ABOARD THE THEODORE ROOSEVELT
The mission ends in the dark, alone. The pilot is on his radio, listening to his own breathing and to his colleagues safe and sound on the aircraft carrier deck, somewhere in the blackness before him.
He checks his instruments, trusting them to keep him out of the ocean below. Then a faint light appears, wavering in the night.
As he closes in, the light brightens and others appear, all so impossibly small, all moving away from him.
He's talking to the landing signal officer on the deck now, adjusting his speed, altitude and position, rechecking his instruments.
The lights grow and take shape as the rectangular landing box materializes, still several miles ahead.
He squares up with the drop line of lights hanging off the carrier's stern, levels his wings. Now he's within a mile of the ship and he's off his instruments, talking to the landing signal officer, watching the optical landing system to the left of the runway, tweaking his position as the plane sinks toward the sea.
He hits the deck hard at 150 mph, then guns the engine in case he has to take off again. He doesn't know he's safe until he's thrown forward in his seat, his captured plane struggling to break free of the arresting wire.
For the past several years, the Navy has sought space for a second outlying field, where pilots can practice their landingsbefore heading to sea.
This quest has been beset by delays and controversy, as the Navy and its opponents spar over how such a facility would affect the economy, the environment and residents' quality of life around five proposed sites in rural Virginia and North Carolina.
The Navy argues that the field, which would augment Fentress Naval Auxiliary Landing Field in southeast Chesapeake, would be a win-win both for the residents, who could gain jobs and tax revenue if compatible businesses are attracted, and for the pilots, who would be able to train locally and more realistically.
Many opponents say they don't care what the economic benefits might be - they're not interested in changing their quiet country life.
One perspective that tends to get lost in all the debate is that of the men and women whose lives depend on rigorous preparation for the hardest job in naval aviation: landing a plane on a carrier at night.
"No matter how many times you do it, no matter how seasoned you are, it scares the hell out of you," said Lt. Matt Antel of Super Hornet squadron VFA-211, the Fighting Checkmates.
To be successful at a task with so little margin for error, pilots face a lengthy and stressful series of qualifications, both day and night, at land and sea. Ultimately, it comes down to trust: trust in one's instruments, colleagues and own skills. It comes down to fighting your instincts and learning something so well that it becomes automatic.
"The people who are really, really good, who constantly do really well at their landings, are those people who, for that last 15 seconds, can just really, really concentrate on what they're doing," said Cmdr. Kimo Buckon, executive officer of Super Hornet squadron VFA-31, the Tomcatters, which recently deployed with the Theodore Roosevelt strike group.
"But we're all victims of it at one time or another. As soon as you say, 'This one's looking good,' that's usually about when things go really bad. So we try not to ever say that."
Up or down. Left or right. Slow or fast. These three decisions keep a plane in the air and, when the time comes, put it on the ground. At sea, while the variables increase, these basics remain the same.
A land runway is long - more than a mile - and aimed into the prevailing wind to bring a plane down smoothly anywhere along it. A carrier's landing area is much shorter - less than 150 feet from the first arresting wire to the last. Come in too high, and you miss all the wires and have to take off and come around again. Come in too low, and you'll plow into the carrier's stern.
To up the ante further, the runway is angled to the left of the ship's centerline. Because the carrier is always moving during flight operations, the runway is always pulling away from the pilot and to the right.
At night, with no horizon to orient them, pilots rely on a combination of human and mechanical aides: the landing signal officer, another squadron pilot who talks them in from the deck; and the optical landing system, with its "meatball" or "ball" of light that lets them know they're descending at the proper angle.
This know-how is perishable - hard-earned and quickly lost. So as each carrier prepares to deploy, its air wing heads back to school, which is where outlying landing fields come in.
Mission control: a small white shack by the runway's edge at Fentress. The sun had set, reddening the western sky as an almost full moon began its upward creep in the east.
Inside, one landing signal officer, or LSO, waited for his squadron's turn, while another held the log book. A third was on the radio, eyes skyward.
Outside in the humid dusk, an F/A-18 C lined up over the runway, leveled its wings, and descended toward the small section of Tarmac lit to mimic the carrier's landing box.
"Roger ball," came a voice on the radio as the pilot zeroed in on the optical landing system.
"Roger ball auto," replied Lt. Matt Minzes, the LSO of Hornet squadron VFA-15, the Valions.
