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Push a Button, Land on a Carrier

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the auto-pilots dept.

sane? writes "Putting an aircraft down on a carrier in bad weather is the stuff of melodramatic Hollywood films. Automated systems for conventional aircraft and big carriers has been done for a while, but getting a hovering Harrier, helicopter, or future JSF to land on a pitching deck of a smaller ship is a different matter. This week QinetiQ demonstrated a complete autoland - a significant step towards making the future JSF work."

44 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. It doesn't look precise enough by nyekulturniy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    10 cm errors are still significant enough to cause an aircraft to be damaged landing, or to cause damage landing. It sounds like the news article is actually a press release/prospectus in disguise.

    --
    Nyekulturniy... Proudly confusing readers and editors since 1981!
    1. Re:It doesn't look precise enough by Junta · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Is it though? When driving your car, can you confidently say you know within a margin of error of 10 cm *exactly* where your car is, 1/3rd of a foot? You can bet pilots don't know within 10cm where there plane is relative to anything outside the plane. If any operation of such a large vehicle operated by a person required better than 10cm of precision to avoid damage, there would be serious problems..

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    2. Re:It doesn't look precise enough by hazee · · Score: 3, Informative

      Even a single seater fighter is a big beast, compared to say, a family car. If you've ever seen a Harrier thump down on the deck of a carrier, you'll see that the suspension gives considerably more than 10cm as the plane makes contact. I think 10cm is more than good enough - certainly better than any current pilot, and they seem to do OK.

    3. Re:It doesn't look precise enough by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 3, Insightful
      When driving your car, can you confidently say you know within a margin of error of 10 cm *exactly* where your car is, 1/3rd of a foot?

      When you're parking, maybe. 10cm may mean the difference between simply parking and breaking off a mirror.

    4. Re:It doesn't look precise enough by uberdave · · Score: 2, Informative

      When landing a harrier on a pitching, rolling aircraft carrier deck, 10cm doesn't make any difference at all. In fact, it's pretty much a precision touchdown.

      --
      "I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
    5. Re:It doesn't look precise enough by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 2, Informative
      Actually, many fighters do have mirrors. But they are on the inside of the canopy...:)

      Note: The first linked pic looks like an A-10 rather than what it is labeled as (F-15)

  2. Simpsons quote by smcavoy · · Score: 4, Funny

    yeah, yeah but it's close enough
    "God Bless the idiot proof air force" -- Side show Bob

  3. Land on a Carrier? by Mensa+Babe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The correct headline sould be: Push a button and land on a carrier as long as there is no software "glitch" or any single thing unforseen by the programmers, because unlike a real pilot, the computer will not quickly learn new skills to survive. Or are they going to make the system perfect, just like ABS, or ATMs, or PC software? Good luck.

    --
    Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
    1. Re:Land on a Carrier? by BenjyD · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Flight controls on F-16s, F/A-18s, Airbuses and no doubt others are already computerised. Along with ILS/autopilot on most airliners. Reliable computers can be built, it's just that the cost of that reliability is too great for non-critical applications.

      Military training tends to start off with the simplest methods and work up to the more modern: navigation, AFAIK, starts with dead reckoning, maps and compasses and only later introduces GPS.

    2. Re:Land on a Carrier? by Spodlink05 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The correct headline sould be: Push a button and land on a carrier as long as there is no software "glitch" or any single thing unforseen by the programmers, because unlike a real pilot, the computer will not quickly learn new skills to survive. Or are they going to make the system perfect, just like ABS, or ATMs, or PC software? Good luck.

      Funny how the EuroFighter, JSF and numerous other unstable-by-design aircraft would fall out of the sky if it wasn't for the computers constantly making tiny adjustments and generally flying the plane in the first place.

    3. Re:Land on a Carrier? by Charcharodon · · Score: 2, Informative
      Funny how the EuroFighter, JSF and numerous other unstable-by-design aircraft would fall out of the sky if it wasn't for the computers constantly making tiny adjustments and generally flying the plane in the first place.

