Do carrier-borne aircraft pilots count the seconds on the downwind leg of the carrier? On carrier landing, someone tells me that the pilots need to count several seconds on abeam leg of the landing pattern, in order to land precisely on the flight deck. Is that true? What do we call for this operation?
According to the F/A-18's manual, the pilot starts the 180° from downwind when abeam the landing signal officer's platform:


  With a 30-knot wind over the deck begin the 180° turn to the final approach when approximately abeam the LSO platform.


Here's the illustration (of course the ship is not fixed, it's moving):


Click to view