naval aviation Naval aviation is the application of military air power by navies, whether from warships that embark aircraft, or land bases. Naval aviation is typically projected to a position nearer the target by way of an aircraft carrier. Carrier-based ...

, a bolter occurs when an aircraft attempting an arrested landing on the

flight deck The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is the surface from which its aircraft take off and land, essentially a miniature airfield at sea. On smaller naval ships which do not have aviation as a primary mission, the landing area for helicopte ...

of an aircraft carrier touches down, but fails to catch an arrestor cable and come to a stop. Bolter aircraft accelerate at full throttle and become airborne in order to

go-around In aviation, a go-around is an aborted landing of an aircraft that is on final approach or has already touched down. A go-around can either be initiated by the pilot flying or requested by air traffic control for various reasons, such as an unst ...

and re-attempt the landing. Prior to the development of the angled flight deck, aircraft carrier landing areas ran along the axis of the ship. If an aircraft failed to catch an arrestor cable on the aft (rear) of the ship, it would still need to be stopped prior to hitting aircraft spotted (parked or taxiing) on the forward half of the deck. With aircraft spotted on the forward half of the flight deck, there was not enough room for an aircraft to become airborne again after missing the arrestor wires. Stopping an aircraft that failed to engage an arrestor cable was accomplished with either a wire barrier rigged amidships and raised to catch the aircraft's

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...

, or a net barricade that would engage the aircraft's wings. Either method often resulted in damage to the aircraft and required time to disengage. The introduction of jet aircraft for carrier operations in the early 1950s, with their greater mass and higher approach speeds, exacerbated the problem. The British-developed angled flight deck solved the problem of aircraft that failed to engage an arrestor wire, and created the routine option for aircraft to bolter. By angling the landing area off the ship's axis, thus avoiding obstructions forward of the landing area, aircraft that failed to arrest – that bolter – simply accelerate down the landing area and become airborne again. Bolter aircraft then climb back to landing pattern altitude and sequence in with other landing aircraft to re-attempt the landing. These bolter aircraft are said to be in the "bolter pattern". The British were the first to describe aircraft that failed to arrest as bolters. When an aircraft bolters on a United States Navy carrier, the

Landing Signal Officer A landing signal officer or landing safety officer (LSO), also informally known as paddles (United States Navy) or batsman (Royal Navy), is a naval aviator specially trained to facilitate the "safe and expeditious recovery" of naval aircraft abo ...

(LSO) often transmits "bolter, bolter, bolter" over the radio. United States Navy LSOs

grade Grade most commonly refers to: * Grade (education), a measurement of a student's performance * Grade, the number of the year a student has reached in a given educational stage * Grade (slope), the steepness of a slope Grade or grading may also ref ...

each carrier landing attempt on a scale of 0–5.Llinares, ''Strike: Beyond Top Gun'', p. 23 Assuming the approach was safe and at least average, a bolter is graded as 2.5. For unsafe or below average approaches that result in bolter, a grade of 2 is assigned.

References

External links

* {{Commonscat-inline, Bolters (aviation) Types of take-off and landing Naval aviation

See also

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