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I noticed that it was about 2 hours before the scheduled air demonstrations, so I left the ready room and weaved my way back down the halls making it up to the flight deck to claim my spot. As I sat down I watched the flight deck crew testing the number 3 and 4 catapults on the angle deck by firing the shuttle numerous times down the roughly 300 foot distance.
About a half hour before the demonstration was set to begin, the CAG F/A-18F Super Hornet from VFA-211 “Fighting Checkmates” joined up with the ship and circled us for a while. Right at 2:00pm he came by low and fast, and did the carrier break and lined up. This was when I noticed his tailhook was not down, he was going to do a touch and go. He came in fast, slammed the deck feet away from us, and roared back up into the sky again. It all happened so fast it was hard to realize what I had just witnessed. As he came around for a second approach I saw the tailhook was down this time indicating he would be coming in for a trap. Making it look easy, he came down right before the third wire. His hook caught the wire and the jet came to an abrupt stop right in-front of me.
Looking forward along the flight deck.