overall grade, with comments as above, and the wire caught.
So, LSO grading works like this:
OK - 5.0 the perfect pass.*
OK - 4.0 small deviations with timely corrections. Known as an "OK"
(OK) - 3.0 deviations with good corrections. Known as a "Fair"
-- - 2.0 large deviations, below average. Known as a "No Grade"
B - 2.5 - a Bolter, not necessarily bad, but missed the wires.
WO - 1.0 excessive deviations, wave off.
CUT - 0.0 Unsafe, dangerous, gross deviations inside the waveoff window. Known as a "CUT Pass".
The degree to which an airplane deviates is something a trained, experienced LSO can see very well. Glideslope, centerline, AOA, we can see it all from the LSO platform, which was on the port side of the ship, aft of the wires.
For, example, there was a calculated approach speed based on gross weight for the F-14. It corresponded to the "on-speed" angle of attack. So, an F-14 with an inoperative AOA (and we flew only AOA, not airspeed when on final) was an emergency, and the RIO would often call the airspeed out to the pilot. One night, an F-14 called "no AOA" and I called his approach AOA. On landing and debrief, the RIO commented that I was saying "a little fast" when the airplane was 2 knots above airspeed and saying "on-speed" when it was EXACTLY on-speed. He was shocked that I could see it that well, and I was mildly insulted that this was a surprise to the crew...
Arguing with LSOs was poor etiquette and, in 99% of the cases, simply proved that you didn't see everything. In fact, there was once an article in Approach Magazine (Naval Aviation safety magazine) entitled "The night paddles robbed my wife" in which an A-7 driver kept getting waved off even though he saw a centered ball. On landing, it was determined that the lens itself had failed in roll angle and was showing an incorrect glideslope. In the cockpit, the author was thinking "these guys are idiots, I'm right ON". When he landed and saw the PLAT footage, he realized how low he was, and how "Paddles" had "robbed" his wife of his insurance policy - he was headed for a ramp strike three times in a row...
The LSOs discounted the wave offs and did an LSO talk-down, getting him safely into the 3 wire on his 4th pass.
It is purely LSO judgement on what corrections are "small" or normal, or excessive. But they're obvious to the trained eye. LSOs are true apprentices. You start by watching. You're allowed to grade under the tutelage of a senior LSO (who is both training you and keeping the pilots safe). Extenuating circumstances are considered in the overall grade. Wind, weather, ship's equipment, aircraft equipment, combat fatigue. I considered all of it in determining a grade.
I'll discuss the details of glideslope geometry in another post. It's far more complex than the simple geometry of a runway...
But here's the overview: the target touchdown point on a NIMITZ-class CVN** is 235' from the ramp. This is precisely half way between the the 2 and 3 wires. The wires are spaced 40 feet apart. So, the 1 wire is 175 from the ramp, while the 4 wire is 295 from the ramp. With a 3.5 degree basic angle on the glideslope, a +/- deviation of 15" (roughly) yielded +/- 20 feet on the deck, so, if you were within 15", you touched down within 20 feet of target and then hit the 3.
IF you were 4 feet low, you were on the 1. 4 Feet high, and you would miss the 4, resulting in a bolter. (missed wires, full power, you've got 300' to get airborne again). 4 feet was a lot when you were touching down on a carrier. An airplane perfectly on glideslope, on a steady, level deck, had 14.1 feet of clearance over the ramp.
A 1 wire then, was generally a "no-grade". Below average, but not unsafe (or it would've been a waveoff). A 4 wire was generally a "fair" (high, but not 4 feet high). A 2 wire was generally a "fair", because, like a 4, you were more than 15" off. Any of the sires are "safe" in that they are capable of stopping the airplane equally well. What matters for the airplane is sink rate and attitude. If the sink rate and attitude are good, then all the wires are good.
That said, if you just caught the 2 on the fly, and were only 15" low on an otherwise smooth, nice approach, I would give you an OK for that pass.
Some passes that end up on the 3 are lousy - the result of poor corrections. Nose the airplane down at the last second? That's a "no grade" and in some cases (F/A-18) would damage the airframe, or at least set a code that required detailed inspection by maintenance. How you got there is as important as the wire.
Extenuating circumstances would, of course, influence those grades.
MOVLAS*** was nearly always an OK - if you respond to the LSO-displayed glideslope, your corrections were timely, and you get a good grade.
Trend analysis, debrief, and pilot performance were taken very seriously. During Desert Storm, a pilot in my squadron, a senior, experienced pilot, flew a couple of CUT passes (see above) and the CAG LSO (senior LSO afloat) went to the Air Wing Commander (CAG, for whom he worked). After formal proceedings, that pilot was sent home, during combat operations. It was very hard on the squadron to lose a pilot during high-tempo operations.
But it was the right call. It took courage to make the hard call. On the basis of LSO grades, his career was over. No crash. No death.
That pilot is still alive to this day. Saw him at the Dry Cleaners on Shore Drive the other day. He didn't see me...perhaps for the best...he's not an LSO fan...not a fan of me, either, I think...
Planet, and Kara, were failed by leadership. No pilot will ever tell you that they don't belong there. Flying fighters was a dream to them, an aspiration. They were willing to keep at it as long as they were allowed. While I've detailed her failures in landing that day, it was a failure in leadership that allowed her to be in the environment that was too much for her.
Same with Planet.
So, when a Naval aviator says, "OK-3" - now you have a bit of insight into the vernacular...if I were to tell you "that was an OK"...it's high praise, coming from me...
Cheers,
Astro
* In over 20,000 carrier landings that I personally supervised, I gave out just one OK. I'll never forget it, a no-flap, night approach in an F-14 flown by a guy named Doug Burgoyne. Rock-solid, never left glideslope, it was the smoothest, sweetest pass I've ever seen, and he had an emergency, and it was at night.
** I'll keep my discussion centered on the NIMITZ-class. Other ship classes are similar, but there are subtle differences in data points and I can't remember all of them. Two deployments on a NIMITZ-class, one as CAG LSO (the senior LSO afloat) has given me pretty good recollection of those details.
***MOVLAS - Manually Operated Visual Landing Aid System was discussed in another thread. If the deck was pitching, or rolling, the standard lens/glideslope indicator was unable to keep up, and would give bad information. A manual system was rigged and the LSO took manual control to stabilize the airplane in space as it approached a shipt that was moving in multiple dimensions.
