Carrier based Hawk

[ImageGear]

Gentlemen,

Being somewhat cloistered at the moment, I am looking at a photograph of a Bae Hawk being CAT launched from the deck of a USN Carrier. Said Red and Silver Hawk is marked up in "NAVY" colours and has the number "211".

I was not aware that the Hawk had been marinised to this extent and to see it disappearing at high speed in a cloud of steam is frankly amazing.

Presumably the necessary bits have been seriously strengthened and the nose gear looks decidedly chunky.

Am I just late of the first tee as usual?

Imagegear

[jindabyne]

Goshawk (T45A) entered USN service in 1991. Google with goshawk for more --------

[ImageGear]

Thanks Jindabyne, I was aware that the Goshawk was used for land-based training but I was not aware that it had gone to sea.

As usual I suppose that the NAVY is only doing for the Hawk what the Marines did for the Harrier.

In the words of the old song, "take a good song and make it better"

Imagegear.

[L Peacock]

Leading edge slats, beefed up gear and a hook amongst other mods

[jimgriff]

Also added the NACES seat.

Not that there was anything wrong with the Mk10 seat.

[Oggin Aviator]

T45s are a used for USN FJ pilot training and would be seen at the boat when the trainees undertake their first CQ (Carrier Qualification). They then move to the Hornet FRS (VFA 106 / 115 for baby Hornets, 122 for the Super Horrnet) and go through the whole procedure again. Then they get posted to a Fleet Squadron and do it all again before any embarkation.

[dirtygc]

As usual I suppose that the NAVY is only doing for the Hawk what the Marines did for the Harrier.

In the words of the old song, "take a good song and make it better"


Shall we take that statement with a pinch, nay, a bag of salt !

[ImageGear]

Is not the AV8B a sizable leap over the original harrier ?

I am persuaded by others that it has conducted itself rather well in recent forays, given its relative shortcomings in range and max load

Imagegear.

[Echo 5]

What's wrong with you lot ? ImageGear starts a thread about T45 and next you're on about the freakin AV8B/Harrier.
By the way 70% of T45 made at BAe Samlesbury and Brough.
Centre and rear fuselage, wings, back end and main undercarriage all UK built.

[L Peacock]

AV8B performance was awesome in True Lies

[ImageGear]

..and don't forget the Pegasus donk.

I could not help but laugh when I saw the cousins AV8's hopping around the deck first on one foot and then on the other before finally giving up and dropping it on.

Back to the Goshawk: My initial thoughts were that if it had a hook the tail feathers must be history..still it had to get on there in the first place.

Showing my previous now..no blast plate was raised behind the jet..not necessary for a light jet or simply not used any more.

Imagegear

[SSSETOWTF]

I haven't flown the T-45 myself, but I haven't yet heard a US Navy pilot with a good word to say for the jet. Whereas, there aren't many RAF guys with a bad word to say for the Hawk. The Goshawk replaced the TA-4 and the venerable T-2 Buckeye as their primary jet trainer (including carrier qual) and they're slowly upgrading them to the -C model with glass cockpit & HUD.

I believe (anoraks please correct me) that the Goshawk is about 1500 lb heavier than a Hawk. Its undercarriage was re-designed to be wider; the nosewheel is beefed up for the cat and the nosewheel steering suffers badly from shimmy problems; the back end had to be re-designed for the hook; the wingtips got squared off - don't know why (unreliable crewroom banter is that they did something to the aerodynamics so that you're up on the power on the approach to give you the wave-off capability); the air brake got moved onto the sides; smurfs had to be fitted to re-energize the flow over the tail etc etc. Bottom line is that the guys that fly it whine about the lack of power, nosewheel steering failures and the handling qualities (lots of buffet and not much turning). And its British heritage gives them a good reason to blame someone else.

Now as for the AV-8B - don't start talking about it too loudly or WEBF will start another thread about the superiority of the SHar.....

Single Seat, Single Engine, The Only Way To Fly

[WE Branch Fanatic]

What - like this (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=98152) one?

Off topic slightly, back in the days when the RN had conventional carriers what aircraft did they use to teach carrier operations? I remember seeing (in 1995) a Hunter in RN markings with a tail hook - what it have been used in this role?

