Aircraft carriers are among the world’s most powerful and deadly weapons systems.
Even if they can almost freely move across the planet’s ocean to bring their embarked Carrier Air Wing where needed, the flying activity launched by the deck of a flattop can be affected by bad weather and….rough seas.
Rough seas not only cause “pitching decks” but can also be quite dangerous when high swells hit the bow of the aircraft carrier running over planes being launched by catapults, as happened to the E-2 Hawkeye in the above picture.
Update Nov. 28 00.00 GMT
After publishing the article, we’ve received the following email by Derek Gordon who explains:
“The photo is…well…parts of two photos. As bizarre of a coincidence as this is, I actually put it together in Photoshop when I was a JO in 123 while on cruise in 2006. It was originally for a prank on one of our Dept Heads at the time and we later used it during foscle follies. The cat shot of the E-2 was a photo I took during work ups and I took the one of the waves crashing over the bow during our transit through the Indian Ocean. If you look closely you’ll see in the merged photo that the E-2 and steam trail from the catapult track actually don’t line up with the catapult track beneath it.”
Therefore, the image is Photoshopped. Still, these things happen as others have written and as proved by this video:
Related articles
