Lexington (CV 16) - Naval Cruise Book

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when in a plane at 12,000 feet and about to make your first carrier landing, that flight deck looks more like a matchstick. Below the flight deck the hangar deck is large enough to garage a hundred planes as well as great machine shops for repair and maintenance. The Lexington is 890 feet long: stood on end alongside the 70-story RCA building, Rockefeller Center, New York, the Lex would be higher by forty feet. Each of the three elevators that move planes up and down between the flight deck and the hangar deck is about the size of a tennis court. The flight deck crews handle the planes for the take4offs and landings, and the 4'mecs fairplane mechanicsj maintain and repair them. The air oflicer directs all flight operations from the air control station on the island three decks above and overhanging the flight deck. The landing signal officers are stationed on a small platform extending out over the water on the port edge and after end of the flight deck. A safety net of wire cable mesh is stretched under this platform 'cjust in case. When planes are about to land, air control orders Prepare to land planesf' when all is ready it's Land planes, the appropriate signal flag goes up, and the landing signal officer brings 'fhomen the planes by waving bright-colored, tennis-racket-shaped paddles in a pre- scribed series of patterns. When a plane approaches the carrier in the correct position, the pilot is given a signal that he is riding the groove, and just as he gets over the deck the signal officer gives the cut,, signal, the pilot cuts ofl his engine, the plane hits the deck, a tail hook catches one of a series of steel cables. stretchedacross the deck, and brings the plane to a quick stop. If the arresting hook doesn't func- tion, the plane is stopped by one of a series of cable barriers which usually means a crackup. VVhen a plane has been damaged in battle and its normal controls disrupted the landings are violent. dramatic, and sometimes tragic. If for any reason a landing looks like a possible crackup. the air officer presses a button which releases a loud strident wail that warns everybody on the flight deck to expect trouble and to take appropriate precautions. Fire fighters and the arresting gear gangs get all set for any emergency. A 7

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