[B]By LANCE CPL. J. GAGE KARWICK[\/B]
\n[I]Combat Correspondent [\/I]<\/p>\n
TINIAN\u2014The first F\/A-18D Hornets from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121, Marine Aircraft Group 12, landed on the island of Tinian\u2019s West Field on May 23 during Exercise Geiger Fury 2012.<\/p>\n
The F\/A-18Ds were the first to have ever landed on the island of Tinian.<\/p>\n
Since the M-31 arresting gear setup was the first to have ever been assembled on coral terrain, there was some speculation about its effectiveness. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll of our Marines came out and brought their \u2018A\u2019 game and nothing less,\u201d said Staff Sgt. Travis W. Goodwin MAG-12, Marine Wing Support Squadron 171 expeditionary airfield technician runway supervisor. \u201cI was a little worried since this arrestment has never been done before, but I have absolute faith in my Marines and after the first jet landed we all knew the mission was a success.\u201d<\/p>\n
The training occurred in order to establish the effectiveness of the coral setup of the arresting gear. Four Hornets took three arrestments each in less than one hour and 15 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal was 10 arrestments in under an hour,\u201d said Goodwin. \u201dWe were able to do 12 in less than an hour. I don\u2019t believe that has ever been done before. It was an amazing feat and the Marines out here pulled it off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given that an arrestment on coral terrain had never been attempted before, safety was the main concern throughout the training.<\/p>\n
\u201cMyself and a lot of the other Marines were really nervous,\u201d said Lance Cpl. Eric J. LaVigne MAG-12, MWSS-171 expeditionary airfield technician crewman. \u201cWhen it all went right we stopped holding our breath.\u201d<\/p>\n
The training continues on Tinian for Exercise Geiger Fury 2012. The Marines with MAG-12 MWSS-171 are pushing themselves in daily training evolutions in order to better themselves and ensure MAG-12 is ready to accomplish any mission when called to respond to future real-world contingencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first F\/A-18D Hornets from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121, Marine Aircraft Group 12, landed on the island of Tinian\u2019s West Field on May 23 during Exercise Geiger Fury 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}