PDA

View Full Version : Carriers


sandozer
2nd Dec 2013, 16:17
Aspirations for our new carriers Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales, if only. .

The Aviationist » This crazy video shows flight ops aboard French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in slow motion! (http://theaviationist.com/2013/12/02/charles-de-gaulle-slowmotion/)

ShotOne
2nd Dec 2013, 18:00
Of all the dozens of carrier video clips I've seen that's by far the best. Superb! We should just disband every NATO publicity team and give the job to the French.

sled dog
2nd Dec 2013, 19:47
Brilliant ! Of course, the Royal Navy cannot make a film like that at the moment, can they.............

seadrills
2nd Dec 2013, 20:38
The RN won't be able to make a movie like that in the future either..... No cats n traps for them.

SpazSinbad
2nd Dec 2013, 20:47
Some old time slow motion video A4G & S2E religion here:

A4 Skyhawk catapult tests and arrests

A4 Skyhawk catapult tests and arrests | Australian War Memorial (http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F04987/)

VIDEO: http://static.awm.gov.au/video/F04987.WMV (48Mb)

"Description
This item was filmed with a high speed cine camera to produce ultra low motion footage for analysis. Shows catapult take offs and arrested landings by RAN Fleet Air Arm Mcdonnell Douglas A-4G Skyhawk and Grumman S-2 Tracker aircraft operating from the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne. Skyhawks shown are Nos 884, 886 and 889. Trackers shown are Nos 842, 844, 845 and 847."

http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/images/vscreen/F04987.JPG

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l261/SpazSinbad/NewerAlbum/886A4GarrestInstantForum.jpg~original (http://s98.photobucket.com/user/SpazSinbad/media/NewerAlbum/886A4GarrestInstantForum.jpg.html)

dat581
3rd Dec 2013, 00:18
Are you in any of those shots Spaz?

clicker
3rd Dec 2013, 00:49
That was excellent!

How many of you, like me, saw things you would not have noticed in "real time".

Two that stood out. The main wheel shimmy on the landing aircraft (approx 3:20 in) and the vapour rings of another lander just at the end.

SpazSinbad
3rd Dec 2013, 00:54
The time frame is likely after the strop catcher was installed, when the aircraft had straight probes and before 889 was lost from a cold catapult shot on 08 Nov 1973 with SBLT Barry Evans surviving his underwater escape, rescued by Wessex. Youtube video with Barry explaining in the video below here:

The aircraft started to gain bent probes from after the arrival of the second batch of A4Gs late in 1971 - the time I was onboard until around mid 1972. The three A4Gs are from the original first batch. I do not recall being told of any special camera/crew setup. Perhaps the slow motion was to figure out some issues with the new strop catcher. For example it could not be used with centreline stores, due to the strop slapping the tail end of the store some of the time.

The bridle/strop catcher was constructed during the reconstruction of MELBOURNE's bow late 1969 (after the USS Frank E. Evans collision earlier). It is likely the film was taken between 1970 (I would say the first time the strop catcher was in use) and end of 1973. So no - I'm not in that movie.

Want to see me in an RAN Vampire & Macchi? Go here [ Nowra Air Day 1969 Mixed + Form Macchi 1974 - YouTube (http://youtu.be/6mueKRfbkXw) ] (Vamp is on the far left of DAK in this mixed formation flyby Air Day late 1969 - my passenger in the right hand seat took a neat photo as we passed the crowd). I'll have to post that video to Youtube - it was available elsewhere - I'll look. Back later....

BTW - usually all flying ops were recorded in film/photo by the Duty PHOTs. However unless something untoward happened that film was usually not developed. My thingo was at night - no photos / film except daylight 'after' shots AFAIK.

Evans Cold Catapult A4G 889 HMAS Melbourne 08 Nov 1973 - YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mueKRfbkXw

Our Macchi Pair did some simple formation during Air Day 1974 with a mirror flypast Ldr Leut Garry Northern inverted with me slotting in underneath briefly as we passed the crowd - then sliding back for Ldr to roll upright again (due limited inverted flight time).

tartare
3rd Dec 2013, 01:48
What a great little jet the Scooter was.
Very sad when RNZAF 75 squadron was disbanded.
Holy sh!t - just watched the Evans video.
Lucky man!

Mortmeister
3rd Dec 2013, 19:38
Great film, beautifully shot. Nothing quite like a sunny day on the deck of a carrier!