[G085H1TE]

RN Hunter with tail-hook would have been a GA.11 used by the FRADU until the mid-90s. They were converted from F.4s and had guns removed and Harley lights fitted in the nose.

Used to simulate incoming enemy aircraft and missiles to train fleet defence radar chaps and gunners etc.. Although they had tail-hooks fitted they were never used on carriers. FRADU use Hawks now for the same purpose.

RN used Sea Vampire T.22s as trainers. Not sure what they used after that?

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

Some T-45 backstory....

Its undercarriage was re-designed to be wider
- the point of the redesign was to accept the harder landings, which involved needing a longer stroke, which to keep the wheels in roughly the same place when retracted meant the gear pivot had to move outboard, which means wider when gear down.

the nosewheel is beefed up for the cat
- also a two wheel gear, not the single tyre of Mk1 and 'normal' Hawk type

and the nosewheel steering suffers badly from shimmy problems
- can't comment

the back end had to be re-designed for the hook
- also for the airbrake move, removal of the ventrals, change to vertical fin (it's a bit taller)

the wingtips got squared off - don't know why
- original T-45 development wingtips looked rather similar to a T Mk1 - check out s/n2787 in the first year of flying. There was some finesseing of the outboard LE droop but the planform was very similar
- however, when slats were introduced to meet stringent (and pointless) USN approach speed criteria, the leading edge had to be straightened, since slats are simplest on a straight LE - that meant squaring off the tips to enable the slat to go outboard easily.

(unreliable crewroom banter is that they did something to the aerodynamics so that you're up on the power on the approach to give you the wave-off capability);
- there were changes made to the engine response characteristics to address this, including a higher flight idle RPM IIRC, but the aerodynamics weren't specifically modded for this - almost anything else, not this...

the air brake got moved onto the sides;
-stupid hook in the way of the old Hunter-type airbrake

smurfs had to be fitted to re-energize the flow over the tail
- this was to fix an old T Mk1 problem which was found in RAF testing and fixed by cropping the flap vanes; USN needed the lift, so tail stall was addressed by adding tail LERXs aka SMURFs. 100 and 200 series Hawks have them for the same reasons

[Schiller]

When the RN had proper carriers you were lucky to have a look at the deck, if a carrier was available, from the air in a T8 Hunter before going to the deck for the first time with a Bucc/Vixen/Gannet strapped to your bum.

The undercarriage and hook on the Hunters weren't stressed for deck landings. The T22 Vampire wasn't equipped with a hook anyway.

You just did a lot of MADDLS (Mirror Assisted Dummy Deck Landings) ashore, had a good briefing and that was it.

[Sleeve Wing]

WE Branch Fanatic and GO85H1TE.

Just a comment regarding your Hunter hook observations -
flew both the T8 and the GA11 back awhile and the hooks were fitted for use with the standard CHAG gear, available on most RN land bases, fitted in place of the RAF's standard Jet Barrier.

As all carrier-based aircraft had a hook anyway, it made sense to use the CHAG ( Chain Arrester Gear) instead of a barrier as it also caused little or no damage to the aircraft in the event of an EMC.
The hooks on the Hunters differed from the standard in that they could not be retracted. They could only be released to the arrest position, backed up by a hydraulic damper to prevent bounce and, after use, were unceremoniously shoved back up using brute force and shoulders !

Rgds, Sleeve.

[Iron City]

The T-45A started development in the early 1980's in a competition between some existing a/c and new design a/c for a new undergraduate jet pilot training system called VTX. The existing a/c in the competition were the Alpha jet, the hawk and the T-2.

The Hawk T-45 won on cost, complexity and performance. Differrences from a Hawk T Mk 1 and a T-45A were:

From bulkhead behind cockpit to tail 2 or 3 bulkheads were strengthened where the wing carry through and MLG need to redistribute their loads. Several spars running fore and aft between these bulkheads and the bulkhead where the tail hook is attached were strengthened to take thetrap loads. Other carrier based aircraft generally have a structural keel between the wing main spar, the MLG and the tail hook but the Hawk did not (the alpha jet does have a keel and a tail hook, but a air force type tail hook for rolling arrestments on the beach only).

