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Pacific Ocean. (July 25, 2024): In this photo by MC2 Hannah Kantner, a Sailor appears casually indifferent to the F/A-18F Super Hornet streaking to a landing behind him on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. He is justly confident that the ship’s “arrested” landing system will capture the incoming aircraft for a safe, yet jarring, end of the flight.
Crewed by five thousand Sailors and Marines, these “cities at sea” use a launching and recovery system that has evolved dramatically since World War II. America’s first aircraft carrier was the USS Langley, a plodding flattop commissioned in 1922. This ship moved aircraft around using two onboard cranes to hoist seaplanes onto its deck for launch. These planes were launched using a compressed-air catapult installed on the bow.
This launch method is where the concept of “arrested” landings originated. The Navy decided to use a series of five arresting wires strung across the aft part of the flight deck to capture the airplanes’ trailing hook. Once the aircraft captures a wire, the planes’ momentum is abruptly stopped using weights in a block-and-tackle mechanism. Carriers later developed steam driven systems with pistons to generate the force to launch modern airplanes.
Today’s launching and recovering systems are futuristic by comparison.
The Navy has installed two new flight deck systems, the Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) and the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launching System, or EMALS on the USS Gerald R. Ford, America’s most advanced carrier. Developed by General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, these systems use a surge of electromagnetic energy to power the catapult and landing systems.
The main advantage of this innovative technology is smoother acceleration for launch which puts less stress on aircraft air frames. The system can launch heavier planes than steam catapults and its arresting wires can take on aircraft weighing up to fifty thousand pounds.
Always thrilling, carrier landings will continue to be routine for Airmen using these innovative technologies.
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San Antonio, Texas. (July 22, 2024): A continuing challenge for the Air Force is how to be welcoming to the public while protecting military bases against all manner of modern threats. In this photo by Brian Boisvert, Senior Airman Jackson Morrow, a patrolman with the 802nd Security Forces Squadron, verifies a visitor’s base-access pass at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. The base receives and scans base-access authorizations for approximately 36,000 vehicles and pedestrians each day and turns away approximately 51,000 unauthorized visitors annually. Air Force officials must strike a careful balance between granting greater access to the public and the risk of attacks on facilities and personnel.
This delicate task is performed daily by Air Force Security units like the 802nd who ensure the safety of people and property. They guard against terrorist attacks and infiltration by bad actors while maintaining essential law enforcement services. These include many of the functions of civilian police agencies like conducting criminal investigations, interviewing witnesses, and arresting suspects. They also patrol the base around the clock ready to respond to any emergency. Unlike their civilian counterparts, military security must guard heavy weaponry, including nuclear sites, and America’s most sensitive installations.
To become an Air Force Security Specialist, candidates must have a clean criminal record and no history of personality disorders. They must also qualify to receive a Secret security clearance, be of high moral character, and have respect for the law. Airmen must pass 7.5 weeks of Basic training followed by an additional sixty-five days of advanced coursework at the Air Force Security Forces Academy at Lackland, Texas.
Read more: AF Police Strike A Balance: Openness Versus Security
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Los Angeles, California. (July 24, 2024): There is no dispute that the United States Marines are the finest, and fiercest, sea-borne infantry in the world. Which begs the question, “what does it take to lead these warfighters?” In this photo by Corporal Fred Garcia, officer candidate Joshua McConnell gets pinned to the rank of second lieutenant during a commissioning ceremony aboard the USS Iowa. His gaze reflects the pride and determination that steadied him during the extremely arduous tasks it took to achieve this honor.
While a small percentage of Marine officers attend the U.S. Naval Academy, most are commissioned after they complete four years of college via the Marines Officer Candidate Course. This physically brutal ten-week commissioning program at Quantico, Virginia is for college seniors interested in earning the title of Marine Officer. Upon completion, the newly commissioned officer will attend the Basic School as a second lieutenant.
The Basic School is a six-month course of combat conditioning, close order drill, leadership, and academic classes to prepare these young lieutenants to assume the duties of a junior officer. They are evaluated in three categories: academics, leadership, and physical fitness. The curriculum includes an endurance course, a land navigation maneuver at night, rifle and pistol qualifications, and various decision-making exercises. In the field, students engage in realistic live fire exercises at the squad and platoon level.
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Colorado Springs, Colorado. (July 24, 2024): Every military service member wonders “Who was the sadistic mind that designed the first obstacle course and all its mental and physical torture”? In this photo by Dylan Smith, an Air Force basic trainee completes an assault course during cadet training at the U.S. Air Force Academy. This dubious honor of establishing the first course goes to Lieutenant Colonel William A. Hoge, a West Point graduate (1916) who earned a Distinguished Service Cross and a Silver Star during World War I. As the Army expanded after the war, Colonel Hoge was charged with training hundreds of thousands of out of shape civilians with little time or space to make it happen.
Hoge questioned how the Germans managed preparing raw recruits and was told they were using specially designed fields with a variety of trenches, climbing obstacles, crawling, swinging, and jumping like they would do in combat. Hoge drew up plans for the Army’s first “confidence course” that included running, jumping over ditches, walking on logs, and crossing streams. The goal was to evaluate the progress of individual soldiers and any weaknesses in the unit as a team.
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Groton, Connecticut. (July 27, 2024): Being trapped hundreds of feet below the waves must be the darkest nightmare for every submariner. In this photo by Lauren Laughlin, students participate in surface survival training at the Navy Surface Survival Naval Submarine School. The course uses a pressurized submarine escape training facility to teach students how to survive a worst-case scenario where they perform an emergency escape from a submarine. The training teaches everything from medical physiology involved, how to surface safely, and even the proper way to man lifeboats on the surface.
The first goal is to understand human physiology and what happens to a body as it surfaces from deep water. The concern is pulmonary overinflation syndrome, a condition caused by gas-filled spaces in the lung expanding as a person surfaces. Sailors are taught to never hold their breath but instead slowly release air in short bubble bursts as they rise to the surface. Students practice this technique in a real-time setting via a pressurized dive chamber that simulates being sixty feet below the surface. The 84,000-gallon tank is heated to ninety degrees and pressure is increased until it reaches “escape depth” or six hundred feet.
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MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. (July 20, 2024): The Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker is famous for its role as a “flying gas station” that extends America’s reach worldwide. Less celebrated is the role the KC-135 plays as a “flying ambulance” used to transport litter and ambulatory patients during aeromedical evacuations. In this photo by Senior Airman Lauren Cobin, Captain Jake Koehnke, a pilot assigned to the 91st Air Refueling Squadron, performs preflight checks on a KC-135 Stratotanker as it prepares for a training mission. This giant airplane has provided the core refueling capability for the Air Force, Marines, Army, and Navy aircraft for more than sixty years.
The first recorded instance of using aircraft for evacuating patients took place in 1910 when two Army medical officers used their own money to design the first air ambulance. The program had a shaky start, however, as the plane travelled only five hundred yards before it crashed. During World War II, the Army established mobile hospitals (MASH) units near the front lines to improve survival rates. During the Vietnam War, it took an average of 45 days to return severe casualties to the United States and the survival rate was 75 percent. By the time of Operation Desert Storm, in 1991, getting wounded patients home averaged 10 days, but their survival remained stubbornly at 75 percent.