HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The flight deck of an
aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for Carrier-based aircraft, carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a ...
is the surface from which its
aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines. ...
take off and land, essentially a miniature airfield at sea. On smaller naval ships which do not have aviation as a primary mission, the landing area for helicopters and other VTOL aircraft is also referred to as the flight deck. The official
U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...
term for these vessels is "air-capable ships". Flight decks have been in use upon ships since 1910, the American pilot Eugene Ely being the first individual to take off from a warship. Initially consisting of wooden ramps built over the forecastle of
capital ship The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they are generally the larger ships when compared to other warships in their respective fleet. A capital ship is generally a leading or a primary ship in a naval fleet. Strategic im ...
s, a number of
battlecruiser The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attr ...
s, including the British and , the American and , and the Japanese Akagi and battleship Kaga, were converted to aircraft carriers during the interwar period. The first aircraft carrier to feature a full-length flight deck, akin to the configuration of the modern vessels, was the converted liner . The
armoured flight deck An armoured flight deck is an aircraft carrier flight deck that incorporates substantial armour in its design. Comparison is often made between the carrier designs of the Royal Navy (RN) and the United States Navy (USN). The two navies followed ...
was another innovation pioneered by the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
during the 1930s. Early landing arrangements relied on the low speed and landing speed of the era's aircraft, being simply "caught" by a team of deck-hands in a fairly hazardous arrangement, but these became impractical as heavier aircraft with higher landing speeds emerged; thus an arrangement of
arrestor cable An arresting gear, or arrestor gear, is a mechanical system used to rapidly decelerate an aircraft as it lands. Arresting gear on aircraft carriers is an essential component of naval aviation, and it is most commonly used on CATOBAR and STOBAR ...
s and
tailhook A tailhook, arresting hook, or arrester hook is a device attached to the empennage (rear) of some military fixed-wing aircraft. The hook is used to achieve rapid deceleration during routine landings aboard aircraft carrier flight decks at sea, ...
s soon became the favoured approach. During the Cold War era, numerous innovations were introduced to the flight deck. The angled flight deck, invented by
Dennis Cambell Rear Admiral Dennis Royle Farquharson Cambell, (13 November 1907 – 6 April 2000) was a flag officer of the Royal Navy, who invented the angled flight deck. Naval career Educated at Westminster School, Cambell was a Special Entry Cadet from 1 ...
of the Royal Navy, was one prominent design feature that drastically simplified aircraft recovery and deck movements, enabling landing and launching operations to be performed simultaneously rather than interchangeably; it also better handled the higher landing speeds of
jet-powered Jet propulsion is the propulsion of an object in one direction, produced by ejecting a jet of fluid in the opposite direction. By Newton's third law, the moving body is propelled in the opposite direction to the jet. Reaction engines operating on ...
aircraft. In 1952, became the first aircraft carrier to trial the angled flight deck. Another advance was the
ski-jump Ski jumping is a winter sport in which competitors aim to achieve the farthest jump after sliding down on their skis from a specially designed curved ramp. Along with jump length, competitor's aerial style and other factors also affect the final ...
, which fitted an angled ramp on the flight deck near the end of the aircraft's takeoff run; the change greatly reduced the distance required and became particularly useful for operating
STOVL A short take-off and vertical landing aircraft (STOVL aircraft) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is able to take off from a short runway (or take off vertically if it does not have a heavy payload) and land vertically (i.e. with no runway). The ...
aircraft. Furthermore, various unsuccessful concepts to replace or complement the conventional flight deck have emerged over the years, from the flexible flight deck to the
submarine aircraft carrier A submarine aircraft carrier is a submarine equipped with aircraft for observation or attack missions. These submarines saw their most extensive use during World War II, although their operational significance remained rather small. The most fa ...
and
flying boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fuselag ...
fighter aircraft.