Wheels kissed the runway at about 170 mph, the pilot hit the throttle, and the plane hopped back into the dusk, circling around for another pass.
A landing is broken down into parts, like a golf or tennis swing. There is the "start," when the wings have leveled out on the final turn and the pilot sets the glide slope. This is followed by being "in middle," "in close" and "at the ramp."
Some planes land as if sitting back on their heels. Others hit short and hard, leaning into the runway, nose down. The ideal landing is rear wheels first with the nose tilted up slightly. A three-wheel landing can cost a day's maintenance.
The goal is to set the plane down on the runway between where the second and third arresting wires will be on the ship. The LSO grades each of these "bounces" or "touch-and-gos" in the log.
"Too much power, nose down on fly-through, up at close," Minzes dictated on one bounce. "Too much altitude in, then come down at close, high at the ramp," he said of the next.
Each pilot will do eight to 10 bounces before heading back to Oceana. These bounce periods help develop pilots' visual scans as they land - looking at the ball, the runway lights, the ball, the lights - and acclimate them to landing with no other visual cues.
The practice sessions help make landings second nature. Yet the sheer number of bounces required - a new pilot will do 120 before being allowed to land on a carrier for the first time - means many trips to the outlying landing field.
Compounding the problem, several air wings can be preparing to leave as other, newer pilots undergo their training. When these work-ups and exercises coincide with the shorter summer nights, noise levels and neighbors' annoyance increase.
This disruption is what many opponents have ho med in on, citing the effect of the noise on their rural way of life.
Rear Adm. David Anderson hears all this. A former fighter pilot himself, he now oversees the OLF issue as vice commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command.
Part of his job entails responding to these concerns, and for him, it all comes back to the intertwined issues of training capacity and safety.
"When I stared doing this 30 years ago, we basically lost an airplane and killed an air crew pretty much every deployment," he said, and the numbers were even worse during World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars.
The Navy learned hard lessons and, in the following decades, overhauled its training program. As simulators became more realistic, they were integrated into the process.
"In past 10 to 15 years, we've gotten a better understanding about how much of that training can be done with simulation," Anderson said. "We really believe we have found a sweet spot of how much simulation we can do, then how much has got to be real in the airplane."
This airplane time must include a set number of field landings before a pilot can proceed to the ship. Then come day landings on deck, then night landings. Go too long between night landings, and you have to land during the day again first. Go too long between carrier landings, and you're back to the landing field.
Even Anderson, who has more than 650 carrier landings - more than 400 of which were at night - basically would have to start flight training over again, because it's been so long since he's worked off a ship.
Further complicating the issue is the Navy's fleet response plan, which requires more carriers to be ready to deploy more quickly. This means their air wings must be ready as well.
"One of the chokepoints of the fleet response plan proved to be the capacity to train pilots," Anderson said. So planes sometimes fly nearly all night at Fentress, while others head to fields in Florida and Nevada to qualify. That's expensive for the Navy and a hardship for the air crews.
Some OLF critics have suggested alternatives that would take the noise away from the neighbors, such as anchoring the decommissioned carrier John F. Kennedy offshore and landing on it. But a carrier needs to be fully staffed and operational and moving to be of any use, the Navy says. What's more, landing on the carrier is the goal; there are numerous tests to pass before a pilot is cleared to do so.
Cost and environmental concerns prohibit building an offshore island to practice on, Anderson said. As for why the field needs to be in a rural area, he said, the pilots need darkness.
"If there's more lights around you... you have those peripheral vision senses that you have coming from your external factors," said VFA-31's Buckon. "You can see the ground coming up and those sensations you can incorporate quickly. At night, all those sensations are gone. That's where it's only instruments. And that's what we're practicing. "
On a night in late June, the carrier Theodore Roosevelt's flight deck was a netherworld: eerie light, frantic people, a constant din, the hot breath of jet engines. Into this seeming anarchy came the planes, invisible until very close, appearing first as a small group of steady and blinking lights.
One appeared to hover like a dragonfly, its speed undeterminable as it grew larger and descended across the back of the deck, tailhook hanging behind it like a stinger.
As the wheels touched down, the hook skipped slightly before catching the third wire, which spooled out as the plane strained against it.
The pilot eased off the throttle and lifted his hook. The cable retracted across the deck with a serpentine drag. The deck crew waved the plane to the side, making way for the next one, less than a minute behind.