      That's a misconception. They always talk about how hard/impossible a plane would be to fly if it weren't for the computers.

      Unstable in the aviation world does not have the same meaning that non-pilot types give it.

      Stable means the design causes the plane to try to return to it's orginal attitude after disturbed by: wind, an input by the pilot etc. So if I bank the plane to turn, when I let go of the controls eventually the plane will level itself...most of the time. In certain situations even stable designs become unstable and will not self recover. For training, safety sake, and to reduce pilot load this design makes sense, but high performance this design will never be.

      An unstable design if put in the same situation, banking the wings and then letting go of the controls will result in the plan most likely to either hold that position or to continue to steepen the turn. During manuevering this is very desireable, but eventually without input by the pilot the plane will get itself into trouble.

      Now jump in with electronic flight control systems. They can duplicate the same built in stability a Cesna has and make the plane easy and docile to fly, or I can press a button and put it into a high performance moden and be highly manueverable. I can have multiple modes each being usefull in certain situations. For example I can have it dampen airframe oscilations that can lower the life of my airframe, and those same sensors can be used to detect and put corrections in for wind to help me hold a course. I may simply want it to hold the plane in what ever attitude I put it in so it flies more like a plane in a video game, (even unstable designs will have some attitudes it will try to correct itself in so that can hinder you) Add in an autopilot and a GPS and now I can simply give the plane waypoints to fly. Throw in a few more tricks and I can get the plane to take off, fly to a destination, and land in weather most pilots would say forget it. I can turn off nearly all the systems and fly the plane manually without much difficulty, but my life would be a bit more difficult.

      This is my take on flying: flying a plane is alot like driving fast in light traffic in a manual car, in bad weather, listening to 4-5 passengers talking, talking on 2 cell phones to different people every 10 minutes, looking at a map, and of course trying to keep the car on the road, a road that you may or or may not even be able to see, and finally a road that can be driven in any direction at multiple altitudes.

      If you were a military pilot add in freaks shooting at you while doing all these things.

      These systems definitely improve the pilots control and precision and give him a chance to set down a few of the items they are juggling to be able to rest or concentrate on fewer things. This expands the envelope a pilot can opperate in.

      I'll give you one point though. You are correct in most modern aircraft if you were to suddenly take away all of the electronic flight systems the plane would fall out of the sky, but to get all those systems to shut down at once (most primary systems are at least triple redundant)usually means something so drastic had happened that the plane would have come down whether or not those systems were functioning.

  4. Technology for the 'flying car'?? by guyfromindia · · Score: 2, Interesting

    From TFA
    The simplicity of the new system was aptly demonstrated when a pilot with no previous fast jet experience, safely landed a STOVL aircraft unaided - a feat unimaginable before.
    That's pretty amazing! Wonder if similar technology will one day pave the way for the 'flying car'. Automatically controlling landing and takeoff for a domestic 'flying car' will go a long way in making it practically feasible...

  5. Ye gods, I'm such a geek... by Blondie-Wan · · Score: 4, Funny

    So help me, when I saw the reference in the write-up about landing a JSF, I first thought "Jedi Starfighter." I must need help...

  6. What the hell...it's only karma... by Robber+Baron · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Today," you takee kamikaze airprane far up into sky, over Yankee aircraft carrier, then takee kamikaze prane...down fast! crashing on the deck, killing yourself and all aboard!
    Before we have a ceremonial sake toast, are there any questions?"

    "Honorable general-san!"
    "Hai?"
    "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

    --

    You're using her as bait, Master!

    1. Re:What the hell...it's only karma... by AHumbleOpinion · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The whole population was brainwashed. That's the sad part - even after two nuked cities, they still wanted to keep the war going, all to please the Emperor.

      Well they did believe the emporer was a living god, a direct descendant of the sun god or something like that. It's a little easier when you bring religion into the mix, but not strictly required. The germans did have a few of their own ready to go but they were never really used IIRC. Political and philosophical indoctrination since childhood helped. And then there is the all purpose defending your homeland angle. Sad either way.