Evolution


Early

The first flight decks were inclined wooden ramps built over the forecastle of warships. Eugene Ely made the first fixed-wing aircraft take-off from a warship from on 14 November 1910. Two months later, on 18 January 1911, Ely landed his Curtiss pusher plane on a platform on anchored in San Francisco Bay using the first tailhook system, designed and built by circus performer and aviator Hugh Robinson. Ely told a reporter: "It was easy enough. I think the trick could be successfully turned nine times out of ten." On 9 May 1912, Commander
Charles Samson Air Commodore Charles Rumney Samson, (8 July 1883 – 5 February 1931) was a British naval aviation pioneer. He was one of the first four officers selected for pilot training by the Royal Navy and was the first person to fly an aircraft fr ...
became the first man to take off from a ship which was underway when he flew his Short S.27 off , which was steaming at . Because the take-off speed of early aircraft was so low, it was possible for an aircraft to make a very short take off when the launching ship was steaming into the wind. Later, removable "flying-off platforms" appeared on the gun turrets of
battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type ...
s and
battlecruiser The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attr ...
s starting with , allowing aircraft to be flown off for scouting purposes, although there was no chance of recovery. On 2 August 1917, while performing trials, Squadron Commander
Edwin Harris Dunning Squadron Commander Edwin Harris Dunning, DSC (17 July 1892 – 7 August 1917), of the British Royal Naval Air Service, was the first pilot to land an aircraft on a moving ship. Early life Dunning was born in South Africa on 17 July 1892, the seco ...
landed a Sopwith Pup successfully on board the flying-off platform of , becoming the first person to land an aircraft on a moving ship. However, on his third attempt, a tire burst as he attempted to land, causing the aircraft to go over the side, killing him; thus Dunning also has the dubious distinction of being the first person to die in an aircraft carrier landing accident. The landing arrangements on ''Furious'' were highly unsatisfactory. In order to land, aircraft had to maneuver around the superstructure. ''Furious'' was therefore returned to dockyard hands to have a deck added aft for landing, on top of a new hangar. The central superstructure remained, however, and turbulence caused by it badly affected the landing deck.


Full length

The first aircraft carrier that began to show the configuration of the modern vessel was the converted liner , which had a large flat wooden deck added over the entire length of the hull, giving a combined landing and take-off deck unobstructed by superstructure turbulence. Because of her unobstructed flight deck, ''Argus'' had no fixed
conning tower A conning tower is a raised platform on a ship or submarine, often armored, from which an officer in charge can conn the vessel, controlling movements of the ship by giving orders to those responsible for the ship's engine, rudder, lines, and grou ...
and no funnel. Rather, exhaust gases were trunked down the side of the ship and ejected under the fantail of the flight deck (which, despite arrangements to disperse the gases, gave an unwelcome "lift" to aircraft immediately prior to landing). The lack of a command position and funnel was unsatisfactory, and ''Argus'' was used to experiment with various ideas to remedy the solution. A photograph in 1917 shows her with a canvas mock-up of a starboard "island" superstructure and funnel. This was placed on the starboard side because the rotary engines of some early aircraft created torque which pulled the nose left, meaning an aircraft naturally yawed to port on take-off; therefore, it was desirable that they turned away from the fixed superstructure. This became the typical aircraft carrier arrangement and was used in the next
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
carriers, and . After World War I,
battlecruiser The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attr ...
s that otherwise would have been discarded under the
Washington Naval Treaty The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was a treaty signed during 1922 among the major Allies of World War I, which agreed to prevent an arms race by limiting naval construction. It was negotiated at the Washington N ...
—such as the British and , the American and , and the Japanese Akagi and battleship Kaga—were converted to carriers along the above lines. Being large and fast they were perfectly suited to this role; the heavy armoring and
scantling Scantling is a measurement of prescribed size, dimensions, or cross sectional areas. Shipping In shipbuilding, the scantling refers to the collective dimensions of the framing (apart from the keel) to which planks or plates are attached to form th ...
s and low speed of the converted battleship ''Eagle'' served to be something of a handicap in practice. Because the military effectiveness of aircraft carriers was then unknown, early ships were typically equipped with cruiser-calibre guns to aid in their defense if surprised by enemy warships. These guns were generally removed in World War II and replaced with
anti-aircraft gun Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...
s, as carrier doctrine developed the "task force" (later called "battle group") model, where the carrier's defense against surface ships would be a combination of escorting warships and its own aircraft. In ships of this configuration, the hangar deck was the strength deck and an integral part of the hull, and the hangar and light steel flight deck were considered to be part of the superstructure. Such ships were still being built into the late 1940s, classic examples being the U.S. Navy's and carriers. However, in 1936, the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
began construction of the . In these ships, the flight deck was the strength deck, an integral part of the hull, and was heavily armored to protect the ship and her air complement. The flight deck as the strength deck was adopted for later construction. This was necessitated by the ever-increasing size of the ships, from the 13,000 
ton Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses. Mainly it describes units of weight. Confusion can arise because ''ton'' can mean * the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds ...
in 1922 to over 100,000 tons in the latest and carriers.


