[John Rogers]

The landing on a carrier is one of the most terrifying thing that a non US Navy pilot can do! I 1970 I was flown out to the Enterprise on Yankee Station from Cubi Point NAS so I could get combat pay as they were coming back to port in 5 days. I flew in one of the old radial engine CODs and we were coming in during a large strike recovery and was waived off when a F4 with a badly shot up engine needed to make a hurry up landing so we were off the port side and watched him land then it was out turn. The little window beside me didn't show much until we starting getting close and could see a pretty fair wake. It sure seemed a long way down and then the round-down at the rear of the flight deck flew past and it seemed waaaay down but suddenly we stopped and my insides got rearranged! Caught #2 wire it seems and then we taxied over to just in front of the island and the rear hatch dropped. I grabbed my sea bag and rand the fastest I ever had to the door in the side of the island as another F$ was coming right at me it seemed! The red/yellow/purple shirts all laughed like hell and said hey here's another engineer! Didn't ever want to do that again.