With a thunderous bang, a Navy F/A-18 slammed onto the deck of the USS Carl Vinson on Feb. 16, snagging a steel wire with its tailhook to complete a “trap,” the Navy’s term for a safe landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier.
Though carrier traps can be famously terrifying, the pilot of this F/A-18 was probably not particularly nervous. For Rear Adm. Michael Wosje, the landing was his 1,000th time piloting a plane onto a carrier deck, a milestone that put Wosje into one of the most exclusive lists in the U.S. military: the Navy’s Grand Club, the list of Navy pilots and flight officers who have recorded 1000 carrier traps.
Capt. Sterling Gilliam, a retired Navy captain with over 1,300 traps, is the director of the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, which maintains a board with the names of every aviator to hit 1,000 traps. The Tailhook Association’s website also keeps an online list of self-reported 1000-trap flyers.
“Naval Aviation started in 1911, which is pretty remarkable in and of itself, that the Wright brothers flew in 1903 and less than eight years later, some clowns are trying to figure out how to do that from a boat,” Gilliam told Task & Purpose.“But since 1911, less than 600 people — less than 400 pilots and 200 [flight officers] — have hung around long enough, lived long enough, and been successful enough to get 1,000 arrested landings. To make a sports metaphor, it’s sort of like getting 3,000 hits in baseball.”
Landing on an aircraft carrier is widely viewed as one of aviation’s toughest skills. Pilots have to slam their 50,000-pound planes precisely onto a carrier’s deck — which can be moving in high seas — and snag a steel cable with the plane’s tailhook (unsurprisingly, night traps are considered particularly terrifying).
Come in too low, the plane can slam into the front of the carrier, as a Marine F-35 did in 2022. Too high or off-center, the hook will miss the cable and send the plane rolling off the deck, with just a few seconds to power up and fly away before hitting the water.
And if everything goes right, the plane and the pilot in it still violently slam onto the deck and get jerked from 150 miles per hour to zero in under two seconds.
“It’s a hallmark of longevity,” Gilliam said. “It’s a hallmark of excellence. It’s a hallmark of expertise, because to achieve those 1,000 arrested landings, you’ve got to spend a lot of time underway, typically in an operational setting, a deployment off one of these aircraft carriers. And there are only 10 Nimitz class carriers, so [there are] not that many of them. And you’re typically deployed to the far reaches of the globe.”
Few reach 1,000, though the record is more than double
Though 1,000 is the most recognized landmark, a very few aviators have many more. The highest count among pilots is believed to be Capt. John “Lites” Leenhouts’ with 1,645 traps. But a British pilot, Capt. Eric Brown, was reported to have retired from the Royal Navy in 1970 with over 2,400 traps, many from service in World War II chasing German U-Boats and Nazi torpedo planes.
(No Marine aviator has reached the Grand Club, said Gilliam, a function not of eligibility but of the nature of Marine Corps aviation careers that generally involve spending many assignments at land-based squadrons)
The clear champ among U.S. aviators is retired Vice Adm. Ted Carter, who recorded 2,016 traps in a 38-year career as a naval flight officer that spanned Vietnam-era F-4s, Cold War F-14s and combat missions in the post-9/11 wars in F/A-18s.Carter recorded traps on 19 carriers, including on all 10 Nimitz-class ships. Late in his career, Carter was the longest-serving superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy and today is the President of the Ohio State University.
That Carter tops the Grand Club as a “backseater” — the non-pilot weapons officer assigned to every two-seat fighter — is occasionally a source of heartburn among some pilots, Gilliam admits.
“Not with me,” he insisted to Task & Purpose. “That’s a ‘taste great/less filling’ argument we are not gonna solve on this phone call.”
Though a pilot is at the controls as a plane slams onto a carrier deck, the weapons officer is still in for a full share of the danger in each attempt.
Close to two decades to reach the mark
Typically, said Gilliam, pilots and flight officers need about 17 years to reach the 1,000 trap mark, usually doing so in senior ranks like commander or captain while holding senior jobs in a carrier’s hierarchy, like squadron commander, Air Boss or commanding officer of their carrier.
In some cases, senior pilots on a deployment nearing the milestone have been known to ‘bag’ their 1,000th as a pair on the same sortie.
Wosje hit the landmark last week later in his career than most pilots, a delay at least partially attributable to early-career assignments flying Air Force F-22s at Nellis Air Force Base.
Wosje is embarked on the Carl Vinson as the commander of Carrier Strike Group One. In that role, he is not directly involved in daily flight operations on the ship, but rather oversees the small fleet that makes up the group, from destroyers to submarines.
“The fact that [Wosje] is still flying is a testament,” said Gilliam. “A lot of times the strike group commander, because of the demands of the job, will not make the effort to stay qualified to fly, to maintain carrier currency. But true operational leaders want to know the pulse of their strike group, right? And so by him flying, he is getting a first-person perspective on the efficacy of his strike group.”