At first the speed brake was notched to accept the hook but it was decided that it would be better to put two smaller brakes on the sides to avoid loosing one occasionally or fouling the hook. This can cause aerodynamic problems for the tail but like all a/c designs is a compromise.

The fuselage and wings were/are built in the UK. The cockpitrear bulkhead forward is built in Long Beach CA and the final assembly is in Long beach. Differences in the cockpit and forward are the seat (as was pointed out) though I bet this was for commonality or something because the MB Mk 10 is a great seat. The nose landing gear is completely different from the Hawk usingthe two wheels to accomidate the nose tow launch system used on US carriers. Structural strength was improved with some thicker spars and bulkheads and the nose itself is wider and shaped differently to take all the wheels, AOA indexer lights, and nose tow hardware. This caused problem with airflow at higher angles of attack early on and the nbose geometry was revised several times.

The engine (RR Adour) did have some fuel control modifications to goose it up to some more power. This was where the operators drooled about the Alphajet with 2 Larzac engines because it is always more desirable to have 2 when operating over water and the fleet aircraft all have 2. Bean counters won on this, strengthened by the RR reputation and history with Adour on the Jag.

There was a projected T-45B that was supposed to replace the A or the A to be modified into that would use a glass cockpit instead of the steam guages in the A, but the available dollars appear to not stretch that far (sounds familiar, don't it)

As you can tell, I was present at the creation of the T-45 and count it as a net plus for the USN aviators to be learning using a fine aircraft in spite of a lot of the compromises. The BAe and Douglas Airplane Company team was a pleasure to work with, fine profesionals It certainly beat the T-2 and the TA-4Js were running out of hours as well as being somewhat hazardous to the uninitiated in some parts of the flight envelope (like the CNATRA ACM Standardization instructor that had to jump out of 2 of them within a year as they entered unrecoverable spins)

[ImageGear]

A very comprehensive and fascinating insight into the changes that were needed to get the trusty Hawk where it could get on and off a CVN.

It gives me a thread of hope that the task of doing something similar for the Typhoon is not beyond the bounds of reason, albeit on a far grander scale.

If we could operate F4's and Buccs in my day, we ought at least to be projecting this capability as a minimum in todays environment.

Cue various, Imagegear exits stage right.

[HAL Pilot]

The T-45C is in the fleet. It replaced the steam gauges with glass. The T-45B was supposed to be a non-carrier capable aircraft and was cancelled. All T-45As are to be updated to T-45C by 2007 or 2008.

[Iron City]

Things have changed a little since I left (oh my god..like 20 years..ouch) and the T-45C is in service I see by looking at some other references. Looks like it does what the B was going to do but is carrier suitable too.


As far as Typhoon is concerned and carrier suitability I wouldn't bet on it. To take a purely land based design and make it carrier suitable is, to put it mildly, non-trivial and darn near impossible. As you can see with Hawk history the changes needed to structures, systems, aerodynamics and powerplant were extensive, and this on a well mannered straightforward honest little airplane. Even a/c that were supposed to be beach and carrier suitable (try F-111B version) and designed as such from go didn't work. I would be willing to bet the Typhoon problems with carrier suitability will be at least some of these:

1. too hot in close
2. poor visibility from cockpit in the power approach configuration
3. directionally unstable in the turbulance from the boat
4. flight controls not suitable in authority or harmonization for controlling the aircraft in the speed/alt regime in approaching the boat's burble (wake turbulance)
5. energy available to move to higher approaach path insufficient
6. landing gear or other structure unsuitable to take stresses on launch and trap on continuing basis.
7. not maneuverable enough on deck
8. takes too much GSE to service, start and launch
9. takes up too much deck space on flight deck or hanger bay (no wingfold) can't be struck below without unacceptable P(damage)

If the Typhoon can be serviced and launched with the gear from the seajet, fine, but still where is the shop for maintaining the peculiar avionics and powerplant. the CV isn't he beach where you just put up a few more shop buildings and add to the BEQ.