Armored

When aircraft carriers supplanted battleships as the primary fleet capital ship, there were two schools of thought on the question of armor protection being included into the flight deck. The United States Navy (USN) initially favored unarmored flight decks because they maximized aircraft carrier hangar and flight deck size, which in turn maximized aircraft capacity in the hangar, and on the flight deck, in the form of a permanent "deck park" for a large proportion of the aircraft carried. In 1936 the Royal Navy developed the armored flight deck aircraft carrier which also enclosed the hangar sides and ends with armor. The addition of armor to the flight deck offered aircraft below some protection against aerial bombs while the armored hangar sides and ends helped to minimize damage and casualties from explosions or fires within or outside the hangar. The addition of armor to the hangar forced a reduction in top-weight, so the hangar height was reduced, and this restricted the types of aircraft that these ships could carry, although the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
's armored carriers did carry spare aircraft in the hangar overheads. The armor also reduced the length of the flight deck, reducing the maximum aircraft capacity of the armored flight deck aircraft carrier. Additionally, Royal Navy aircraft carriers did not use a permanent deck park until approximately 1943; before then the aircraft capacity of RN aircraft carriers was limited to their hangar capacity. The 23,000-ton British had a hangar capacity for 36 Swordfish-sized aircraft and a single hangar, but carried up to 57 aircraft with a permanent deck park, while the 23,400-ton featured increased hangar capacity with a upper hangar and the addition of a lower hangar, forward of the after elevator, which had a total capacity of 52 Swordfish-sized aircraft or a mix of 48 late-war aircraft in the hangar plus 24 aircraft in a permanent deck park, but carried up to 81 aircraft with a deck park. The 27,500-ton USN had a hangar that was designed to handle a mix of 72 prewar USN aircraft. but carried up to 104 late-war aircraft using both the hangar and a permanent deck park. The experience of World War II caused the USN to change their design policy in favor of armored flight decks on much larger ships: "The main armor carried on is the heavy armored flight deck. This was to prove a significant factor in the catastrophic fire and explosions that occurred on ''Enterprise''s flight deck in 1969. The US Navy learned its lesson the hard way during World War II when all its carriers had only armored hangar decks. All attack carriers built since the have had armored flight decks."


Landing

Landing arrangements were originally primitive, with aircraft simply being "caught" by a team of deck-hands who would run out from the wings of the flight deck and grab a part of the aircraft to slow it down. This dangerous procedure was only possible with early aircraft of low weight and landing speed. Arrangements of nets served to catch the aircraft should the latter fail, although this was likely to cause structural damage. A non-skid deck surface is important to prevent aircraft from sliding on a wet deck as the ship rolls. Landing larger and faster aircraft on a flight deck was made possible through the use of arresting cables installed on the flight deck and a
tailhook A tailhook, arresting hook, or arrester hook is a device attached to the empennage (rear) of some military fixed-wing aircraft. The hook is used to achieve rapid deceleration during routine landings aboard aircraft carrier flight decks at sea, ...
installed on the aircraft. Early carriers had a very large number of
arrestor cable An arresting gear, or arrestor gear, is a mechanical system used to rapidly decelerate an aircraft as it lands. Arresting gear on aircraft carriers is an essential component of naval aviation, and it is most commonly used on CATOBAR and STOBAR ...
s or "wires". Current U.S. Navy carriers have three or four steel cables stretched across the deck at intervals which bring a plane, traveling at , to a complete stop in about . The cables are set to stop each aircraft at the same place on the deck, regardless of the size or weight of the plane. During World War II, large net barriers would be erected across the flight deck so aircraft could be parked on the forward part of the deck and recovered on the after part. This allowed increased complements but resulted in a lengthened
launch and recovery cycle Aircraft carrier air operations include a launch and recovery cycle of embarked aircraft. Launch and recovery cycles are scheduled to support efficient use of naval aircraft for searching, defensive patrols, and offensive airstrikes. The relative ...
as aircraft were shuffled around the carrier to allow take-off or landing operations. A
barricade Barricade (from the French ''barrique'' - 'barrel') is any object or structure that creates a barrier or obstacle to control, block passage or force the flow of traffic in the desired direction. Adopted as a military term, a barricade denot ...
is an emergency system used if a normal arrestment cannot be made. Barricade webbing engages the wings of the landing aircraft, and momentum is transferred to the arresting engine.


