It must have been in the '58-'59 era, we were at sea for one of those one week shots and we had a bunch of Navy League civilians aboard. It was decided that they would get a cat shot and a trap. It was further decided by someone (with lots of gold) that they would occupy the right seat. If memory serves me right my guy was a short fat banker from Wichita, Kansas (is that too close to home?). As you can imagine the briefing was quite lengthy. I will say they had some cojones.

To make a long story short the cat and landing were uneventful. He was all smiles with eyes as big as plates as we prepared to taxi forward. As luck would have it we were the last plane, it was scheduled for the hangar deck, they spun us around and we taxied onto the number three elevator, did a left 180 and shut down. Needless to say the lengthy briefing did not include a ride on a deck edge elevator. I was busy shutting down the aircraft when we started down. Some of you may or may not remember, an for those that weren't there, the number 3 elevator on Hornet free fell for 3-6 feet before the cables grabbed. This poor banker sitting in the right seat was looking at nothing but water as we started down. I thought I lost the guy right there, you don't get to see pure panic in someone's face too often in life.

It never occurred to me to tell him what was happening, as far as I was concerned we had survived and my fitness report was intact. Needless to say I've never gone to Wichita for a loan.

Len "Jake" Jacobson