  7. Great line recited by Frederick March by vudufixit · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In the underrated, underappreciated film Bridges at Toko-Ri: "Where do we get such men? They leave this ship and they do their job; then they must find this speck, lost somewhere on the sea, and when they have found it they have to land on its pitching deck. Where do we get such men?"

  8. Re:And how... by Uber+Banker · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't see a lot of geek content here, just American type propaganda.

    Well, a British aeroplane (Harrier), a British company (Qinetic), a British ship (HMS Invincible), carried by a British news service (BBC). Damn this Americanisation. Oh... what language are these posts in, English?

    Plus its pretty cool, IMHO, that a computer can do this given the huge difficulty and inability to simplify the process (wind, gravity, thrust) into simple mechanics.

  9. Prediction: JSF will not be purchased in bulk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You can already see the military placing a side bet in unmanned drones. What would you rather have? 100 drones or one F22? The dogfight is no longer a central aspect of warfare, ground-to-air missile technology is adequately cheap and effective enough to remove any threat from the air...and by cheap I mean you can fire ten missiles at a target (rest assured one will hit it) for the cost of one manned sortie.

    1. Re:Prediction: JSF will not be purchased in bulk by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 2, Insightful
      True, but conditions can change from when the mission is planned to arrival at the target area. What I was speaking was far more AI in the drone aircraft, rather than a pilot flying it from a trailer on the ground. And from what I've heard, flying a Predator is harder than flying a regular aircraft. No seat of the pants feel, and a narrower view on the monitor as opposed to being able to swivel your head around.

      We already have fully automated 'drones', that will follow a preset route to a preset point and hit it. Cruise missiles. Next, there needs to be a system to change that route or target after launch.

  10. Prior Art - They will get sued! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    One-click carrier landings are currently covered under a Jeff Bezos patent.

  11. Canadians got it right (again) by y2imm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Since the 60s we've been winching down our SeaKings, that is, when they're weren't falling out of the sky on their own...

    http://www.readyayeready.com/timeline/1960s/beartr ap/

  12. Um... by ctr2sprt · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Automated systems for conventional aircraft and big carriers has been done for a while, but getting a hovering Harrier, helicopter, or future JSF to land on a pitching deck of a smaller ship is a different matter.
    I'm not sure I follow how this is supposed to be harder than landing a jet on a carrier. I have no doubts whatsoever that it's a difficult process no matter what your vehicle, don't get me wrong. But with a VTOL aircraft you primarily worry about adjustments in one dimension (altitude). With a traditional aircraft you have to worry about two (forward velocity plus altitude). With a helicopter, for instance, as long as you "float" over the deck without hitting anything, you can land anywhere. With a jet, you have to hit a very small patch of deck to catch the tailhooks and arrest your forward motion.

    Hmm. Now that I think about it, I may be wrong. An aircraft's altitude is controlled significantly by its forward speed. (Go faster, you go higher; go slower, you go lower.) Perhaps it is mainly a one-dimensional problem. Still, I don't see how landing a jet is markedly easier than landing a helicopter.

    I guess I can summarize this post by saying, "I'm ignorant. Someone with more than a handful of hours of flight time, please enlighten me." (Yes, I have flown single-engine Cessnas, but only the aforementioned handful of hours. Takeoff but not landing, and certainly not on an aircraft carrier. My "knowledge" there is mainly from my father, who was a Navy fighter pilot in the late 1940s, so that "knowledge" doesn't even extend to jets.)

    1. Re:Um... by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 4, Interesting
      With a traditional jet, you have to hit a small specific area on the deck. The ship is moving forward, possibly pitching or rolling at the same time. But the ships forward speed is a small fraction of the aircrafts forward speed.

      Landing vertically, helicopter or Harrier, you have to match the forward speed of the ship (maybe 10-20 knots), compensate for pitch and roll so the deck doesn't come up and slap your landing gear off, and adjust for your own ground effect as you near the surface of the deck. Also, depending on space and where you're supposed to set down, you may be coming down not in line with the ship, but maybe trying to fly sideways at 15 knots.