Could be the last?
3rd Dec 2013, 20:34
Unfortunately, I expect the only thing to fly off the new QEC carriers will have thrust provided by 4 or 5 blades and will use the 'Bum' line for landing!

rjtjrt
3rd Dec 2013, 21:05
SpazSinbad
Re the Evans attempted ejection.
Do you know what was the interlock problem that prevented ejection?

John

SpazSinbad
3rd Dec 2013, 21:32
The aircraft is firmly in DavyJonesLocker with probably not much left these days so it is wery difficult to be certain about anything to do with discovering facts about 889. It seems clear (but unknown to me until very recently) why the catapult malfunctioned (more on that later) which was to me unclear.

My favourite theory has to do with a manufacturing defect discovered after the RAN A4Gs were onsold to the Kiwis mid 1984. If true (and of course I'm only guessing) it would make Bazza's escape just that more miraculous. Go here for those details:
"...Mid 1984... the acceptance pilot tried to eject and the seat didn’t work and the results were fatal. The wrecked A4 was shallow enough that it was salvaged. They found the pilot still in the seat with the canopy gone. Seems the SS steel tube that runs from the seat initiator to the rocket motor wasn’t a hollow tube. The middle section was blocked, not drilled out. So for this test pilot, the canopy fired but the seat didn’t. Ouch.

NavAirSysCom checked the rest of the A-4 fleet and found 5 more A-4’s with the blocked seat rocket initiator tubes...."
a4-glider | A-4 Skyhawk Association (http://a4skyhawk.org/?q=2d/tins/a4-glider.htm)

Wherein the blocked ejection tube prevented ejection with some other fatal non-ejections ascribed to this problem....

OR download this (not up to date) 889 specific PDF:
SpazSinbad Microsoft SkyDrive Page: https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=cbcd63d6340707e6&sa=822839791#cid=CBCD63D6340707E6&id=CBCD63D6340707E6%21119

FOLDER: FAA A-4G Skyhawk RAN PDFs
FILE: A4G_Skyhawk_889_pp87.pdf (50Mb)

Now that SkyDrive allows at least 100Mb PDFs this same PDF could be updated within a day or two to that file size (with more info recently coming to light).

In a nutshell there are other possibilities but those would require Barry to tell them. He describes at the time what happened in the PDF. ADF-serials.com has the latest info but sadly this website has been down for about a month now (the forum section). I'll look for a direct URL to the info there - of course I can post the info online myself and in the new updated PDF but I have only ten fingers and ten toes last time I counted. :}

At present the 4.4GB PDF with all the uptodate info is stuck at around early August 2013 on SkyDrive and GoogleDrive. A new edition is being made which will not be available until mythical nevernever. My twenty digits do not type fast enough these days.

Specifically the 'interlock' issue is described in A4G NATOPS available at the two website locations mentioned already.

GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU
3rd Dec 2013, 21:50
Something that's never occured to me before but do steam Cats have far end drain cock to purge any condensed water? I remember that steam engines need cylinder drain cocks to purge water to prevent a hydraulic "lock" when moving from a stop of more than a few minutes.

SpazSinbad
3rd Dec 2013, 22:28
From an old line Chief who went on to bigger things here is the concise explanation (previously not known to me) for the 889 cold cat described earlier:
"From Ron Smith ex-WOATA [Warrant Officer Air Frame Artificer]:
“Barry’s ‘cold cat shot’ is another story on its own — Barry had saluted the FDO [Flight Deck Officer, who with the AFDO assistant will be the 'Catapult Launcher'], who checked the bow's angle before lowering his flag. The cat bloke hit the go button at the same time Flyco saw a minor drop in head wind and hit the no-go button. The cat fired briefly, breaking the hold back strop and flinging Barry forward before expelling it’s force and stopping dead in its tracks. For days after, Flyco and the cat crew tried to replicate the event but were not able to do so. Another case of ‘Murphy’s Law’.”

SpazSinbad
4th Dec 2013, 01:38
Barry's Adventures are told herein.

FOLDER: FAA A-4G Skyhawk RAN PDFs

FILE: Evans887+889adventures180pp.pdf (100Mb)

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=cbcd63d6340707e6&sa=822839791#cid=CBCD63D6340707E6&id=CBCD63D6340707E6%21119

Same file available here also:

FOLDER: A4G_Skyhawk_RAN_FAA_PDFs

FILE: Evans887+889adventures180pp.pdf (100Mb)

https://drive.google.com/?authuser=0#folders/0BwBlvCQ7o4F_b0s4VWNERFJLQ2s

SpazSinbad
4th Dec 2013, 17:17
AFAIK a LiveLeak version was truncated at 19 minutes. Here is 24+ minutes of...