That plane came in high, landing too far forward and missing all the wires, its hook sending up a shower of sparks as it shot across the deck and back into the night, rising for another pass.
The LSOs watched and graded all this, watching from the deck just as they did from the shack at Fentress. Simply making it to the carrier in one piece isn't good enough. But as in boxing or fencing, the subtleties of a good landing can be lost on the uninitiated.
"It's a heavy experience aboard the boat - that's the best way I can describe it," said Lt. Rip Gordon, a VFA-31 pilot who also serves as an LSO. "It's heavy, and a lot of the young guys really don't have the experience to feel confident. You never really get comfortable with it, but being confident is important."
So Gordon takes his pilots to Fentress and puts them through their paces, critiquing their bounces over and over, acclimating them, getting them mentally prepared for the real thing.
"There's no simulation that can simulate flying the ball," he said. "It's all about feel and seat of your pants and audiovisual stuff. The subconscious things that make you able to do it are tough to replicate."
Particularly that last 17 seconds or so, once the pilots are off their instruments, scanning the deck and the ball and the deck and the ball.
"There's little room for error, so at that point in time you need to be pretty much all on brain-stem power," Lt. Michael Tremel said. "You don't have a lot of time to make decisions and, if so, they need to happen extremely quickly."
His boss agreed.
"The conditions are never the same at the field as they are at the carrier, but how you fly your airplane relative to those conditions is always the same," said Buckon, who has landed on carrier decks more than 400 times.
"The darker it gets, the different wind conditions, the deck's moving - there are lots of contributing factors that can make one night exceedingly more difficult than the next night, but overall, your mentality has to be the same on all of them. And that rush at the very end, at least for me, has never subsided."
Matthew Jones, (757) 446-2949, matthew.jones@pilotonline.com
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The Navy stated they do not need a 2nd OLF for Oceana
so why are people trying to find solutions to the Oceana problem? The Oceana problem is encroachment regardless of what the Navy may say. The Navy has stated that if there was not a house within 100 miles of Oceana, I would need this 2nd OLF, encroachment is not my problem, capacity is. HUMMM, lets see. BRAC reviewed and stated ENCROACHMENT was the primary problem and never mentioned capacity. If capacity was a concern for Oceana viability, BRAC would have required one built. Navy's own EIS study stated Oceana does not require a 2nd OLF. So what changed Navy? The Navy has not proven or even tried to show data for their new stories. If darkness is such a concern, when is the Navy going to fix the darkness problem around Oceana? Why is the Navy refusing to provide our pilots with first-rate training facilities? Apperently NOT a goal of the Navy for our pilots? Navy, be consistant with your requirements, condemn ALL the incompatible development around Oceana. Our pilots deserve it.
Bogue??
Bogue field is NOT remote as you state. There is an elementary school within 1 mile of the field, as well as a population of 8000 within a 5 mile radius (40,000-50,000 if you include the summer tourist population on Emerald Isle). Bogue is currently used as a OLF for primarily Harriers from MCAS Cherry Point. It is only occasionally used by FA-18's in any capacity due to the the need to mitigate noise/safety because of the nearby population and unacceptably high level of light pollution.
aron1540 is correct. .
And BRAC will eventually get this straight I/we hope. An OLF is an absolute waste of tax payers dollars, as Oceana's jets will eventually have to leave anyway. With the F35 out around 2012-2013 Oceana is done, so why waste money on an OLF when it's only temporary? Beaufort offered previously to accept Oceanas jet; They have the space and infrastructure to make it happen. It's either there or Cecil Field eventually.
why is it the navy has talked more in the papers about this OLF
then at their own webpage? http://www.olfeis.com/documents.aspx All they have is the NOI. The NOI has a figure of 63% overcapacity for Fentress but nothing to validate that number. The Navy has 5 finalists, but no documentation to explain WHY they are finalists. looks like the Navy just placed a flag in the ground and is daring ppl to knock it down. The Navy tied all of these sites to the old EIS study with the statment "we are in virgin territory by adding these new sites this late in the process", now the Navy is doing a new study. If thats the case, where is the rational for picking these 5 new sites? Navy, get out of the paper and start talking to the people of the 5 sites. Get into informational role. Prove your NOI statements before going any further with this study. The 5 sites at least deserve that? Prove Fentess does not have the capacity when the Navy stated Oceana does not require an OLF since July 2003, that told me Fentress had the capacity. Now it does not? pls explain.
