Aircraft carriers have always fascinated me. I can remember building a model of the USS Enterprise (CVN 65) when I was around 10 years old (let's not think about how long ago THAT was). It was maybe three feet long and the jets I painted and glued to the deck were maybe an inch or so. A carrier is something that is both huge and tiny at the same time -- you can compare it to a building if you see it in port, or to a postage stamp if you're thinking about landing on it. I was thrilled when I finally got aboard a real carrier -- I was lucky enough to tour the USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) in San Diego a few years ago. It was in port, so there were no planes aboard, but the view from the flight deck was still worth the price of admission (OK, so it was free). I jogged from the pointy end to the back end of that boat a couple of times, just to feel how big it was. And it was astoundingly big.
For authentic atmosphere and you-are-there feel, Sherman Baldwin really delivers the goods in his 1996 memoir Ironclaw. Tom Clancy provides less atmosphere but offers a boatload of information in his 1999 profile Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier. If you want action and immersion in a fictional but highly authentic environment, you'll really enjoy Check Six by Bob Norris. A couple of very good videos from the Discovery Channel and NOVA top off my selections for the carrier-crazed who can manage to tear themselves away from their joysticks for a few hours.
Sherman "Tank" Baldwin, the author of Ironclaw, completed his 2-1/2 years of Navy pilot training in December 1990, just prior to the start of Desert Storm. He reported to the USS Midway as a nugget pilot of the EA-6B Prowler. Within a month of his arrival at the fleet, Tank was flying combat missions to suppress and jam Iraqi radar and SAM sites for Navy strike packages. Although he had done well in training, when he joined the crew of the Midway, he had just six night carrier landings under his belt, and had very limited experience in aerial refueling, especially at night. He had to learn fast!
I really liked Baldwin's style in reporting his experiences. As a nugget, he was under constant scrutiny by other pilots, by the ECMOs (ECM Officers) who flew with him in the EA-6B, and by the LSO's who graded his landings. Most nuggets report to the fleet between deployments, where their first assignment is really to complete their training under squadron conditions. But Desert Storm was about to start, and the Navy needed EA-6B pilots in the Gulf -- so his fleet training was under rather difficult conditions to say the least! Something like going from the minor leagues to the majors and having your first game be in the World Series. Baldwin's first night trap on the Midway was a "taxi one-wire," dangerously close to a ramp strike. His first experiences in night aerial refueling from a USAF KC-135 were also rather scary. His landings and tanking ability improved rapidly, and he even began LSO training on the Midway. "Tank" Baldwin doesn't claim to be a hero -- he was thrown in the deep end, applied his training well, admitted and learned from his mistakes, and did the job, in training and in combat against Iraq. He talks about how he feels about all of this -- including his feelings for Alice, the woman he was writing to daily and whom he would eventually marry. He tells you a lot about how things work on a carrier, what it's like to be a JO (junior officer), and about the many challenges -- but also of the camaraderie and of the satisfaction of doing a tough job, and doing it well. Although the radar jamming and SEAD support provided by the Prowlers was only part of the picture, it was an important part. The Midway lost no air crew or aircraft in its many strikes against Iraq. Ironclaw is a very good book -- one of the best things I've read on naval aviation.
Buy it from Amazon.com Tom Clancy's Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier also offers a "you are there" perspective, but that of a visitor more than a true insider. In typically Clancy fashion, Carrier is full of details on every aspect of aircraft carriers, from the process of building one, to the organization of the battle group (CVBG) to the aircraft and weapons themselves. He also includes an interview with Admiral Jay Johnson, Chief of Naval Operations, a report on a large fleet training operation that Clancy and his research assistant actually witnessed (JTFEX 97-3, a joint task force exercise), and a fictional scenario of a future (2016) crisis in the Indian Ocean, following a war between India and Pakistan that has gone nuclear. A US CVBG plays a key role in preventing the expansion of the conflict. There are cutaway illustrations of the aircraft, black and white photos, and a detailed glossary. It's a virtual encyclopedia of aircraft carrier information -- but unfortunately it often reads too much like an encyclopedia. I found the information interesting but the writing rather dry and long-winded (despite the fact that I'm a fan of Clancy's fiction). I think of this book as a key reference on carriers and naval aviation, though for this purpose, an index would have sure been a nice touch.
