FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0377.PDF
22 March 1957 379 "Flight" photograph Post-war Progress in Operational Equipment and Methods By Cdr. H. C. N. GOODHART, R.N. Development of the Aircraft Carrier IMMEDIATELY after World War II the aircraft carrierentered a period of rapid development in order to accom-modate the radically different naval aircraft then envisaged. In the United Kingdom the end of the first phase of this develop-ment was reached about a year ago, when the carrier force con- sisting of two fleet carriers (Ark Royal and Eagle) and three lightfleet carriers (Albion, Bulwark and Centaur) were all in service equipped with angled deck and deck-landing mirror sights,together with catapults and arrester gear of adequate capacity for present-day aircraft. Coincident with the end of this phase hasbeen, the disappearance of the piston engine (except in helicopters and a small number of Skyraiders) and the picture is now one ofa small but efficient force of carriers operating modern turbine aircraft. It is interesting to compare our carrier force with the UnitedStates Navy, which is the only other large carrier force in the world. In size and numbers, of course, we are completely out-classed but in modernity we have no reason to hide our light. The U.S. Navy is only now in the process of introducing angled decksand the mirror sight, but on the other hand they have gone ahead faster in introducing the steam catapult* and higher-capacityarrester gear ("needs must" for their larger aircraft). That our own force of carriers has reached its present state isa great tribute to the efforts of the scientists at R.A.E. Farn- borough—and now at Bedford—and to the Navy's own RoyalCorps of Naval Constructors who, between them, have developed all the equipment and carried through the ship reconstructionprogrammes. It also clearly demonstrates that the Navy at last fully accepts that the aircraft carrier has replaced the battleshipin the role of capital ship; perhaps, also, it shows that the country is beginning to realize that the aircraft carrier alone can combinemobility, which will be all-important in nuclear war, with the enormous striking power of nuclear weapons, while at the sametime providing floating bases to replace the fast-disappearing land-bases so necessary for the protection of our world-wideinterests. It might be said that the Suez operations were the worldpremiere of this new-born British jet-age carrier force—and from the operational point of view a brilliantly successful one. Fewrealize how great a proportion of the effort during these opera- tions was provided by Naval aircraft or how dependent theseresults were on the smooth efficiency of the individual carriers. It is the purpose of this article to show how the aircraft carrierhas developed during the post-war period. The various develop- ments may most conveniently be reviewed in sections concerned * Like the angled deck, a British invention.—Ed. THE author of this article was responsible, in 1951, for putting forwardthe original idea of the mirror-sight landing aid for carrier aircraft, and is at present Commander (E) at R.N.A.S. Yeovilton. He is also well-known for his gliding activities and, with Frank Foster, won for Britain the World Two-seater Gliding Championship in France last year. with the landing, launching, and deck phases of aircraft operation. Landing. It is in the landing phase of carrier operation that themost startling changes have taken place. The war ended with a well developed landing technique in which the then-current tail-wheel-type piston-engined aircraft landed under the control of a batsman, using a technique of a steepish descending approach ata speed very little above the stall, followed by a flare-out and cut which, when well executed, produced a most successful landingat the minimum possible speed and in the landing area. Unfor- tunately, increasing approach speeds called for a greatly increaseddegree of skill; and by the time the Sea Fury was in service, with its approach speed of around 90-92 knots, a stage was reachedwhere the accident rate was high. At about this time (1948) a decision was taken to switch to theU.S. system of batsmen's signals, which were the exact opposite in meaning of the British ones. (In the Royal Navy, arms-upmeant "go up"; in the U.S.N., "Too much up".) This decision was taken in the interests of standardization but was, of course,no help in producing better deck-landing results; in fact, during the change-over period it led to some interesting differences ofopinion between pilot and batsman as to exactly what was going on. These U.S. signals were not entirely satisfactory for control-ling a British-type descending approach; soon afterwards, how- ever, and in the interest of further standardization, the Americanapproach technique was adopted. This consisted of a near-level approach to a point some 30ft above the deck and just short ofthe round-down, at which point a cut was given. On the engine being cut the nose dropped (these were piston-engined aircraft)and a normal flared landing could then be carried out in the land- ing area by easing the stick back. More speed was required thanin the old British system and there was, therefore, more margin for small errors; but the greater speed had an adverse effect inthat it increased the loading on both aircraft and arrester gear. Introduction of the standard system produced some improve-ment in deck-landing results, but it must be remembered that we were still in the era of piston-engined tailwheel aeroplaneslanding towards a collection of barriers, and the landing had to be exactly right first time. The greatest problem still remained—that of bouncing, and thus depriving the hook of a chance to gather an arrester wire. The tailwheel layout implied (thoughit need not have if two-position tailwheels had been adopted) that
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
