My boss was invited onto the Connie in 1984 for a couple of days and I was fortunate to be invited along. It was the first at sea workup for the F-18 and the F-14's were new out of the box. One of the things that most impressed me was the proximity within which EVERYTHING occurs. Besides the obvious close quarters on the deck, occasionally after a trap an airplane could not get the hook off of the wire. While they try to disengage the wire the next airplane in the pattern, which by now is approaching the deck, would usually have to go around and would do so close enough to us on the island that we could practically hit them with a rock. The noise, the pace, the almost no margin for error, it's fantastic.