I was today years old when I found out it is “Nap of the Earth” flying low level, not “Map of the Earth” 🤦‍♂️

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abstractmodulemusic@reddit

This is an interesting revelation to me as well

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TL-stanneman@reddit

Where the lawnmowers don’t even dare go

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DisjointedHuntsville@reddit

Not a native English speaker? That's understandable.

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a2djp@reddit

GTA San Andreas out of everything taught me this lol

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Paper_OCD@reddit

You sure this thing is safe? I can see daylight through the floor!

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NeitherEntry6125@reddit

nap of the earth is also vomit inducing for us normal people

pilots love to prove this.

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AdSquare3489@reddit

Wonder if it's as bad when you're the pilot. I tend to get an upset stomach on road trips but never when I'm driving.

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Longjumping-Tell1774@reddit (OP)

From what I’ve seen in documentaries of pilot training, pilots that are susceptible to motion sickness are weeded out in basic training. Most can learn to get over it. But a few people get it no matter what.

Interestingly when I was in the navy, we rescued a fishing boat crew onto our aircraft carrier. The older, seasoned fishermen all got sea sick because the difference in the movement of the big carrier compared what they were used to on the fishing boat

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remuspilot@reddit

People weeding out for motion sickness is almost completely absent in undergraduate aviator training. There's plenty of people who get really sick, but you just get through it eventually. Some people go sandbagging on the T-38 flights in the backseat if they have a chance and get fucked around until they're good.

I've heard of one student navigator who washed out due to sickness. Everyone else has just gotten over it. As humans are not meant to endure Gs nor the whole flying thing, it often is about exposure and just training your inner ear until it's fine.

If I don't fly for a while, I get some sickness. I've puked into my flight suit and the puke bag both in a T-38.

I've felt that same sickness in a slower plane as well after not flying for a bit, and I could tolerate 9Gs in the centrifuge without getting sick.

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cvnh@reddit

On an airplane, it is very different being a pilot or a passenger. Pilots know what to expect when manoeuvring, passengers know less or don't know at all and it is much worse. On an aerobatic airplane or flying a mission like terrain following can be pretty terrible, even if the passenger is a pilot himself.

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SnazzyStooge@reddit

Didn't get sick while flying as pilot, but would definitely feel queasy when flying low level as a passenger. Especially when it's hot and the a/c doesn't work so good.

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UziWitDaHighTops@reddit

There’s air sickness treatments available for aircrew. You strap into a Barany chair and they spin the fuck out of you for a few days with your head in different positions. When I talked to the staff who ran the program they said it has a decent success rate.

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22Planeguy@reddit

Regarding air sickness, there is a highly effective program to essentially torture the air sickness out of a student pilot. There are exceedingly few people who cannot be "fixed", although there are a few who have to go back through the program if they take too long a break in flying after being cured. I didn't see a single person get removed from UPT for air sickness, despite knowing many who had it pretty rough.

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Sashoke@reddit

Thats surprising, since the giant carrier was probably much gentler in the waves than their fishing boat. I wonder why they got sick

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Imbiss@reddit

Gentler, sure, but much larger oscillations and a different frequency than they're used to? I guess, I'm not a boat guy

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InsaneInTheDrain@reddit

Are you familiar with metronomes?

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Imbiss@reddit

Yeah fair enough that's a perfect model

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InsaneInTheDrain@reddit

Yeah you were exactly right, the metronome is basically a perfect small scale example of the difference. But I doubt many people under 25 have seen a mechanical metronome

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donkeykink420@reddit

Yes, same reason why skyscrapers can be so nauseating if not built correctly, I believe it's the larger oscillations for one but also how the brain perceives your surroundings, I'm sure being in an apartement a couple hundred feet up or more your body doesn't expect any movement, same for being on a huge carrier that generally probably feels more like a small military base than a boat

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PropOnTop@reddit

Maybe they get landsick on land because their body still expects the motion, which isn't there anymore...

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Sashoke@reddit

Id believe this, I used to work on a fishing ship in the bering and the first day or so on dry land always felt a little nauseating.