How about...
...google Bogue Field, North Carolina.
It's here, now. Has an outline of an aircraft carrier painted on the runway. F-18's from Beauford, SC use it to practice just this very same thing, carrier landings. There was at one time, catapults set up for practice carrier cat shots. It's remote, away from large communities. Yeah, it's 100 miles from Oceania, but that's what, a 15 minute flight in a Navy jet? The Marines own Bogue Field and I think some joint Navy/Marine cooperation in order.
What's wrong with Fentress
As a North Carolina resident and former navy man, I am all for an OLF just not in North Carolina. I have also lived in Virginia and I just can't understand why does Va. Beach's problem/desire have to be North Carolina's problem. We all know the underlying reason why Virginia wants the OLF out of Chesapeake it's called "development."
"The difference is that this
"The difference is that this time the Navy wants to basically condemn 30,000 acres around the OLF in NC to avoid a repeat of Oceana and Fentress."
30,000 is not nearly enough. The pilots wil easily be able to use lights from developing communities and businesses to 'cheat' and maintain their bearings. The communities will continue to grow but in a less desireable method. Camden and Currituck are already cheaper and it is an obvious outcome that the jets will degrade the values. This part of the county offer nothing more than the quiet. Simply put, the idea to place this in such a fast growing residential community shows how Navy personel coined the term 'FUBAR."
"because the fine citizens who love all of the jet noise brought a law suit which then limited the Navy's fly times."
This is false. They fly whenever they want.
NO OLF in NC!!
Again, I have to state the obvious for the VA BCH folks that keep telling us to stop whining. First, I was here first, not the other way around. Second, the Navy has said it will fly whenever they want that means all hours of the day or night, weekends or holidays. Yes, it may not be that way in VA BCH but I believe that is because the fine citizens who love all of the jet noise brought a law suit which then limited the Navy's fly times. I'm wondering if now some of you are the pot calling the kettle black?....Third, please tell me what the positive is for my community. You are taking away land, and people's ability to make a living and support their families and what do we get in return. Because according to the Navy all we are getting in a landing stip and a tower. So, unless they contract out for air traffic controllers, security etc.where will we see an increase in jobs?... Lastly, the flight path is directly over at least two schools why should we put our children in jeopardy when they aren't now. Please answer these questions?.....
"at a scoping meeting,
"at a scoping meeting, farming as usual would be allowed right up to the edge of the tarmac, which defines the 2000 acres as I understand it. He did say that certain crops could be prohibited if they were considered very likely to attract birds. I believe that corn was one of those crops. Wheat, potatoes and soy beans would be permitted."
Carolyn R, Anderson said that "crops could be planted right up to the tarmac", yeah, right! Guess, they will remove the fence around the area. It really shows how much Anderson knows about crops and birds. The only crop that doesn't draw birds and wildlife, is, maybe tobacco.
The Navy is NOT having meetings with the public! The only one was the Scoping meeting, and, then we weren't given any answers really. There were only a few Navy personnel there, it was mostly with CONTRACTORS, who didn't know answers asked, and, we were shoved to another booth. Everything is being done undercover. We didn't even know anything about OLF, or, even what it was, until less than a week before the Navy and Kaine's man held a meeting telling us that we were being included in the land grab for it.
We are sick of people telling us that it is the "sou
retiredguy
Google F-35 Lightning II...
No OLF in any Community
How about Fort Pickett? Why can that not be used? There are so many places that are better suited to house an OLF than these small rural communities that already struggle economically. We have no other military presence here, so why should we suffer all the negative impacts for a handful of jobs the Navy says will go to local people? There would be very few jobs for local people, the Navy will not put untrained people at an airfield, and I don't think there are universities locally that offer such classes. It is all about greed and money for Virginia Beach, no one in Virginia Beach talks about pilot safety, only about how much noise and pollution they deal with everyday, and how much money they can sue and get. Militart operations such as an OLF need to be at military bases, not in small rural communities, they just don't match for any reason. Last time I looked Oceana was to get 8 squadrons, Cherry Point 2, a little unequal in economics, and the sites that have been picked don't have anything in common with Oceana and Cherry Point. We were picked for an OLF because they think we are small in numbers and that nobody else cares about small country people.
