McDonnell Douglas F-15C Eagle 85-0113. 2023.

California Air Guard Fresno Fighter Wing To celebrate more than 10,000 flight hours.

Adam Lupton (Canadian, b., 1987), Crush (Two You’s, a Bed, a Gun, an Escape), 2022 

Saw this video on tik tok and loved it so much. Of course I immediately knew it wasn’t an aircraft carrier, but because I’m me I did some digging on the effects of rough seas on aircraft carriers.

I remember seeing the pitching deck covered in an episode of Carrier, a PBS documentary covering life on an aircraft carrier that I refuse to shut up about. In a previous post I highlighted the effects of the pitching deck on pilots during nighttime carrier landings and just how TERRIFYING they are by adding a video from PBS Carrier episode Rite of Passage. During that episode a pilot had this to say:

Dude, all I know was I was in close and they’re like ‘a little power’ and I look down and saw the ******* back of the ship above me and I was like AHHHHHHH!!!!

But it’s dark and we can’t really see from that one video just how much it’s moving but like holy swear word tumblr won’t let me say!

And it’s crazy because to those below deck it looks a little different. Thanks to the sheer size and intricate design of aircraft carriers, there’s nothing more than a little sway to those on board.

I mean one wrong step and you’ll be hitting something hard I’m sure.

Of course there’s more to it than that. One person stated that you really just had to time when to go up ladders like when the ship falls off of a big wave you’ll kind of float up the ladder. He also had the following to say:

The North Atlantic is a bitch during winter. On the USS Kennedy 1976, in really bad weather, the seas were very rough. The ship turns into the waves, and goes up and down, no “rolling”. I watched 6 sailors, watching the TV in the berthing compartment, rise 4 feet into the air, and fall back to the Deck. no one even moved from the chairs. They were watching the recorded “Muppet Show”. A big hit back then!