P. J. O’Rourke on an aircraft carrier

As I’ve written here previously, I had the honor many years ago of flying out and landing on the USS Nimitz, then spending 24 hours on her. Well, P. J. O’Rourke — one of my favorite living political commentators — recently had a similar trip. His account is both funnier and better written than mine:

Landing on an aircraft carrier is…To begin with, you travel out to the carrier on a powerful, compact, and chunky aircraft–a weight-lifter version of a regional airline turboprop. This is a C-2 Greyhound, named after the wrong dog. C-2 Flying Pit Bull is more like it. In fact what everyone calls the C-2 is the “COD.” This is an acronym for “Curling the hair Of Dumb reporters,” although they tell you it stands for “Carrier Onboard Delivery.”

There is only one window in the freight/passenger compartment, and you’re nowhere near it. Your seat faces aft. Cabin lighting and noise insulation are absent. The heater is from the parts bin at the Plymouth factory in 1950. You sit reversed in cold, dark cacophony while the airplane maneuvers for what euphemistically is called a “landing.” The nearest land is 150 miles away. And the plane doesn’t land; its tailhook snags a cable on the carrier deck. The effect is of being strapped to an armchair and dropped backwards off a balcony onto a patio. There is a fleeting moment of unconsciousness. This is a good thing, as is being far from the window, because what happens next is that the COD reels the hooked cable out the entire length of the carrier deck until a big, fat nothing is between you and a plunge in the ocean, should the hook, cable, or pilot’s judgment snap. Then, miraculously, you’re still alive.

Yep. Read the whole thing.  ..bruce w..

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Category: Humor, Main, Military