I read all the post
And every one is saying that they don't want this in their backyard but yet you want and almost demand that we have the best trained pilots in the world. The only way for them to be the best is to train. And if it means they want to build another OLF, so be it. I would welcome to have one in my backyard. the sound of freedom is never free.
DOUBLE TALK
For Carolyn R.
Visiting Tomcat Blvd while the planes were taking off makes you to be “ABLE” to be proud to call yourself an American meaning anyone opposed to the OLF is not “ABLE” to be proud to call themselves an American? You used to call anyone opposed to the OLF unpatriotic so I see some slight improvement in your snobbish insults because your slightly more subtle with them. If you were in the vicinity of Tomcat Blvd looking for real estate so you can CHOOSE to live next to the noise then that would entitle you to stay on the snobbish pedestal your living on. If not then get over yourself.
For everyone else. When the navy made visits to the counties they were asked how many jobs the OLF would bring. The NAVY said other than the construction jobs to build the landing field the OLF will bring NO jobs. The navy was asked what businesses would spring up if the OLF locates in NC and the NAVY said there would be NONE because the planes wont be housed in NC. Now in this article the navy is implying that an OLF will attract compatible businesses yet. Double talk.
The navy is saying that the pilots are practicing at Fentress, some fly to Florida and some
OLF- Recommission Cecil Field, Fl
Navy blew it by decommissioning Cecil Field in Florida, many area down here available for OLF's. Navy should consider attempting to get Cecil Field back up and operational
It's obvious. .
No one one here reads other people's posts. Fentress is no longer a valid OLF due to population growth. This is a very simple concept. The JSF (F35) will be out by 2013 at the latest, and it WILL NOT be stationed at Oceana; Thus, Oceana will NOT be a MJB anymore, and therefore the whole "OLF" idea is moot!! Oceana's jets will be relocated to either Cecil Field in Florida or Fort Beaufort, N.C.
Keep the OLF in Fentress
As a taxpayer I have already paid for an OLF once in Fentress. Why should I pay for another one? Make the cities of VA Beach and Chesapeake take action to preserve the sound of freedom and keep the OLF right where it belongs, here in Hampton Roads. Us tax payers have to bail out Wall Street and pay for the the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We don't have the luxury to be buying spare OLF's.
According to one of the pilots
at a scoping meeting, farming as usual would be allowed right up to the edge of the tarmac, which defines the 2000 acres as I understand it. He did say that certain crops could be prohibited if they were considered very likely to attract birds. I believe that corn was one of those crops. Wheat, potatoes and soy beans would be permitted.
Considering the nature of the five sites selected for consideration, I would be interested to know what businesses would be lost.
Navy's big case for an OLF
Lights? Is that the "big case for an OLF?"
So, when did lights become the reason for an OLF?
What's the Navy"s plan for getting rid of the lights around Fentress & Oceana?
How about some shades for the planes?
Will the "compatible businesses attracted" to the proposed OLF have lights??
Never forget, the quest for an OLF began years ago because of noise complaints around Oceana and Fentress.
One tiny piece of land...
and give us a break. Rear Adm. David Anderson fails to show up for meetings in the requested area to answer questions. He simply sends others who DO NOT have the knowledge. It is not a tiny piece of land they're requesting either. Why should we sell our way of life to benefit the Virginia Beach and others who reap the benefits of having a base in their front and back yards and are tired of the noise and have sued. There are so many facts not printed in the paper about the goings on. We will not sell ourselves short in any way. I, too, am a proud American and support our pilots; but this is not the way when there are other areas with government land that is not being used. Our government already spends too much money that is not necessary and this is one of those things. NO OLF!!!!!!
"Many opponents say they
"Many opponents say they don't care what the economic benefits might be - they're not interested in changing their quiet country life."
There is more involved than losing the "quiet country life". The landing strip is 2,000 acres, the whole area the Navy wants is 30,000 acres, a little smaller than Norfolk. People will lose their homes, livelihoods, properties that have been in families over 100 years, some 200 years.
Chesapeake:
The F-22 Raptor is a great fighter aircraft, but I'm afraid it doesn't have the capability to hover. The AV-8B Harrier is the only jet aircraft with hovering capability that I'm aware of in our inventory, and there are only a small number of them being operated by the Marines. They are subsonic, and are not primarily a fighter aircraft. With no hovering fighters under development, cats and arresting gear will be with us for for foreseeable future.
here's a couple of other things to think about...
