Turns after carrier launch

[ShotOne]

Watching video of carrier launches of a variety of types, I was struck that in many cases a fairly sharp turn was initiated just after lift off. The carrier would (correct me if not the case) be heading directly into wind so adding bank angle would be doubly unwelcome...or is there some reason for this?

[Woff1965]

I think one reason is that if the aircraft loses power on take off the turn avoids the carrier running over a) a ditched aircraft and b) the ejected crew.

Well that was what I was told once.

[54Phan]

Woff1965 is correct. It also "clears" the pattern for the next launch to reduce the interval.

[cornish-stormrider]

As was remarked to me in the delicate terms of - it avoids a 65000 tonne steel enema if you end up ejecting after launch

[Radix]

..........

[KenV]

The sequence after the cat stroke is: confirm a positive rate of climb and continued acceleration, then immediately execute a clearing turn. Direction of turn depends on the situation. If cat stroke was off the waist cat (catapult at end of angled deck) one always turns left, otherwise turn could be left or right depending on situation. Purpose of turn is to get clear of the carrier in the event of ejection or ditching and to get clear of other aircraft launching from other catapults during high tempo fight ops.

[ShotOne]

Wow., prompt straightforward answers to a simple question! How often does that happen on pprune. Thank you!

[54Phan]

You caught us on a good day:E!

[Old-Duffer]

In "Top Gun", Maverick does a roll after taking off and only then gets stuck in to shooting down the baddies !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

O-D

[clunckdriver]

Yes, its to avoid getting run over by lots of steel and to clear the way for the next guy, there is a chap walking around Canada with one les leg than most of us, the sling broke so he had no chance to turn and went straight of the end in a Tracker, he got ot OK but bounced along the hull and went between the prop blades, I belive he returned to flying duties.

[DBTW]

I was going to joke that the "USN style" clearing turns are more about looking good than getting out of the way...but then I thought you'd all prefer to know that if you do find yourself in the water just off the front of a speeding tonnage of metal, even small boats of around 20,000 tons appear to be incredibly big...and slow boats only capable of just over 20 knots get closer really quickly

...and when the trusty jet, the one you were sitting in on the flight deck a few moments ago, gets hit by the said "small" boat, the gap between you and the huge object bearing down on you at great speed becomes tiny because it is filled with another relatively large (compared to your pink body) object now also coming towards you at the same speed as Mum...

It's okay!!! Everything will be alright provided you can just swim backwards fast enough and get your parachute off with the Koch fittings carefully covered and blocked under the over inflated mae west.

If you can't get your parachute off it'll be okay if it doesn't get tangled up with the sinking aeroplane, or get caught up in underwater turbulence associated with big ships travelling at speed.

If you do become entangled with the sinking aeroplane, or the turbulence associated with big ships travelling at speed, it'll be okay if you can just breathe the emergency oxygen whilst you go down with the aeroplane.

If your emergency oxygen supply is stopped by the anti-drown valve kicking in it'll be okay because by some fluke of training you got the life raft deployed in the few instants before you hit the water and that caught you at a depth of 15' and wouldn't let you go down any further...It's also fairly important that the Ship's Navigator crashed stopped the engines so those 4 big screws weren't sucking things in and chewing them up as you went by the back of the boat.

Yeah...if you are flying and can do a clearing turn off the cat it's a good idea!:ok: