I wanted to clear a few things up I see in a lot of comments:

1. The deck crew is not “slow.” A carrier operates in cycles. That is scheduled launch times and recovery times. Typically the Hawkeye is the first launch on a cycle. We get lined up on the cat early so that we can launch often down to the second as scheduled. What you can’t see in this video is the conga line of jets lined up behind us as well as in the waist catapults ready to launch approximately every 60 seconds once the cycle begins. You even hear me remark just before launch that they put us into tension about a minute early.

2. The audio takes a significant quality hit between being recorded on an iPhone and then processed into video editing software. It doesn’t sound nearly as bad in the actual helmet speakers.

3. There are numerous radio frequencies intentionally not recorded and excluded from this audio. Often times a crew member is responding on ICS to something they heard on one of the radios making their statement seem strange without context to viewers of this video.

4. Keep in mind there are 5 of us in the aircraft. Up front it may seem like we’re giving a running commentary of things that may seem obvious. That’s because they’re not obvious to the three crew members in the aft portion of the aircraft who have little outside visibility (especially when the wings are folded). We give a play-by-play so everyone in the crew is always aware of where we are on the flight deck and how far along in the launch process we are