Night Operations from Navy Air-Capable Ships

(a) For initial qualification, 10 day-field landings and 6

day-shipboard landings will be made within a 2-day period.

This

training will be under the direction of a deck-landing qualification

instructor.

(b) For requalification, pilots whose currency has lapsed

within the last six months will be trained by a deck-qualified

mission commander. Pilots also will make 10 day-field landings and 6

day-shipboard landings within a 2-day period. For those pilots whose

currency has lapsed six months or more, currency requirements are the

same as those for initial qualification.

(c) For currency requirements, four day-shipboard landings

will be conducted within 90 days.

(3) Night Operations from Navy Air-Capable Ships

Night helicopter operations from Navy single-spot, air-

capable ships require more training than day helicopter operations.

Night helicopter operations, therefore, will be handled on an

exception basis.

d. Shipboard Operations

Once operational planning and deck-landing qualification and

requalification have taken place, pilots may proceed with shipboard

operations.

If the air-capable ship is an amphibious assault ship,

these operations will be conducted as outlined below.

(1) The Army helicopter pilot's first contact with the

amphibious assault ship will be his initial radio call to the ship's

helicopter direction center (HDC). In this initial radio report, the

pilot gives his aircraft's call sign, position, altitude, fuel

status, and the number of people aboard. (Figure 6, page 21, shows

initial radio call requirements.) When the pilot tells the HDC that

he has visual contact with the ship, the HDC tells the pilot to

contact primary flight control or "PRI-FLY" on a given radio

frequency. The pilot switches his radio to the new frequency, makes

contact with PRI-FLY, and gives the same information that he gave to

the HDC on his initial radio call.

(2) PRI-FLY instructs the pilot to execute one of three

landing maneuvers--Starboard Delta, Overhead Delta, or Port Charlie.

Starboard Delta is a racetrack pattern flown at 300 feet on the

starboard side. Overhead Delta is a racetrack pattern flown at 1,000

feet directly overhead. Port Charlie is a landing pattern flown at

300 feet and at an airspeed of 80 knots. Each pattern is shown in

Figure 7 (page 22).

If the helicopter is cleared into Starboard

Delta

or

Overhead

Delta,

the

pilot

is

19

AV1525