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donkeykink420@reddit

I think it's generally this way, first time back on the water after a long time off you'll get a bit wobbly, first time off after a long time you'll be wobbly. all about what we've got used to. I'd think even if you're susceptible to this if you were going from solid ground to flying to being on water regularly for a couple weeks it'll be gone, of course the second you're out of rhythm for some time it'll come back. Probably would get that resistance quicker though

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Huugboy@reddit

landsick on land

Wouldn't the proper terminology be 'sea legs' ?

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PropOnTop@reddit

Do sea legs make you throw up, or hand down? : )))

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AdSquare3489@reddit

I imagine their brains had decades to adjust to just the natural frequencies of their boat and when they found themselves on the carrier that part of their braind had to re-learm from scratch.

How long did they stay on board? Did they stay until the next port call or were they flown out?

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Longjumping-Tell1774@reddit (OP)

We were in the North of Scotland and on an exercise. We sailed for a few hours and then they were taken to Aberdeen by pilot boat.

Yeah that was my point. How the brain can adjust to certain movement and knocked off balance when the motion changes. I’ve heard of pilots that can fly off the deck in a Harrier, pull all sorts of G’s, then feel nauseous on the ship when they haven’t been to sea for a while

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i_should_go_to_sleep@reddit

No, but if I’m spending a lot of time “heads down” aka reading a map or changing frequencies etc. and we’re pulling some G’s following a river or something then it can get to me. But for the most part, the pilots know what movements to expect and passengers don’t, so each unexpected yank and bank will push them a little more to airsickness. It gets amplified if the doors are closed and it’s warm.

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Original_Drexia@reddit

Am pilot. No. So much so that during training, my instructor made a point out of how much stronger each feeling of movement is for the passenger compared to the one flying.

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Redoteur@reddit

Nap of the earth be like:

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yeahgoestheusername@reddit

I might have thought it was “nape of the earth”…

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Unfair_Cry6808@reddit

and if you hit terrain its "Lap of the earth".

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StillinICT@reddit

NOE in an OH-58C. Good times in the Army. Caught the top two inches of a pine tree once dead center between the chin bubbles. No damage.

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RoooDog@reddit

Schweinfurt??

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Tenzipper@reddit

Those green smears are just added camouflage.

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lispless_@reddit

That means you’ve never played San Andreas.

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urEnzeder@reddit

Reminds me of the Blackburn Buccaneer flight plan:
"Open throttle, raise undercarriage, descend to operating altitude".

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SnazzyStooge@reddit

Literally used to do this in C-130s, our low level altitude would be below that of normal gear retraction on climb out.

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Longjumping-Tell1774@reddit (OP)

😂 never heard that one

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urEnzeder@reddit

There are some fun stories about how the Buccaneer performed during Red Flag exercises in the '70's. Apparently they realised early on in the exercise that they were flying so low that they were leaving a rooster tail of dust from the desert floor and had to climb a little to avoid being spotted visually.

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LefsaMadMuppet@reddit

Jaguars were also known to fly that low. American cannons are angled slightly up for range, make gun shots on them a case of chicken with the ground.

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listen3times@reddit

My favourite is the low flying Vulcan, that when spotted and 'killed' by the defenders, peeled away to reveal two Buccaneers underneath that went on to get the target.

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Drewski811@reddit

There are other fun stories about how Buccaneers out of Gibraltar would fly so low over the Med that they'd come back in with evidence of fish strikes.

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HaddyBlackwater@reddit

Fish can jump pretty high.

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listen3times@reddit

Lower, faster, further

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jawshoeaw@reddit

What on earth ?? I’ve been calling map for decades lmao

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i_should_go_to_sleep@reddit

I had a similar thing with “guy wires” on towers. Spent a long time in the beginning of my flying career calling them “guide wires” before someone corrected me…

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jawshoeaw@reddit

Ha that’s good ! Makes sense. What the heck is a guy ??