Cold War innovations


Angled

The angled flight deck was invented by
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
Captain (later Rear Admiral)
Dennis Cambell Rear Admiral Dennis Royle Farquharson Cambell, (13 November 1907 – 6 April 2000) was a flag officer of the Royal Navy, who invented the angled flight deck. Naval career Educated at Westminster School, Cambell was a Special Entry Cadet from 1 ...
, as an outgrowth of design study initially begun in the winter of 1944–1945. A committee of senior Royal Navy officers decided that the future of naval aviation was in jets, whose higher speeds required that the carriers be modified to "fit" their needs. With this type of deck – also called a "skewed deck", "canted deck", "waist angle deck", or the "angle" – the aft part of the deck is widened, and a separate runway is positioned at an angle from the centreline. The angled flight deck was designed with the higher landing speeds of jet aircraft in mind, which would have required the entire length of a centreline flight deck to stop. The design also allowed for concurrent launch and recovery operations, and allowed aircraft failing to connect with the
arrestor cable An arresting gear, or arrestor gear, is a mechanical system used to rapidly decelerate an aircraft as it lands. Arresting gear on aircraft carriers is an essential component of naval aviation, and it is most commonly used on CATOBAR and STOBAR ...
s to abort the landing, accelerate, and relaunch ('' bolter'') without risk to other parked or launching aircraft. The redesign allowed for several other design and operational modifications, including the mounting of a larger island (improving both ship-handling and flight control), drastically simplified aircraft recovery and deck movement (aircraft now launched from the bow and landed on the angled flight deck, leaving a large open area amidships for arming and fueling), and damage control. Because of its utility in flight operations, the angled deck is now a defining feature of STOBAR and
CATOBAR CATOBAR ("Catapult Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery" or "Catapult Assisted Take-Off Barrier Arrested Recovery") is a system used for the launch and recovery of aircraft from the deck of an aircraft carrier. Under this technique, aircraft ...
equipped aircraft carriers. The angled flight deck was first tested in 1952 on by painting angled deck markings onto the centerline of the flight deck for touch-and-go landings. This was also tested on the same year. Despite the new markings, in both cases the arresting gear and barriers were still aligned with the centerline of the original deck. From September to December 1952, had a rudimentary
sponson Sponsons are projections extending from the sides of land vehicles, aircraft or watercraft to provide protection, stability, storage locations, mounting points for weapons or other devices, or equipment housing. Watercraft On watercraft, a spon ...
installed for true angled-deck tests, allowing for full arrested landings, which proved during trials to be superior. In 1953, ''Antietam'' trained with both U.S. and British naval units, proving the worth of the angled-deck concept. was modified with an overhanging angled flight deck in 1954. The U.S. Navy installed the decks as part of the SCB-125 upgrade for the and SCB-110/110A for the . In February 1955, became the first carrier to be constructed and launched with an angled deck, rather than having one retrofitted. This was followed in the same year by the lead ships of the British ''Majestic'' class () and the American ().


Ski-jump

A ski-jump converts part of the aircraft's forward motion to upward motion through the use of a curved ramp located at the end of the flight deck. As a result, the aircraft starts out its flight with a positive rate-of-climb. This allows heavier aircraft to take off even though the lift generated is smaller. Gravity causes the upward velocity to decline, but the aircraft continues to accelerate after leaving the flight deck. By the time the upward velocity has decayed to zero, the aircraft is going fast enough to attain stable flight. Ski-jumps can be used to enable conventional aircraft to takeoff on STOBAR aircraft carriers. They can also enable heavier payloads for
STOVL A short take-off and vertical landing aircraft (STOVL aircraft) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is able to take off from a short runway (or take off vertically if it does not have a heavy payload) and land vertically (i.e. with no runway). The ...
aircraft.


