Originally posted by pacerr: If you're airborne during carrier ops there's gonna be a tanker hidden in the woodpile somewhere. Even if there's a weather (and diplomatically approved) divert bingo field available there'll be a ready alert tanker. A fouled deck, a malfunctioning aircraft or a bumfuzzled pilot having a problem getting aboard can happen at the best of times.
It makes a lot of sense, but it's sadly ignored in any reporting of carrier ops. You don't want aircraft having to ditch because they don't have enough fuel to wait for clearance to land.
Quote: It's always fun to be the last, lone tanker airborne when everything goes nuts at oh-dark-thirty in foul weather, you know you're gonna be the last one aboard and there's no bingo field. I've never heard of medals awarded for being a courageous tanker pilot!
Which is a shame, because they're clearly taking extra risk.