Floating Barge / Carrier would require dry dock time to renovate the hull as the water and time takes it's toll. Plus you have to man the ship / barge in the case that it becomes un-moored, bad weather (think IKE), or an accident requires it to be moved. So you have the expense of renovation every so many years which means you need two, the cost of staffing them, the cost of upkeep, and the cost of fuel. Not to mention that it is safer to train a rookie in a landing field then it would be a permanatly moored deck.
That and it's a heck of a lot more expensive to renovate the deck of a carrier then it is to repave every 10 years... And you would have to renovate the deck of a floating training facility every so many years...
Let the experts make the decisions
A moored ship doesn't have any safety buffer extending from the landing surface, seems like it would be riskier for the pilot and planes. There would be no room for error. I'll keep paying my taxes and let the experts make the decisions and trust what they do is the right thing. With out the military this country would not exist. Thank You to all you folks in uniform, I truelly appreciate the sacrifices you have made for US!
How many knots does Fentress make
The Admirals carrier comment is part of the reason the Navy has so much trouble. You just cant believe there comments. Just when is Fentress underway, how many knots does it make. Either a carrier can be mooored, or no OLF is sutible.
Well Chesapeake,
as for your barge comment, it explains why that isn't a possibility in the article.
Navy practice
What is the problem hear. Pilots need to train and as far as landing on an aircraft carrier, you try. It is not easy. I work for Boeing on the 747 and flying a fighter is way diff. The mechanical part on a carrier (most people do not see) is whacked. 4 lines at 150mph and try to get one. Senator McMain has done this and almost lost his life. Do not whine
when aircraft noise is your only problem. jamman
What is wrong
With one of the bases the navy closed? Most if not all of them had airstrips on them. Why not save some money and reactivate an existing runway?
NO TO OLF
NCGUY is totally correct in his assessment, where is the justice in Oceana and Fentress retaining all the money that follows these squadrons, but trying to airmail their noise and pollution to NC and romote communities in VA. The Navy ownes land all over the US, land they have already used tax payer money to purchase, many parcels sitting idle, that could easily be retrofitted for an alternate OLF. Talk about offshore platform being too expensive? Wouldn't it be much cheaper to update a base that already has landing fields? Would that be more economiclly feasible, wouldn't that stop an end to destroying more farmers and wildlife? How about the people of these rural communities, do they count for nothing? Does it take news that the Navy is going to kill wildlife with poison for anybody to care about families that have lived and worked these land our forefathers left in our trust? The Navy truly needs to weight there wants against their needs, use existing lands, save people, wildlife, farmers, and try to help the economy and pollution, not add to it. Everybody has to contribute for the future, Navy included. Maybe once Oceana's and Fentress's lights have been purchased and removed,
Also "chesapeake", the USAF
Also "chesapeake", the USAF has no hover capability aircraft, nor does the USN. The Marines have the Harrier jump jet and soon the VSTOL F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but both of those aircraft are for the Marines for ground support. Neither aircraft have the range, speed or payload capabilities that the Navy needs. That is why the Navy purchase the F/A-18E Super Hornets.
Contrary to your belief, the catapults and arresting gear systems are NOT going away EVER!! The Navy will always use them as they can build bigger, more powerful aircraft, capable of carry bigger payloads while using the catapults. If the Navy did away with those systems, they'd be back to flying the equivalent of WW2 aircraft off the carriers.
NOT going to happen!
"Chesapeake", the pilots
"Chesapeake", the pilots need COMPLETE darkness to practice night landings. Any amount of extra light (street lights, house lights, shopping mall and store signs, car headlights, etc.) really, really mess up a pilot's vision at night. The best example of how light affects a pilot's vision at night would be this: when you are out some clear night at a store or restaurant, look up at the stars and see how many you can see. Then find a side street or somewhere where there is no or a lot less light and stop and look to see how many stars you can see then. There is a HUGE difference. As a 20 year Navy vet, I was shocked to see how many stars are visible at night with no lights present. Navy pilots need this darkness on land as well to practice for landing on a carrier deck at night.
Also, it MUST be done on land. New "rookie" pilots need to be able to land on a much longer stationary landing field. Anchoring a barge or the JFK out in the bay would be the same as trying to land on a carrier. They could easily slam into the ocean or into the barge or carrier and kill themselves and lose a multi-million dollar aircraft.