Flexible

An idea tested, but never put into service, was the flexible or inflated, air-cushioned, "rubber deck". In the early jet age it was recognised that eliminating the landing gear for carrier borne aircraft would improve the flight performance and range, since the space taken by the landing gear could be used to hold additional fuel tanks. This led to the concept of a deck that would absorb the energy of landing. With the introduction of jet aircraft the risk of damaging propellers was no longer an issue, though take off would require some sort of launching cradle. Tests were carried out with a
de Havilland Sea Vampire The de Havilland Vampire is a British jet fighter which was developed and manufactured by the de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was the second jet fighter to be operated by the RAF, after the Gloster Meteor, and the first to be powered by a s ...
flown by test pilot
Eric "Winkle" Brown Captain Eric Melrose "Winkle" Brown, CBE, DSC, AFC, Hon FRAeS, RN (21 January 1919 – 21 February 2016) was a British Royal Navy officer and test pilot who flew 487 types of aircraft, more than anyone else in history. Brown holds the world ...
onto a flexible deck fitted to . The deck consisted of a rubberised sheet fully supported on multiple layers of pressurised fire hose.
Supermarine Supermarine was a British aircraft manufacturer that is most famous for producing the Spitfire fighter plane during World War II as well as a range of seaplanes and flying boats, and a series of jet-powered fighter aircraft after World War II. ...
designed its Type 508 for rubber deck landings. The flexible deck idea was found to be technically feasible but was abandoned, as the weight of carrier aircraft increased and there were always doubts about the ability of an average pilot to land in this way. The Type 508 was subsequently developed into a conventional carrier aircraft, the Supermarine Scimitar. The US Navy evaluated a shore-based flexible deck made by Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. using two modified Grumman F9F-7 Cougars. Three US pilots had participated in the British flexible deck trials at Farnborough and the US Navy, despite liaison with the British, partially redid the Farnborough trials, with 23 landings at Patuxent River, before cancelling the project in March 1956 for similar reasons.