Hands To Flying Stations (1975) Published on Jun 25, 2013 24 minutes 23 seconds
"Official govt film uploaded as "fair use." Naval Instructional Film A2690.

Royal Navy documentary from 1975 featuring aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (R09). The film details flight operations aboard the Ark. Aircraft in the film include the Phantom FG1, the Buccaneer S2, the Gannet AEW3, the Wessex HAS1 and the Sea King HAS2.

HMS Ark Royal (R09) was an Audacious-class aircraft carrier built by Cammell Laird, Birkenhead and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 25 February 1955. She was decommissioned on 14 February 1979 after 23-years service. She was the last operational RN aircraft carrier to use "cats and traps" (conventional catapult launch and arrested landing). The Ark featured in the 1976 BBC television series Sailor."

Hands To Flying Stations (1975) - YouTube

ImageGear
4th Dec 2013, 19:32
Ohhh Dear - were we all so very young, and did we really sport facial hair like that - it seems a very long time ago in a different world.

A really great video, never seen it before, thanks for putting it up. :ok:

Note to self, run it past the younger brood.

Imagegear

SpazSinbad
9th Dec 2013, 00:57
An excellent 'atmospheric' doco about HMS Eagle in 1968 which I had the good fortune to deck land upon for my first ever DLs (four hook up touch and goes only - before qualifying one month later aboard HMAS Melbourne in Aug/Sep 1971) when EAGLE was farewelling the world via a grand tour that year. The other more experienced VF-805 A4G pilots did arrest/cats with one of our tame LSOs overriding the 'on the roger' malarkey. :}

Cameron Country: The last of the Gunboats - HMS Eagle Published on Sep 4, 2013
"First transmission: 12 October 1968 - BBC Journalist - James Cameron visits HMS Eagle in the far east for his documentary - Cameron Country: The last of the Gunboats"
Cameron Country: The last of the Gunboats - HMS Eagle - YouTube
_______________________

LSO "On the Roger" Debrief excerpt:
LSO Debrief HMS Eagle ‘On The Roger’ 1968
LSO Debrief HMS Eagle 'On The Roger' 1968 - YouTube

Lyneham Lad
9th Dec 2013, 10:19
Thanks for the 'Hands To Flying Stations (1975)' link - a brilliant depiction of times past (and skills lost?).

I watched the daytime fly-op activities in awe, thankful that my time working on Phantoms was mostly in a cosy hangar. Then came the brief glimpse of night operations... Must surely rank as the most demanding of aviation activities (short of actual combat). Just amazing.

Langball
9th Dec 2013, 10:31
Question from a non-pilot. If you look at the Super Etendard on the catapault there is an A-frame type device under the airframe to get it at the right angle of attack. I always wondered where the device went, but in this video you can see a splash after take off. Do I assume it is a 'consumable' item, and what if the ships props hit it (sorry if this is a dumb question).

dat581
9th Dec 2013, 11:25
That's actually a wire strop to launch the aircraft and has no effect on the pitch angle as the aircraft sits on the deck. The new system is to use a nose wheel mounted launch bar which connects straight into the shuttle on the catapult. If you have a look at 1960's carrier footage you will see all aircraft launched this way and i'm not sure which was the first to make the switch but it may have been the A6 or A7.

Langball
9th Dec 2013, 12:49
But what happens to the wire strop?. Does it end up in the oggin?. If you look at 1.59 you can see a splash as the aircraft leaves the deck. I presume this is the wire strop being dropped into the drink (but I could be wrong). If this is the case does this mean they have to carry a big stock of wire ropes?.

Not_a_boffin
9th Dec 2013, 13:22
Yes. US carriers up to Carl Vinson and in the RN, Ark Royal IV, were fitted with the "bridle catcher" invented by a bloke called Willem Van Zelm. The idea was to be able to re-use the bridles up to a certain number of launches, before they would be gashed as scrap.

Basically there is an extension to the flightdeck forward of the cat, where the flying strops (steel wire ropes doing over 100kts!) are "caught" and held below FD level until after the launch cycle is complete, when they are recovered. Extensive use of nose-tow launching in new aircraft designs meant that bridle launches eventually became rare events, but the SEM still uses that method.

