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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0801.PDF
MAY 22ND, 1947 FLIGHT 469 airfield, its A.A. gunnery arrangements must be somewhat'restricted and the majority of guns distributed among cruisers, battleships and destroyers. lift can only strike-down aircraft at the rate ot one everytwo minutes. Therefore, if you land-on twenty aircraft in ten minutes you will fill up the deck park and have toj — ten minutes you will fill up the deck, park and have to The effective unit of sea power, instead of being a single wait until the aircraft are struck down before landing-on battleship, was now a collection of ships of different classes any more. The delay would be about 15 min using both centred on the carrier. If any one class of ship was de- the lifts. ficient the unit became vulnerable to some particular form '' Generally speaking, when operating the carrier the flow of attack. -* -: ^ -:il-: •- • • -wasThe modern formation of the fleet and task force „<»very ^different from that in vogue at the beginning of the war. Carriers were disposed in a square, with a cruiser in the centre as guide, upon which all ships kept station. The battleships and cruisers were disposed among the car- riers in a regular formation and the whole was surrounded by a circular destroyer screen. The formation rather re- A recent type of deck-landing aircraft : the de Havilland Sea Hornet (two R.R-Merlin). The dorsal fin extension has been added to comply with new requirements for directional stability, with feet off the rudder bar, in the event of one enginefailing. presented an anti-aircraft and anti-submarine hedgehog capable of being turned in any direction, all ships together, to suit the flying requirements of the carriers. It has been found possible during the war in the Pacific, by an elabor- ate supply system for fuel, stores and ammunition, to keep task forces of this type in the battle area for six weeks continuously. , The lecturer recalled, in considering the vulnerability ot the carrier, that there was what might be called the Sever- sky school of strategists, who held that the earner would be sunk by shore-based bombers, and those who believed in the big gun of the battleship as the means of destruction. It was thus interesting to note that in spite of the millions of miles steamed by our carriers in waters open to enemy air attack not one was sunk by shore-based aircraft. ••- Cdr. Torrens-Spence went on to give such a lucid and concise account of. the capacity of the carrier and the method of operation that this is quoted in full: " In the Pacific, the Illustrious class were operating nlty aircraft, carrying thirty-eight in the hangai: and twelve on deck The later fleet carriers were operating slightly Ire but theexact number depends primarily on the sue %i the aircraft The normal frequency of take-off is about Tne aiSt per i5 sec, or, using a single catapu£ one aircraft in 50V Thus, for a ' set-piece operation of the type which I have mentioned, fifty am*af ^f ^ got off each carrier in 20-25 mm by combined ca and unassisted take-off. , *t "The fleet carrier's deck is about 74o ft long; and^90 ft• • .wide. There are ten arrester wires with a pul 1-out of up to 140 ft. The landing area 1S about half the ttaL^ne deceleration imposed on the aircraft depends on the speed of^ntry ** ^J^^ figure at the present time. J^^fT^_°f t ^triei which *>««. This is made possible by the satetj oarr h lowered as soon as each aircraft comes to re^ aircraft, therefore, only has to taxi over the barrier to ano it to be raised so that the next aircraft can land on. aircraft within the ship is forward on the flight deckand aft through the hangar Ranging-up is mostly done aft and striking-down forward. If you have less than, say,twelve aircraft in the air, the remains of the deck park must be shifted forward when landing-on and aft when takingoff. An elaborate internal organization is required to con- trol the movements and maintenance and arming and fuel-ling of this number of aircraft in the confined space. Power folding of wings is essential nowadays,since it effects an enormous saving in time and manpower." The current Naval fighter, said Cdr.Torrens-Spence, was the Seafire XV • (single-stage Griffon) for defence andshort-range escort and strikes This was being replaced by the Sea Furyand Seafire 47. Thereafter it seemed probable that turbine jet fighterswould be used. Jet propulsion would confer many advantages. Spacebeing at a premium the smaller size of jet fighters was a great advantage.The safer fuel reduced the hazards to the ship, and there was no need towarm up the engines before take-off. The saving in maintenance personnelwas another important advantage and the jet aircraft was ideally suited tothe tricycle undercarriage. The big- gest problem was that of getting ade-quate endurance. There was much work to be done in evolving a new deck-landing techniqueCdr. Torrens-Spence's lecture being concluded, a re- markably instructive film illustrating the development ofdeck-landing technique was shown by Mr. W. G. A. Per- ring, F.R.Ae.S., Included were some unique shots of earlyarrester trials at the Isle of Grain, and some revealing studies of some of the latest Naval aircraft photographed inslow motion from cameras outrigged from a carrier's side. Particular interest was aroused by the shots of barriertests, using unmanned airframes. THE DISCUSSIONS AFTER each of the three papers had been summarized by itsauthor a short discussion ensued, and in the evening there wasa general discussion on matters which had arisen during the day. .Sic Charles Lillicrap, Director of Naval Construction, said thatthe flexibility advocated by Mr. Farren could be carried so far, but the time came when possible alternatives destroyed the balancoof design. He was not sure what Mr. Farren meant when he said that the potentialities of the carrier had not been developed, andreferred to a retardation of 3g which had now been accepted—double the figure specified in the past. Catapult speeds greatly in excessof 66 knots should cater for future requirements. Sir Charles made mention of a meeting held between his I >< part-ment and aircraft designers, which had had very satisl.u ti.rv re- sults. If designers felt that they were suffering under handicaps,he said they should ask for another meeting. Admiral Sir Philip Vian could not understand how Mr. Farrcn's" undercarriageless" aircraft could land on shore. Mr. Farren ad- mitted the problem. ».,•».,Mr Hollis Williams looked ahead to Naval aircraft with swept- back wings or of Delta form, with inherently low lift character- Rear Admiral Slattery strongly emphasized his view that de-signers should concentrate on developing essentially good aircraft which could be adapted for various duties. The Mosquito, he said,was the outstanding example of surh a machine. On the question of maintenance, he said that tin Navy did not need an aircraftwhich was easy to maintain but one which needed no main- tenance. In this connection he reierred to the English love oftinkering with mechanical vehicles. Mr. Davenport, after mentioning a figure of 500 lb weight, neces-sirilv added by power folding on a certain design, went on to refer to the weight " snowball" to which A.T.O., increased structure weight Concluded-at loot of page 476)
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