      It's not necessarily easier or harder, just a different set of conditions that need to be met and compensated for.

    2. Re:Um... by Xochil · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I can't speak for VTOL, as US aircraft carriers (CVs and CVNs) do not normally carry them. Having been helo aircrew for hundreds of shipboard landings (mostly CV, but quite a few small boy decks as well), I can say you don't just float over the deck and put her down.

      On a carrier, you're directed to land on one of 5-6 circles called "spots" Spots 1-2 are generally at near the bow, 3-4 (where most HS [the type of squadron deployed on carriers] landings occur are port side aft of the angled deck, and 5-6 are near the stern.

      If you miss your spot, the air boss will personally check in to whether your wings should be pulled. ; )

      No question about it, it's easier to land a helo on a CV/CVN than a fixed winger. However, I took the comment about smaller ships to imply frigates, destroyers, crusiers, and the like. It is definitely not easy to land on one of those when the deck is pitching all over the place. The RAST systems in use by much of the HSL community helps, but send a non RAST-equipped helo to a small boy in high seas...and the pucker factor is high.

      --Mike

      The helos are always the first to take off and last to land.

    3. Re:Um... by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 2, Informative
      Carrier landings in heavy jets eg F14, F15 are hard

      F-15's don't fly off carriers.

      so you can 'bolt' a broken wire or hook

      bolter

    4. Re:Um... by HardCase · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No question about it, it's easier to land a helo on a CV/CVN than a fixed winger. However, I took the comment about smaller ships to imply frigates, destroyers, crusiers, and the like. It is definitely not easy to land on one of those when the deck is pitching all over the place. The RAST systems in use by much of the HSL community helps, but send a non RAST-equipped helo to a small boy in high seas...and the pucker factor is high.

      After spending five years aboard a US Navy FFG, I have a lot of respect for the helo crew. Landing on a deck that's pitching up and down over a range of five to ten feet, plus rolling a total of 30 degrees is tough enough - but right in front of the aircraft is a solid wall of metal that would cheerfully shred the rotors. Plus, the ship is moving.

      When the SH-60B that we carried landed, the tail extended over the end of the flight deck. It's a big helicopter landing in a very small spot. And I've got to say that the five or six times that I flew, the landing was absolutely terrifying. And these guys were flying several missions a day whenever we were at sea.

      Oh, and RAST was broken half of the time, too.

      -h-

    5. Re:Um... by ozbird · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Carrier landings in heavy jets eg F14, F15 are hard

      F-15's don't fly off carriers.

      That's why it's hard to land them on carriers...

  13. Consumer product by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm sure I'm not the only one who got a wife who can't navigate the car into a driveway. Having an automatic parking for women would save the grass and garage from further damage.

    -1, Flamebait, but I guess you're not married.

  14. Re:looked rather pleasant by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The weather looked quite ideal for a flawless landing. Since the whole idea is for a craft to land in adverse weather conditions, I don't see how this means much of anything.

    It's the first test of an automated landing system. Get it to work in easy conditions first, then refine the process. Or would you rather they the first test with their one and only prototype aircraft be with an aircraft critically short on fuel, trying to land on the deck of a torpedo damaged ship, in the north atlantic during a hurricane?

    And how about when the automated landing system gets destroyed by say a midair collision, ground fire, etc.

    How about when it isn't shot out? This is a system to reduce pilot workload at the end of a stressful flight. If its damaged, maybe then the pilot reverts back to trying to land it manually. What's the big deal? You think they'll completely remove any possibility of a backup system? Just like with fly-by-wire controls. OMFG!! What happens when the wire breaks??!!?? STOOPID IDEA!! STOOPID IDEA!!
    No, then the other 2 reduntant systems take over.

    They are quite far away from a system that could be deployed in everyday carrier operation, let alone a combat situation.

    Yeah. Just like every other prototype system in existence. Give it time to be developed. It just might work.
    "QinetiQ has achieved the world's first automatic landing of a short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft on a ship."

  15. huh? by ms1234 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The technology could also be used on helicopters, frigates and destroyers.