Buy it from Amazon.com Check Six, a novel that combines realistic information about aircraft carrier and F/A-18 operations, exciting air combat, and a suspenseful story line. Bob "Banzai" Norris was a US Navy fighter pilot for 20 years (F-14, F/A-18, and oddly enough, F-15 too!). So he obviously brings a wealth of experience to this book -- and he augments this with strong characters, solid writing, and a good imagination. The basic story line involves the integration of woman pilots into the F/A-18 "community." It is well-known that male naval aviators have not been enthusiastic about the arrival of women in combat flight roles, but in this book, some people seem to be willing to go to extremes to keep the women out. Suspecting a conspiracy, the CNO sends a controversial defense reporter, Jack Warner, to the USS Ranger (CV-61) to cover the story of two talented women nuggets joining the air wing as Hornet pilots. The CNO hopes that Warner will be able uncover the conspiracy while he digs for his story.
With this plot line, Norris has a book that is part mystery, part social science, and part "flying story." But don't worry -- he weaves it all together into a compelling page-turner. The book is written in the first-person voice of Jack Warner. His questions provide Norris with a natural way to explain a lot of technical points without sounding too "teachy." The pilot characters are also well drawn. Randi Cole is a solid nugget pilot who happens to be a woman. Joe "Hoser" Santana is her mentor -- a veteran pilot with nearly 1500 carrier traps, who also happened to be the best friend of Randi's father (yup, his wingman in Vietnam -- there are some things you just gotta have in these books!).
To top it all off, Libya is acting up again, and the President orders a strike to destroy a suspected chemical weapons plant. The Ranger gets the nod, and we observe the planning and execution of a large strike against a heavily-defended target. Does Randi fly on the mission? Of course. I won't spoil it for you, but the air combat action is exciting and realistic. As a bonus, "kneeboard" cards for the strike are reproduced in the front of the book. There's a really authentic feel to the descriptions of the Libya strike -- from the planning to the exciting air-to-air engagements. There are also good possibilities for Jane's F/A-18 missions in this material. I strongly recommend that you read Check Six. If you like carriers and Hornets, you are sure to enjoy this book.
Buy it from Amazon.com If you prefer to stay with a CRT, there are several videos that bring carrier aviation to life on your TV screen. Although there are many movies that depict naval aviation at various points in history, these two videos are both documentaries. Carrier: Fortress at Sea is a 90 minute video that was first broadcast on the Discovery Channel about 5 years ago. It was filmed during a 6 month deployment aboard the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), and contains brief interviews with many different crew members, from the captain of the ship to the pilots to the sailors cleaning the heads. I especially liked several talks with an LSO. For the most part, though, it focuses on action, including catapult launches and arrested landings. We even get to see an actual ejection when an F-14 suffers an engine fire during a supersonic fly-by of the ship (such fly-by's are rare events, so many of the crew as well as the video team are on hand to witness this emergency -- both pilot and RIO ejected safely and were quickly recovered). For sim pilots, one of the highlights is the footage taken from aircraft-mounted camera pods during carrier operations. It looks just like Jane's F/A-18!
Buy it from Amazon.com Nova's video Aircraft Carrier! is a couple of years older (1994) and is just one hour long. Here the carrier is the USS Independence, on station in the Persian Gulf in 1993, enforcing the no-fly zones in Iraq. There are interviews with several F-14 pilots, a couple of whom happen to attend "Top Gun" training during the filming and then rejoin the boat for combat air patrols over Iraq. The self-confident attitude of fighter pilots (bordering on narcissism in one case) really comes through in these interviews -- these guys are good, and they let you know it! There are good action and flying sequences, but overall, I preferred the Discovery Channel video over this one. Both videos are available to order on-line and perhaps also through some video stores ( try Discovery , pbs.org , or Amazon ). At the PBS site I also learned of a 1999 carrier-related Nova episode that I haven't seen yet, "Battle Alert in the Gulf".
Buy it from Amazon.com I hope these books and videos add to your knowledge and enjoyment of naval aviation sims such as Jane's F/A-18. If you set up your autopilot right, you can probably even do a little reading while you're holding in the marshal stack. PBS has full episodes of “Carrier” streaming online, but it doesn’t seem to support full screen viewing. Series was filmed in 2005 on the Nimitz. I just found out that it’s available streaming on Netflix so I’m going to go watch some on the big screen!
Watch it here: www.pbs.org/weta/carrier/full_episodes.htm.
![](http://www.migman.com/img/128x120_advertise-here.jpg")
