XBradTC

Normally, when a jet is launched from the catapult of an aircraft carrier, a Jet Blast Deflector is raised behind it, so the exhaust doesn’t endanger other aircraft and the flight deck crew.

Because of the stupendous heat of an afterburning engine, JBDs have a series of water tubes in them to cool them. But Cat 4 on the Forrestal class carriers wasn’t water cooled. That meant it could normally only use its JBD when launching non-afterburning jets, such as the A-6 or A-7.

If you did launch an F-14 from Cat 4, you had to leave the JBD down, to prevent damage to it. And that meant you had to ensure the deck behind it was clear of pretty much everything and everyone.  And on the carrier in question here, the USS Independence (CV-62), they simply didn’t have a JBD installed, as the exhaust was pointed over the edge of the ship.

Let’s hear from Bill “Pinch” Paisley, retired F-14 NFO and former “Shooter.”*

(Chuck) has it bang-on right. When i was a shooter, any shot on cat 4 included a eagle-eye on that cat 4 JBD and *any* aircraft behind it, especially if a Tomcat were hooked up to the shuttle. The cat 4 JBD was not water cooled like the other 3 so any big-jet launch had to have it down, meaning nothing behind it – even the LSO platform was vacated and secured. For those reasons we rarely launched a T-cat from cat 4.

Plenty of blame to go around with that – shooters, deck edge operator, topside petty officer, Boss, handler, Fly 3 petty officer – anyone who had a scan before executing their job.

In fact, looking at my Aircraft Carrier Reference data manual, Indy (CV-62) didn’t even have a cat 4 JBD:
"A JBD is not installed at the number 4 catapult on CV-62 since the jet blast cones of aircraft spotted on this catapult exhausts overboard."
Indy was of that old design where the 4th elevator was up on the angle so the area behind cat 4 was shorter than normal. It was enough to pre-position a Tomcat, though!

 

And if you didn’t, bad, bad things happened.

 

On the plus side, the crew of the F-14 were safely recovered, and the F-14 itself was recovered and repaired, though not without some fairly hazardous efforts on the part of the flight deck crew.

 

 

* The Shooter is the traditional nickname for the Catapult Officer, as he is the one that gives the actual order to fire the catapult.

 

Via: World War Wings.