CdG does not have them as she was originally planned to have a mostly Rafale complement and so bridle catchers never fitted (Foch & Clemenceau did have them). That means she will have to have a large supply of tested and in date bridles for her SEM as they will disappear into the 'oggin in short order.

olster
9th Dec 2013, 16:17
You can briefly see a very young Dave Hansom walking out to his phantom on Ark Royal. Dave very sadly passed away last week - various condolence threads. Dave was a very good friend and if asked would tell some fascinating stories of flying the F4 of Ark Royal. Dave always said that night ops were by far the most hazardous ( unsurprisingly).

SpazSinbad
9th Dec 2013, 16:19
This high quality slow motion video made especially to check the work of the new strop catcher fitted at the end of newly repaired HMAS Melbourne bow back in late 1969 shows the gubbins at work. The aircraft handlers are racing to retrieve each strop before the next launch. Before the strop catcher the strops/bridles went into the drink. The lift walls were covered with ready to use strops in the Sea Venom/Gannet era of MELBOURNE. A4G 889 is the one lost from a cold catapult - I guess the strop was saved.

Side View of the ex-Foch NAe São Paulo Strop Catcher at woik:
http://www.naval.com.br/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/af-11.jpg

Bridle Capture Explaino: User:Ralph Lewis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ralph_Lewis)

Phinal UK Fantom Catapult Mit Strop Catching:

PHROM: http://www.axfordsabode.org.uk/pdf-docs/arkroy27.pdf (1.5Mb)

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l261/SpazSinbad/NewerAlbum/PhinalPhantomCat27nov78phorum.gif~original (http://s98.photobucket.com/user/SpazSinbad/media/NewerAlbum/PhinalPhantomCat27nov78phorum.gif.html)

SLOW MOTION Catapults A4Gs 886 & 889
SLOW MOTION Catapults A4Gs 886 & 889 - YouTube

dat581
9th Dec 2013, 16:21
In keeping with the general theme of this thread, F4 ops on HMS Ark Royal and the F14A on USN carriers would be two of the most spectacular sights in aviation. Sadly not much these days can match them.

Navaleye
9th Dec 2013, 17:02
I seem to remember that the bridles cost about £50 a pop 50 years ago. Once recovered they could be used 5 more times.

Obi Wan Russell
9th Dec 2013, 17:12
According to some of the dusty tomes on my shelf, the strops used on Ark in the 70s were of two types, a standard one used by the Buccaneers and the Gannets which cost £5 each (in early 70s prices, when the average wage was between £30 and £50 per week pre the oil crisis) whilst te F-4s used strengthened ones that cost around £15 each. The need for the catcher is easy to understand.

SpazSinbad
9th Dec 2013, 17:14
HMS Victorious 1966 FlyCo and Bridge seen after the boring RAS bits at beginning along with air ops as described....

HMS VICTORIOUS - British Pathé (http://www.britishpathe.com/video/hms-victorious)

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l261/SpazSinbad/NewerAlbum/BuccaneerHookDeckSTILLforum.jpg~original (http://s98.photobucket.com/user/SpazSinbad/media/NewerAlbum/BuccaneerHookDeckSTILLforum.jpg.html)
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l261/SpazSinbad/NewerAlbum/VixenVictorious1966landSTILLforum.jpg~original (http://s98.photobucket.com/user/SpazSinbad/media/NewerAlbum/VixenVictorious1966landSTILLforum.jpg.html)

“Including a lot of air view of aircraft carrier ship HMS Victorious being refuelled by the tanker RFA 'Orangeleaf' while at sea. Aerial from helicopter as it lands on deck of Victorious. Royal Navy Buccaneers planes coming in to land. Lowering planes into hold. Scenes in control tower as planes land. Arrester wires in operation. Batman warning and bringing in planes. Catapult and arrester. Activity on bridge and flight deck. (Orig. Neg.) Old record suggests material dates from around 01/05/1966."

SpazSinbad
9th Dec 2013, 17:27
And a very stroppy Fwd Lift Well collection aboard HMAS Melbourne, Kure, Japan 1967 (no strop catcher).

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l261/SpazSinbad/NewerAlbum/StropsLiftWellMELBforumKureJapan1967.gif~original (http://s98.photobucket.com/user/SpazSinbad/media/NewerAlbum/StropsLiftWellMELBforumKureJapan1967.gif.html)

Langball
9th Dec 2013, 18:42
Thanks for all the clarification on the strops. One more question (and I promise to give it a rest then). How is the strop released from the aircraft. The slow motion movie of the A4 clearly shows the strop going slack, but the engineer in me is still trying to figure out the 'nuts and bolts' of how it works.

