naval aviation Naval aviation / Aeronaval is the application of Military aviation, military air power by Navy, navies, whether from warships that embark aircraft, or land bases. It often involves ''navalised aircraft'', specifically designed for naval use. Seab ...

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

flight deck The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is the surface on 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 helicopters ...

of an

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...

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_(aeronautics), 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 var ...

and re-attempt the landing. Prior to the development of the

angled flight deck The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is the surface on 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 helicopters ...

, 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 taxiing, takeoff or landing. For aircraft, it is generally needed for all three of these. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, s ...

, 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 A jet aircraft (or simply jet) is an aircraft (nearly always a fixed-wing aircraft) propelled by one or more jet engines. Whereas the engines in Propeller (aircraft), propeller-powered aircraft generally achieve their maximum efficiency at much ...

for carrier operations in the early 1950s, with their greater mass and higher approach speeds, exacerbated the problem. The British-developed

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 ab ...

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

grade Grade most commonly refers to: * Grading in education, a measurement of a student's performance by educational assessment (e.g. A, pass, etc.) * A designation for students, classes and curricula indicating the number of the year a student has reach ...

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

References

External links