Grading
Every carrier landing made by US pilots is graded for safety and technique, using a complex shorthand to denote what each aircraft did during various phases of each approach. Approaches are divided into parts:
- The 90 – when the aircraft has approximately 90 degrees of turn until lined up with the centerline.
- The Start – generally from when the aircraft crosses the wake and/or the pilot “calls the ball” at around ¾ mile.
- The Middle – from about ½ to ¼ mile.
- In Close – from about ¼ mile to 1/10 mile
- At the Ramp – from when the aircraft crosses the round-down of the flight deck until touchdown
- In the Wires – from touchdown until stopped
Deviations from optimal glideslope, centerline, and angle of attack are noted for each phase, resulting in an overall grade. Grades are debriefed to each pilot by the LSO teams after each cycle. Average grades are computed for each pilot, resulting in a highly competitive “pecking order” of pilot landing skill throughout the airwing.
Read more about this topic: Landing Signal Officer
Famous quotes containing the word grading:
“The only phenomenon with which writing has always been concomitant is the creation of cities and empires, that is the integration of large numbers of individuals into a political system, and their grading into castes or classes.... It seems to have favored the exploitation of human beings rather than their enlightenment.”
—Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908)