    When are we going to see frigates and destroyes landing on carriers?-)

  16. My thoughts on Mil Tech by CHESTER+COPPERPOT · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The ability to land an aircraft automatically onto a ship will enable pilots of JSF to conduct missions by day or night and in weather conditions that would previously have not been possible.

    I've worked with the triumvirate of engineers, officers, and soldiers/airmen/sailors during trials of new military technology and I can say it'd be pretty good odds that this automatic ship landing on the STOVL aircraft wasn't tested under extreme conditions such as enemy and weather. I wonder if it was tested on high seas, massive winds or snow?

    I know /. likes to think about the "oooh wow gosh!" factor of shiny technology but a lot of the time new military technology gets tested under the easiest of conditions by risk fearing engineers. It then gets pumped up by career minded military officers (who resemble business marketers) and then left for the end users in combat to deal with the bullshit. Try repost the article when this new automatic button has been tested under extreme conditions, seen numerous deployments and used by actual end users not in a sterile environment.

  17. My Jock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As swashbuckling as fighter jocks can be (I've known a few) if an automated landing system proved near perfect there would be quite a few who would be happy to sign up for it.

    Even the most self assured pilots hate landing (read: controlled crash-landing) on carriers at night in adverse conditions. Scares the crap out of them.

    But there would be some resistance. As there are people who are better coders than others there are pilots who are better at landing on an aircraft carrier than others. As a matter of fact naval pilots on a carrier are constantly graded and ranked according to their landing performance. And I can't see the good ones wanting to give up control over the aircraft or wanting to give up their status as a top naval pilot.

    1. Re:My Jock by AHumbleOpinion · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The pilots will always be required to do some manual traps. They cannot become dependent on an automated system. They must also learn to deal with stress and fear, night carrier traps are useful there. IIRC some pilots were wired for telemetry during Vietnam and the Navy found that night carrier traps were more frightening than braving Hanoii's air defense.

      Manual night carrier traps are very useful to the Navy. When they have a pilot who will repeatedly do them they know they can point at pretty much any point on a map and he will fly there, he's already done scarier stuff.

  18. RAST by smittyoneeach · · Score: 2, Interesting

    US Navy Spruance[1], Ticonderoga, and Perry class ships have a Recovery Assist, Securing, and Traversal system that reels in an SH60B, locks it in place on the deck, and then can pull it into the hangar, once the origami is done.
    Sometimes, a good ol' fashioned electro-hydraulic system is OK.

    [1]Didn't fact-check to discover if any remain in commission.

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  19. breakthrough by moviepig.com · · Score: 3, Funny
    ...getting a hovering Harrier, helicopter, or future JSF to land on a pitching deck...

    A major aid to this advance was the recent development of industrial-strength flypaper...

    --
    Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
  20. First automated V/STOL landing by Phaid · · Score: 4, Informative

    Despite all the skepticism being bandied about military technology on this site, automated carrier landings are not new. The first fully automated landing on an aircraft carrier took place on Aug. 12, 1957, when an F3D Skyknight was landed on USS Antietam (CVA 36) at sea off Pensacola, Fla., by the Automatic Carrier Landing System (ACLS). That's right, over 40 years ago. That system is still in wide use today, and is only now slowly being replaced by the JPALS (Joint Precision Approach and Landing System) system which uses GPS instead of the radar used by ACLS.

    The QinetiQ system described in the article (which is itself a component of JPALS) is remarkable in that it automates vertical landings. I'm kind of uncertain as to why that had never been done before, though I think it has more to do with the much lower level of interest, and therefore funding, than because of any technical challenge.

  21. Photoshopped logo? by KFury · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Did anyone else notice that the QinetiQ logo 'painted' on the body of the fighter appears to be just a poor photoshop job? Looks like their logo wasn't on the aircraft (or at least visible in this shot) so they decided to slap one on after the fact.

