A US Navy supercarrier’s 5,500 plus person crew exists to do one thing:
to consistently put aircraft into the air and safely recover them after they launch.
In order to make this happen, there exists a small army of flight deck facilitators,
and each individual has their own role primarily designated by the color of the shirt they wear.
What do all the colors on a Navy aircraft carrier flight deck represent?
Keep watching to learn more about the different responsibilities of aircraft carrier crew.
Here are what each shirt color seen on the flight deck means.
We start with yellow. Yellow shirts are worn by aircraft handlers and aircraft directors that
shuttle aircraft around the carrier’s tight and chaotic deck. Catapult Officers and Arresting
Gear Officers also wear yellow shirts. Because yellow shirts are so involved with taxiing
aircraft, they are often featured prominently in dramatic photos depicting carrier deck operations.
- Green. Green shirts are worn by some of the hardest-working sailors on the deck, including
ones who run and maintain the ship’s catapults and arresting gear. Hook Runners who make sure
the ship’s cross-deck pendants or wires make it back into position to trap another aircraft by
coercing them with a five-foot steel bar wear green shirts. This is one of the most dangerous
positions on the flight deck as the wires can snap across the deck at high speed, slicing through
whatever or whoever they come in contact with. Airwing maintenance personnel, those who work on
the aircraft directly, also wear green shirts, as do cargo handling personnel, ground support
equipment troubleshooters, enlisted helicopter landing signal personnel and photographer’s mates.
- Blue. Plane Handlers, who work under the direction of the yellow shirt wearing aircraft
handlers, assist in moving aircraft around the deck. They also can operate the carrier’s
massive aircraft elevators, drive tractors and work as messengers and verbal liaisons.
- Purple. Purple shirts, better known as “Grapes,” are all about aviation fuels. They
fuel and de-fuel the carrier’s aircraft, often on very tight schedules. Obviously,
pumping fuel at high-pressure into jets loaded with explosives and full of hot electronics
and mechanical devices is not exactly a low-risk proposition. One spark,
caused by grounding issue or one of many other possibilities, could cause a real disaster.
Grapes are masters of pumping the air wing’s go-juice under the most challenging of conditions.
- Red. The red color is no mistake as the crewmen that wear this color
are usually near very hazardous things or situations. Ordnancemen deal with building,
moving and mounting weapons and arming the air wing’s aircraft.
They use their own hardened elevators to move live bombs and missiles up to the deck before
loading them on the aircraft, which can including literally lining up and heaving
a 500 pound missile over their shoulders to get it attached to the aircraft’s weapons station.
Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) crews also wear red shirts along with crash and salvage crews.
Crash teams have their own mini tug-sized fire fighting vehicles
and are ready at a moment’s notice to respond to mishap on the deck.
- Brown. Brown shirts are worn most notably by Plane Captains. Loosely equivalent to a Crew
Chief in the Air Force, Plane Captains are responsible for overseeing the maintenance,
launch and recovery and general well-being of their aircraft as well as the others in
their squadron. The old adage is the plane captain is the one who truly “owns the jet,”
and the pilot just borrows it for a couple hours at a time. Air wing line leading Petty Officers,
the hands-on leadership of the air wing and its enlisted personnel, also wear brown shirts.
The last one is White. White shirts are worn by a fairly wide mix of deck crew.
These include many quality and safety observers such as air wing quality control personnel,
individual squadron plane inspectors, and safety observers. Yet probably most well known white
shirt wearers are Landing Signal Officers or (LSO) who help talk down approaching aircraft
while also making sure the deck is clear for their arrival. The LSO are sourced from each
squadron in the air wing and are usually pilots with historically high landing scores themselves.
White shirts are also worn by Air Transfer Officers who are responsible for the handling
and conveyance of all mail, cargo and passengers arriving via C2 Greyhound Carrier Onboard Delivery
aircraft and helicopters. When VIP or media are being escorted on the deck they also wear white.
Crews who provide liquid oxygen to aircraft and medical personnel are also assigned white tops.
So, the methods used today by deck crews have been honed over a century of naval aviation
and the US is not alone with using many of them. In fact,
things like shirt colors and direction methods used by the US are standardized among its allies.
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