SpazSinbad
9th Dec 2013, 19:42
From the link above (admittedly a lot of text - however searching the page with the 'Edit' look for word 'capture' will find this text block [the figures are not there so I'll supply an A-4 diagram]:
"Bridle Capture.
For a long time the bridles were regarded as expendable and went overboard after falling away from the machine as it flew away. But more and more intensive flying, the fact that every aircraft type required it’s own special bridle and so placed a demand on storage space on long cruises, as well as the fact that they were becoming more elaborate and expensive, led to a search for a means of saving them. Avoiding damage to the departing aircraft was an obvious requirement, which could occur because of the tendency of the bridle to whip or flail about as it was captured.

It was to be a long time before satisfactory means of doing this were evolved. The author recalls some early attempts, in the late 1940s, by Commander (E) E.C.Beard at the Carrier Equipment Division at R.A.E. Farnborough, to start a systematic study of the mechanics of bridle arrest. An Avenger aircraft was used, but the work was abruptly stopped, it was said because a naval officer was trespassing on R.A.E’s turf.

Van Doorn Unit.
Be that as it may, it was more than ten years after that before the definitive - Van Doorn - unit appeared in service. The system is shown in
Installed on the post WW2 Carriers, HMS’ Eagle and Ark Royal and on most American ships as well, it was in essence a water cooled disc brake connected to a bridle arrest shuttle through a flexible steel driving strap.

The shuttle ran in its own grooves on either side of the main catapult track and was pulled along by lanyards hooked on to the aircraft towing bridle. It then had to be stabilised by three other free running followers, two ahead and one alongside it, also running in it’s grooves.

The lanyards hooking these four travelling elements together were of nylon rope and one pair, located between cleats formed low down near the towing bight of the bridle ran one to each of the forward followers. Another ran directly from the port side towing eye of the bridle to the bridle arresting shuttle. The fourth, rather longer, ran from the starboard towing eye, through a cleat attached to the follower on that side and then across to the arresting shuttle.

When a launch took place, the bridle pulled the shuttle and followers along with it, through the agency of the lanyards. This drew out the steel strap from the drum in the arrest unit. At a predetermined point in the launch run, a low brake pressure began to be applied for the purpose of keeping the strap taught. About 15 feet before the end of the acceleration run the pressure increased to a level dependent upon the launch speed and bridle weight and at that point the shuttle was ready to take the bight of the bridle as the machine flew away.

The rate of bridle arrest was controlled by the brake settings and the lanyards then pulled the bridle downwards, away from the aircraft to ensure a safe departure, assisted by the downturned extension ahead of the catapult. Full brake pressure then came on and the bridle was held in about 40 feet, near the end of the typical beak like projection which are to be seen at the bows of most contemporary carriers.

The bridle was then returned to the starting position by a hydraulic motor rewinding the strap back on to the drum to be ready and in position for the next launch. A deflector plate set into the deck had to be raised to carry it past and over the stationary catapult towing hook during this recovery phase. A separate compartment to contain all this capture mechanism was below deck, alongside the main catapult room, but all the controls for launch and recovery phases were operated from the deck edge howdah.

More recently, US naval aircraft seem to have been designed to take the launch load straight into the nose wheel strut, with just a short mechanical link to the catapult towing hook which hinges away on release and does not need to be captured."
User:Ralph Lewis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ralph_Lewis)

SpazSinbad
9th Dec 2013, 19:51
From this and other sources - NATOPS - is this info: ebook30.com (http://ebook30.com/history/history/139303/douglas-a-4ef-skyhawk-in-navy-service.html) + Plenty of catadepult drivel in this 100Mb PDF on the 'SpazSinbad' Microsoft SkyDrive page in the 'FAA A-4G Skyhawk RAN PDFs' FOLDER:

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=cbcd63d6340707e6&sa=822839791#cid=CBCD63D6340707E6&id=CBCD63D6340707E6%21119

FileName: "CHLOE&deCatapult.pdf" (100Mb) There are other assrtd. PDFs with catapult names included and whatnots.

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l261/SpazSinbad/NewerAlbum/A-4bridleArrestDetailForum.gif~original (http://s98.photobucket.com/user/SpazSinbad/media/NewerAlbum/A-4bridleArrestDetailForum.gif.html)
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l261/SpazSinbad/NewerAlbum/889catInstantStropExplainForum.gif~original (http://s98.photobucket.com/user/SpazSinbad/media/NewerAlbum/889catInstantStropExplainForum.gif.html)

Navaleye
9th Dec 2013, 20:19
Obi,

I stand corrected. You are completely correct. I have a feeling we have the same book. Its just been 20+ years since I read it.