But my biggest aviation gaff for the first year as a student was thinking the “guard” frequency meant the national guard monitored. I got a couple blank stares before I looked it up

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Tenzipper@reddit

Gaffe* A gaff is a pole with a sharp hook used to pull fish (or other things) over the side into a boat.

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jawshoeaw@reddit

Ugh I’m on a role.

/s

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Tenzipper@reddit

LOL. Well played.

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OldPerson74602@reddit

I thought it was 'nape of the earth'.

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LefsaMadMuppet@reddit

While "nape" refers to the back of the neck, it is not used in this context. The word "nap" in this phrase likely originates from the Middle English word noppe, referring to the tufted, raised surface of fabric, describing how an aircraft essentially "brushes" along the surface of the ground.

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BattleHall@reddit

Yup, nap = “down in the fuzzy stuff”

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torsten_dev@reddit

Isn't that how the nape got it's name? The fuzzy hair at the back of your neck?

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POHoudini@reddit

Ditto

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AKSpaceMan576@reddit

"Nap of the earth" is referring to the small fuzzies on some clothing, especially clothing made with yarn (with knitting or crocheting). Those fuzzies are called the "nap" of the clothing

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So_HauserAspen@reddit

I'm disappointed that OP did not add this to the post. Did they not investigate the name further? Was their curiosity satisfied with the graphic?

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TheRealSalamnder@reddit

"Near As Possible"

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PowerPleb2000@reddit

Shoutout to the movie Broken Arrow” when Christian Slater flew a B2 Stealth Bomber “nap of the earth” over Colorado.

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Gnarly_Sarley@reddit

Nap of the Earth.

Not to be confused with a dirt nap

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LateralThinkerer@reddit

Had a friend who was a fighter pilot in the cold war era in (West) Germany. He described his patrols as flying full tilt subsonic while sitting in the cockpit in the zero-visibility rain at night and fervently hoping the terrain map in the flight computer hadn't missed a power cable or crane somewhere.

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otherwisepandemonium@reddit

I’ve always wondered the experience of soldiers on Hueys in Vietnam flying nap of the Earth

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Sixguns1977@reddit

I was infantry, not flight crew, but we did some of that at NTC back in 2000. We even found some bad guys and got to pretend we were Puff the magic dragon(circling their fighting position while we all shot at them from the open door on the heli).

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Left-Associate3911@reddit

I think I would have made the same mistake 🙃

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Longjumping-Tell1774@reddit (OP)

I don’t think I’d ever seen it written down before. Only heard people saying it out loud 😂

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squeegeeboy@reddit

I recall reading it when I was much younger in a GIJoe comic book.

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Agreeable-Spot-7376@reddit

Funny the little things that you can take for granted.

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Pal_Smurch@reddit

Our pilots loved to fly NOE when we would go to Pohakaloa Training Area, on the Big Island of Hawaii. It’s a bit more ponderous in a Chinook, like a hippopotamus doing ballet.

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GLayne@reddit

"I was today years old" 👎🏼

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EXploreNV@reddit

Are your parents a wet mop and a doorknob?

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fried_clams@reddit

You might try reading more? Typically, these kinds of misunderstandings mostly happen because people don't read words, only hear them spoken or in media.

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tamboril@reddit

How would “map” make sense?

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Longjumping-Tell1774@reddit (OP)

Also I had no idea “nap” meant surface. I’ve never heard that before

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Padrfe@reddit

Near as possible

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scotgrouse@reddit

Nap is most often used in connection with fabric. The nap of a cloth is the direction of weave, which affects roughness - smooth with the nap, rough against it. Damn I’m old…

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Longjumping-Tell1774@reddit (OP)

I don’t think I’d ever seen it written down before. And that’s just how my brain decided to file it. I guess I thought it was like how a map is flat and you’re flying as close to the map as possible?

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RedCrabb@reddit

“Think I can make it between those two trees?”

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Longjumping-Tell1774@reddit (OP)

“Oh ye of little faith”

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Longjumping-Tell1774@reddit (OP)

That’s an expensive hedge trimmer 😂

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Due_Construction_892@reddit

I think we have a pam vs pamn situation here….