Coming in Hot: Difference between revisions

Pretty much every movie, TV series, or whatever that involves an Aircraft Carrier (or its [[The Battlestar|spacefaring]] or [[Airborne Aircraft Carrier|flying]] equivalent) will at some point feature a sequence where an aircraft, damaged or otherwise in less than perfect flying condition, has to make an emergency crash landing on the deck of the carrier. Cue the tense music, the landing signals officer patiently talking them down over radio, the deck crew erecting a crash barrier, the fire-suppression teams suiting up and grabbing their extinguishers and hoses, et cetera. May include [[Stock Footage]] of real crash landing accidents on carriers, often [[They Just Didn't Care|hilariously]] involving [[Just Plane Wrong|different aircraft]] from a [[Did Not Do the Research|different era]] than the one depicted in the story.

 

 

{{examples}}

 

* ''[[The Core]]'' - The Space Shuttle has its navigation thrown off by changes to the Earth's Magnetic field, and has to make a dead-stick landing in the Los Angeles River. Not technically an example of this trope, but it has much the same feel.

** Notably the film's script originally had the shuttle blow up on re-entry, but then the ''Columbia'' accident happened and several scenes were hastily re-filmed as it was [[Too Soon]]. This does mean one character's motivations now make no sense, but hey, it's ''The Core''.

* ''[[Flight of the Intruder (film)|Flight Of The Intruder]]'': In the beginning of the film, the urgency of the landing coming from the badly injured [[Guy in Back|Bombadier-Navigator]] on board.

* Parodied, of course, in ''[[Hot Shots]]''. Topper asks for permission to land his damaged plane. Then he reports that his landing gear is frozen. And that he lost his radar. And that he's out of fuel. Oh, and he just lost a wing. And there goes the other. He eventually crash-lands his <s>plane</s> mangled fuselage on the deck. Vertically.

** In the book, it turns out that this was Robby Jackson, Jack Ryan's friend (played by [[Samuel L. Jackson]] in Patriot Games) and future Vice President and successor as President.

** Also in the book, Jackson's backseater is injured, and would have probably been killed in an ejection. Had this not been the case, it is likely that he would not have risked the landing in his damaged Tomcat. Also, the plane in the book was damaged not by a collision but by a missile fired by an over-excited Soviet pilot who thought he was under attack.

** And the mule-swallow manoeuvre from the opening of the film - whilst the mule wasn't damaged to any great extent, it was certainly coming in hot. In fact, those very words might actually have been used...

* The ''[[Star Wars]]'' prequel trilogy comes close twice, both times with Anakin Skywalker involved. In Episode I, he accidentally crash-lands in the docking bay of the Droid Control Battleship. In Episode III, he and Obi-Wan intentionally crash-land in the docking bay of the Separatist star destroyer to board the ship and rescue the kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine.

** Not to mention the "Not to worry, we are still flying half a ship," scene shortly after that, when Anakin crashlands ''literally'' "half a ship." After almost burning it to a crisp on its descent through the atmosphere. Obi-Wan even says "we're coming in too hot!".

* The pre-credit sequence of ''[[It Came from Outer Space]]'' (1953) has the alien spacecraft (with sparks flying off it) crashlanding in the Arizona desert.

* [[Airplane!]]!

 

== [[Literature]] ==

** Probably the most memorable is from ''[[X Wing Series|Starfighters of Adumar]]'', in which we hear the Legend Of Tomer "Ejector" Darpen, a Y-Wing pilot forced to [[Space Plane|use the ship's landing skids]] after the repulsorlifts were damaged in a battle. The trope is played entirely straight, with a makeshift runway being hastily cleared, the ship bouncing up and down as he tries to land, ''rolling over completely'', skidding to a halt at the very limit of safety, and the pilot slumps in relief. Then it's immediately subverted when Darpen's ejector seat misfires. Since he was stationed on a low-gravity moon, he actually achieved escape velocity and had to be retrieved from orbit. [[Snark Bait|One of the members of Red Flight saw his expression just before and after it fired]]...

* In a variation of this, a sequence near the beginning of ''[[The Sixth Battle]]'', an Su-25 pilot is trying to land on ''Varyag'' and keeps getting waved off. It's not the plane that's in bad condition- it's the pilot, who excessively tired, makes a fatal error and crashes into the ski-ramp.

** As a flight cadet, Boomer in the Re-Imagined Series gets into hot water with Adama over her poor landings, {{spoiler|and the subsequent second chance he gives her leads to her repaying this debt in a vital way at the climax of the series.}}

*** {{spoiler|She could have saved people a lot of trouble by repaying that debt a few episodes earlier.}}

** To be totally fair, the captain was ordered not to stop the ship, and was merely following orders.

** Galen also comes in hot one time.

* The phrase is used quite often in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', but for a somewhat different context: In this case, it tends to refer to an SG team coming back through the gate while under fire, which features much of the same urgency of the trope played normally.

** This is for good reason as saying "Stay away from the front of the event horizon", as Rodney was hit by a Wraith stunner shot in an [[Stargate Atlantis|Atlantis]] episode opening

** Indeed, a botched carrier landing is what forced Harm to leave the "brownshoe navy" and join the JAG corps in the first place. The botched landing was more due Harm's night blindness problem than a plane issue.