Alternatives

During the Cold War era, multiple unorthodox alternatives to the conventional flight deck were proposed and, in some cases, experimented with. The ''Shipborne Containerised Air-defence System'' (''SCADS'') was a proposed modular kit to convert a
RO-RO Roll-on/roll-off (RORO or ro-ro) ships are cargo ships designed to carry wheeled cargo, such as cars, motorcycles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, buses, trailers, and railroad cars, that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels or usin ...
or
container ship A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal ...
into aviation vessels, with one scheme allowing a container ship to be converted to a STOVL aircraft carrier in two days during an emergency and quick removal after use for storage. A prefabricated flight deck and ski jump would allow six Sea Harriers and two helicopters to be operated, with shipping containers providing hangarage for the aircraft and housing their support systems and personnel as well as defensive systems and missiles. Several variants of the SCADS concept were devised for different missions roles; one implementation was tailored towards helicopter operations for example. It was effectively a modern equivalent to the Second World War-era
merchant aircraft carrier A merchant aircraft carrier (also known as a MAC ship, the Admiralty's official 'short name') was a limited-purpose aircraft carrier operated under British and Dutch civilian registry during World War II. MAC ships were adapted by adding a flig ...
. The Skyhook system was developed by
British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marconi ...
, involving the use of a crane with a top mating mechanism hung over the sea to catch and release VTOL aircraft, such as the Harrier jump jet. The system could be installed on ships of various configurations and sizes, even those as small as
frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...
s, enabling virtually any Royal Navy ship to deploy a handful of Harriers. It was intended for the Skyhook to enable not only the launch and recovery of such aircraft, but to enable rapid rearming and refuelling operations to be performed. The system was marketed to various foreign customers into the 1990s, such as to enable Japan's fleet of helicopter destroyers to operate Harriers by installing the Skyhook on board. Perhaps the most elaborate implementation proposed was the application of the Skyhook to large submarines, such as the Russian , to produce a
submarine aircraft carrier A submarine aircraft carrier is a submarine equipped with aircraft for observation or attack missions. These submarines saw their most extensive use during World War II, although their operational significance remained rather small. The most fa ...
. The Saunders-Roe SR.A/1 was a prototype jet-propelled
flying boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fuselag ...
fighter, developed during the 1940s with the intention of eliminating the monopoly held by aircraft carriers on launching jet fighters. Described as being the first water-based aircraft to harness jet propulsion in the world, the SR.A/1 attracted interest from both British and American officials, with data on the project being transferred.King 14 December 1950, p. 555. However, officials concluded that the concept had been rendered obsolete in comparison to increasingly capable land-based fighters, together with the inability to resolve engine difficulties, compelling a termination of work. During June 1951, the SR.A/1 prototype (TG263) flew for the last time.London 2003, pp. 235–237. During the early 1950s, Saunders-Roe worked on a new fighter design, designated ''Project P.121'', that featured
skis A ski is a narrow strip of semi-rigid material worn underfoot to glide over snow. Substantially longer than wide and characteristically employed in pairs, skis are attached to ski boots with ski bindings, with either a free, lockable, or partial ...
aircraft publication '' Flight'' referred to it as the "Saunders-Roe Hydroski" with the aim of bringing its performance closer to that of land-based aircraft. By adopting hydroskis and dispensing with the hull approach of the SR.A/1, no concessions to hydrodynamic requirements were imposed upon the fuselage. On 29 January 1955, the company decided not to proceed with the construction of a prototype, the proposal having not attracted any official support. The
Convair F2Y Sea Dart The Convair F2Y Sea Dart was an American seaplane fighter aircraft that rode on twin hydro-skis during takeoff and landing. It flew only as a prototype, and never entered mass production. It is the only seaplane to have exceeded the speed of s ...
was a supersonic seaplane jet fighter that had skis rather than wheels. In the late 1940s, the United States Navy feared that supersonic aircraft would stall at low speeds required for a carrier arresting gear, and therefore would not be able to land on a conventional aircraft carrier. The Sea Dart would land on (smooth) water; then be lowered and raised from the sea via crane. The Navy also considered combining the Sea Dart with the unorthodox approach of a submarine aircraft carrier that could carry up to three such aircraft inside purpose-built pressure chambers. They would have been raised by a portside elevator aft of the sail and either take off on their own from a smooth sea or be catapult launched from the aft in a higher sea. During the test flight phase, the hydro-skis generated violent vibrations during takeoff and landing, while a fatal crash caused by structural failure also marred the programme; the Navy opted to cancel all production aircraft. The United States Navy held considerable interest in the submarine aircraft carrier concept during the late 1940s. A study performed in 1946 envisioned very large submarines, ranging from to in length, to carry two XA2J Super Savage bombers for the strategic
nuclear strike Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear wa ...
mission, or alternatively four
F2H Banshee The McDonnell F2H Banshee (company designation McDonnell Model 24) is an American single-seat carrier-based jet fighter aircraft deployed by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps from 1948 to 1961. A development of the FH Phantom ...
fighters. Another proposal would have involved the conversion of redundant Second World War-era
fleet submarine A fleet submarine is a submarine with the speed, range, and endurance to operate as part of a navy's battle fleet. Examples of fleet submarines are the British First World War era K class and the American World War II era ''Gato'' class. The t ...
s to enable carriage and launch of a seaplane model of the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft, which would have been equipped with hydro-skis for takeoff similar to those of the Sea Dart.


Tasks

Modern United States Navy carrier air operations Modern United States Navy aircraft carrier air operations include the operation of fixed-wing and rotary aircraft on and around an aircraft carrier for performance of combat or noncombat missions. The flight operations are highly evolved, bas ...
indicate their flight deck tasks by different jersey colors:


See also

*
Aircraft catapult An aircraft catapult is a device used to allow aircraft to take off from a very limited amount of space, such as the deck of a vessel, but can also be installed on land-based runways in rare cases. It is now most commonly used on aircraft carrier ...
*
Helicopter deck A helicopter deck (or helo deck) is a helicopter pad on the deck of a ship, usually located on the stern and always clear of obstacles that would prove hazardous to a helicopter landing. In the United States Navy, it is commonly and properly refe ...
* Modern US Navy carrier operations


References


Citations


Bibliography

*


Further reading

*


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Flight Deck Aircraft carriers Naval aviation technology