The INSANE Perspective Of A Catapult Center Deck Operator

The INSANE Perspective Of A Catapult Center Deck Operator | World War Wings Videos

FlightDeckLife

That’s Pretty Neat If You’ve Never Sat There.

A Navy carrier is a mini city. With some of Nimitz class carriers able to carry over 5,000 crew members, there are a lot of jobs you can do on such a ship. From being the cook to performing maintenance, there are some jobs that you didn’t even know existed. One such job is being the catapult Center Deck Operator.

The only way you’d know about this job is if you worked on a deck. If you haven’t it’s just one of those positions you’d only know if someone told you, so here we are to tell you about it.

Although the position is nothing special (we say that loosley as every position on a carrier is crucial to our national security), it does provide a very unique perspective. This video will show you exactly why.

The Center Deck Operator is part of the Catapult Crew. Sitting in the middle of the deck in a shielded “compartment,” his/her job is to communicate with catapult control and relay the aircraft type, weight, number and assist with the Capacity Selector Valve. This little gizmo checks the pressure of the catapult as different aircraft need different settings in order to take off.

Then, once everything is set, whatever plane is next whips right over his/her head as you’ll see in the video. How neat is that?

Don’t Miss Out! Sign up for the Latest Updates