The NASA Wallops Visitors Center will host the United States Navy for a special presentation about pilot training on the Eastern Shore for the first 2016 Science on the Shore event, scheduled for 5-6 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 12.
The public is invited to join U.S. Naval aviators and instructor Landing Signals Officers from the Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 120 (VAW-120) from Norfolk, Virginia, for a discussion on flying E-2 Hawkeyes and C-2 Greyhounds both on the Eastern Shore and aboard aircraft carriers around the globe.
Topics will include training pilots to fly using the Improved Fresnel Optical Landing System (the meatball) and Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP) at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in preparation for a Naval aviator's first night aircraft carrier arrested landing and a career as an aircraft carrier-based aviator.
The U.S. Navy has a long-term partnership with NASA to use the Wallops Flight Facility to conduct up to five, two-week FCLP pilot training detachments per year as well as other pilot training events at the airfield.
Each detachment consists of 160 to 190 U.S. Navy personnel and contractors and six to eight aircraft. These detachments prepare roughly 110 Naval aviators per year to safely land on U.S. aircraft carriers both day and night in all weather conditions. The U.S. Navy has conducted seven such detachments totaling more than 25,000 practice landing passes at Wallops.
The NASA Visitor Center, located on Va. Rt. 175 about six miles from U. S. Route 13 and five miles from Chincoteague, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free.
For more information about the Science on the Shore event or the Visitor Center, call 757-824-1344 or visit www.nasa.gov/centers/wallops/visitorcenter.
For more information, contact Rebecca Hudson at 757-824-1139 or rebecca.s.hudson@nasa.gov.