Aircraft Carriers II (Closed to posting)

Scratch said:
"I wonder if rocket assisted take off could be an option?"

Or the obvious solution could present itself once more: fit the America class with Ski Jumps and then 'tanker F-35Bs' become a realistic option. Saves a fortune on developing rocket assisted takeoff for the lightning and as you helpfully pointed out my previous statement, Steel is relatively cheap. Ski Jump ramps have no moving parts, very low maintenance and buy a lot of performance increases.

@Scratch
F-35B can land vertically so should be able to drink fuel at 250 KTAS. Still the Ski ramp is a better idea.

Caracal CSAR Helos on Mistral deck



Inside Mistral Hangar

delft said:

@Scratch
F-35B can land vertically so should be able to drink fuel at 250 KTAS.

Click to expand...

ehm ... good point actually ...

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Do US amphibs or other pocket CVs use larger UAVs besides Fire Scout type aircraft from their decks? Something like a Predator would surely be able to greatly extant the ISR horizon of a ship relatively cheap. Or even a Reaper if it fits the deck with it's larger wing.

Where did the Predators flying over Libya come from anyway?

Do US amphibs or other pocket CVs use larger UAVs besides Fire Scout type aircraft from their decks?

Click to expand...

Not to my knowledge. If they do that info is classified.

Some renderings of a future Indian Navy Carrier..

I remember that more than half a century ago the husband of one of the best then known TV presenters in the Netherlands dropped with his Seahawk jet fighter in front of the Dutch aircraft carrier Karel Doorman after a failed catapult launch and was lost.
When taking off by way of a ski ramp the pilot has more time to consider if the time has come to leave his office.
The steam cat was modeled after the the atmospheric tramways in which the vehicles were propelled by a piston in a tube that was held at an low pressure by an air compressor. It is no doubt possible to build steam cats curved to follow the shape of the ski jump, as was done for the tramway tube to follow the tramway, although no one will be mad enough to try that. However its is easy to do so with an EM cat. Let's do so also for the greater security of the crews of the aircraft.

Delft we already went through this steam catapult on a ski ramp. If done your nose landing gear and airframe would have to be even more reinforced. The shift of weight when that aircraft hits that ramp would be tremendous.

The USN has 44 steam catapults with almost zero failures in the last 50+ years. No catapult ever failed on any of the 5 CVs I served on. Never.

You have to design your aircraft for the cats you use. And extra time for the pilot to assess the situation if something goes wrong is valuable.

F-35B lands on the USS Wasp LHD-1 10.03.2011..awesome!

[video=youtube;o7cAmCCmObw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7cAmCCmObw&feature=player_embedded[/video]