Aircraft Carriers II (Closed to posting)

Re: PLAN Carrier Operations..News, Videos & Photos II

Obi Wan Russell said:

The expensive part of a catapult is not in how long the stoke is, it's all the below decks equipment. a 100ft cat will require almost as many crew and take up almost as many compartments below decks as a 300ft cat. Hooking up an aircraft to a cat and making all the checks takes time and needs a number of deck crew. By contrast ramp launch needs less deck crew, takes less time as the aircraft only needs to be spotted on the runway. In early trials back in 1981, on an excercise in the North Atlantic, HMS Invincible launched a flight of four Sea Harriers in 50 seconds. Also on the excercise was USS Nimitz, who after recieving the same alert took two minutes to launch her first Tomcat. Her catapults could then launch one F-14 every 30 seconds, but they were playing catch up with the Shars by this time. The difference in numbers of crew required to operate the catapults (and to a lesser extent the arrestor gear) was a key factor in the switch back from catobar to stovl for the Queen Elizabeth class.

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Obi wan,

I have a naive question.

Is a catapult launch best if you want to launch large fully loaded aircraft. However, because the aircraft types take off and land at a much higher rate of speed, you need a much larger/longer flight deck, which means larger ship.

A Ramp system seam better for a small carrier that can service a very limited number of aircraft. Doesn’t this also seriously limit the amount of ordinance they can carry?

I got here 3 pictures of both the Kuznetsov and the Vikaramditya. The first one is the original photo the other two has been cut by me to show the size difference between the Vikramaditya and the Kuznetsov/Liaoning.

Re: PLAN Carrier Operations..News, Videos & Photos II

Miragedriver said:

Obi wan,

I have a naive question.

Is a catapult launch best if you want to launch large fully loaded aircraft. However, because the aircraft types take off and land at a much higher rate of speed, you need a much larger/longer flight deck, which means larger ship.

A Ramp system seam better for a small carrier that can service a very limited number of aircraft. Doesn’t this also seriously limit the amount of ordinance they can carry?

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Yes. As has been pointed out many times. A catapult allows for heavily laden aircraft to launch fully mission capable. Full loads of weapons and fuel. Can't do that with a ski ramp.

thecheeto said:

Headline: Gerald R. Ford Gets Her 555 Ton “Island”

Great to see this ship looking decidedly carrier-like now!

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Amen and amen! Another long awaited day. Try this on for size:

Here are some great pics of INS Vikramaditya on sea trial. Best i have seen so far. She will be back at sea in june and will be commissioned in to the Indian navy in november.

Franklin said:

Here are some great pics of INS Vikramaditya on sea trial. Best i have seen so far. She will be back at sea in june and will be commissioned in to the Indian navy in november.
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One issue that does tend to favor CATS over Ramps is that with the Cat your launch ops are conducted forward of, or at least out away from the island, Full Burner departures do NOT begin behind the Island or pass close beside the Island in full burner, a very significant safety advantage. As can be seen most fully loaded ramp departures will initiate behind the Island and may pass very close to the Island in full burner with significant speed.

Not having conducted any ops on a carrier, I am not an expert, but having served as a cart Jockey on the Start Cart, it is loud, it is confusing, you breath lots of fumes, and this combination, along with propwash and jetwash is very dissorienting, the noob is very attentive. Buuttt, for the old head it is even more dangerous because ignoring all your senses, you go into automatic, especially if there is pressure to hurry. Now for me, being the Air Force Brat, I will tell people when their weapon is pointed at me, [never point your weapon at anything you don't intend to kill,] and equally drilled into me, [Stay Out Of the PROP ARC], you'd be sick to know of the nice people killed or injured walking into a prop, why the Flyboys always yell, CLLEEEEAAARRRR! before turning those bad boys, [they are kind of like Darth Maul, they get you coming and going].

I've had up close and personal experience even doing compression checks on recips, one guy in our shop had a trip to the ER when the blade slipped out of his hand while under air pressure, clocked him pretty good. Sooo, my point is like a firing range, when the range is hot, you stand well behind the firing line, on a carrier when the deck is hot, you also must remain well behind the ops area, on a Ramp that means you are restricted to the aft 25 to 30 % of the deck to fuel, weaponize, start and move aircraft into the launch position, on a Cat, you have 45% to 55% percent of the deck space to conduct those same operations. So While a ramp may launch a two ship, maybe even a four ship, quicker, once it goes beyond that, a Cato-bar will launch multiple aircraft much quicker and SAFER! Cheers AFB

If you full screen the first picture of the bow on view, you will see exactly what I mean, and the Island takes up a third of the deck width!

Franklin said:

Here are some great pics of INS Vikramaditya on sea trial. Best i have seen so far. She will be back at sea in june and will be commissioned in to the Indian navy in november.

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This is (IMHO) by far the best pic of the Virkamaditya as a whole vessel I have seen to date. Clearly shows her flight operations area.

She is more narrow than the Liaoning, but outside of that (and there are important considerations with that) very, very similar. And that is no big surprise because the Gorshkov was the last of the Kirov Class and was built to prepare for the Kuznetsov.

This shows those qualifying Mig-29K birds on the deck very well.

I am sure the Indians are anxious to get ahold of her and work up their first squadron for the carrier. They already have enough production and in service aircraft to do so.

Repairs on INS Vikramaditya completed, says Russia VLADIMIR RADYUHIN Russia has completed repairs on INS Vikramaditya, fixing the engine problems that caused a delay in the delivery of the refitted aircraft carrier to India last year.

“The Severodvinsk Shipbuilding Enterprise Sevmash has finished the repairs of the aircraft carrier Vikramaditya [Admiral Gorshkov],” the Interfax news agency reported on Friday quoting an official in the Russian Navy General Staff.

Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation has confirmed the report, adding that sea trials of the aircraft carrier would resume in summer.

During the sea trials last year the ship developed propulsion problems when insulation firebricks on the boilers started to fall out when the engines were run at full power. The repairs involved replacing the insulation lining between the boiler steel casing and ceramic firebricks.

Even though the problem has been fixed, the aircraft carrier cannot leave the shipyard till summer when the ice-clad White Sea reopens for navigation.

Russian officials said earlier that the aircraft carrier would be delivered to India in November 2013.

This is probably my favorite pic from the Vikramaditya entire trials to date. Very nice photo.

The island is a little inwards into the deck, it doesn't sit flush on the edge, wasting space