Nearsightedness ended any hope I had of becoming a naval aviator, but I’ve long absorbed as much as I could through books and videos. It’s one thing to learn about aircraft-carrier operations that way and quite another to experience the wind, noise and heat in person while witnessing the precise choreography of humans and machines. I got the chance to do that in June aboard the USS Harry S. Truman.
Many people asked, “How did you do that?” The short answer: Notre Dame relationships.
Thanks to retired Notre Dame Magazine editor Kerry Temple ’74; Laura McAleer ’98, the University’s associate vice president for federal relations; retired Vice Admiral Mat Winter ’84 and Admiral Christopher Grady ’84, I participated in the United States Navy’s distinguished visitor program and photographed life on the ship.
The flights between Norfolk, Virginia, and the carrier in the Atlantic Ocean — about 100 miles off the East Coast — were on a C-2 Greyhound, the only way a civilian can experience what makes naval aviation unique: a tailhook landing and a catapult takeoff.
They were hot, loud, uncomfortable and infused with the smell of jet-fuel exhaust — and absolutely my favorite airplane rides ever.
Matt Cashore is senior University photographer.