Carrier ‘Ouija boards’ finally going digital

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Flight Deck Control Handler, Lt. Cmdr. Gil Mucke and Assistant Flight Deck Control Officer, Lt. Alberto Dones, monitor the movement of aircraft on the "ouiji board" in the flight deck control center during night-time flight operations aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.


Carrier ‘Ouija boards’ finally going digital
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Sep 7, 2008 9:14:19 EDT

After decades as the central tool for managing the chaos of an aircraft carrier’s flight deck, the tabletop model known as the “Ouija board” will soon begin passing into aviation history, along with its toy-sized air wing.

In place of the board — and the disciplines of “pin-ology” or “nut-ology,” practiced by its users — the Navy plans a new, all-electronic aircraft control system that commanders hope will streamline and simplify the way aviators move, load, launch and recover aircraft. The carrier Abraham Lincoln will be the first flattop to get the system, with installation planned for next year.

In principle, the new gear, known as the Aircraft Data Management and Control System fulfills the same job as the Ouija board and other existing systems: Help the air wing keep track of where its aircraft are, what fuel and weapons they’re carrying, and other important details.

Since World War II, crews have done that by loading plane-shaped cutouts with pushpins, washers and nuts that represent the different payloads the aircraft could carry. A carrier’s flight deck handler and a team of sailors move the models around to determine where planes could sit.

The Ouija board worked so well that for the entire postwar history of naval aviation, the Navy trusted no system to take over for the human beings who managed it, said Capt. Randy Mahr, program manager for aircraft launch and recovery equipment for Naval Air Systems Command. He described a September 1959 issue of National Geographic in his collection, dedicated to the Navy in that era.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/09/navy_ouija_090708w/%2e