    High-res photo and a zoomed close-up

    --

    Kevin Fox
  22. Makes sense for a Harrier by Animats · · Score: 2, Informative
    That makes sense for a Harrier. The Harrier family is one of the very few successful VTOL aircraft, with a 30+ year history. It's a unique aircraft, with four vectored thrust nozzles and a reaction jet control system for use in hover. Stabilizing the beast has always been tough. It has the highest crash rate of all US military aircraft.

    The basic problem is that a Harrier has more major flight controls than the pilot has hands. There's a nozzle angle control and a throttle control, along with the usual stick and rudder pedals. VTOL operation requires coordinated operation of the nozzle and throttle controls. Both have significant lag. That's a tough control problem, worse than a helicopter.

    Everything has been tried. Better pilot training. New flying approaches. Simulator training. A redesign (the Harrier II). Stability augmentation systems. Avoiding VTOL whenever possible. Harriers still crash a lot. (The Harrier has a good ejection system, so the pilots usually survive.)

    One of the stability augmentation systems was the VAAC Harrier Study. This was an experimental effort to use computer control to get the three inputs that affect longitudinal stability (stick, throttle, and nozzle angle) down to two. This was supposedly successful but was not deployed.

    This new thing seems to be a further step in that direction.

  23. Pilots are pretty damn good by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When I was on a carrier (supply clerk, ha!) in the 1970s, there was a TV camera in the yellow line of the landing strip down the angle. It seemed like half the time, the two nose wheels of an F-4 would go down opposite sides of that TV camera as I watched in my spare time on the ship's TV system. This is landing at probably well over 150 knots in a cross wind on a platform which is rolling, pitching, and changing elevation. One night every single pilot, I think 98 traps, hit the right wire.

    I'd say they can get within 10cm no sweat. Navy pilots are damned good.

    --
    Infuriate left and right
  24. Re:REAL Pilots.... by AHumbleOpinion · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's not simply pride, pilots who repeatedly endanger aircraft merely due to pride are quickly removed from flight status. Pilots will be required to make manual landing in order to train for equipment failure. These are combat aircraft. The other Navy motivation for doing it manually is to train the pilot to function under stress and fear. Night carrier landing can be more frightening than combat. IIRC during the Vietnam war the Navy wired some pilots and determined they were more stressed during night landings than when braving Hanoii's air defenses.

    Last I heard the Navy still has people who plot position every day with map compass and chronometer and who shoot the sun and stars with a sextant. Again, these are warships and they can't be dependant on satellites.

  25. Re:Impressive - but... by jericho4.0 · · Score: 2, Funny

    What are you talking about? This technology will enable us to better export freedom to the developing world, and nothing could be better than that!

    --
    "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
  26. SNC did it first by dmh20002 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sierra Nevada Corporation designed and built the system that performed the first automatic landings of VTOL and fixed wing UAV's on small ships in the mid 1990's. The VTOL UAV was the Bombardier CL-327 and the fixed wing UAV was the IAI Pioneer. See the videos. I know because I was part of the team. The level of difficulty is exactly the same as landing a manned aircraft (maybe more because there is no pilot to take over in the event of problems). We built the 35ghz tracking radar system and designed and implemented all the autoland algorithms including the special purpose autopilot code (it has to be much higher gain than a normal autopilot) and the ship motion stabilization.
    A variant of this system is autolanding UAV's all over Iraq as we speak.

  27. Russians had automatic landing in 1988 by melted · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Except you didn't even have to press any buttons. The thing flew and landed all by itself.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran

  28. Canadians have it figured out by lommer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Canadian Navy has pioneered a system similar to RAST for their operations in the North Atlantic. They still fly ancient sea king helicopters on tiny frigates that pitch all over the place, but they can land in higher seas than anyone else. They lower a steel cable to the deck, where is is secured to a winch. The helicopter hovers over the landing spot, trying to get into position. A ship-based crew judges when the timing is perfect and activates the winch. It slams the helo on to the deck pretty much instantaneously. The landing is hard, but it works. The only problem they have with it is that our oldest sea kings still have vacuum tube avionics, and when they perform this manouvre the shock of landing breaks every single tube on the bird.