Carriers - Deck Islands

[Heathrow Harry]

Looking at some newish pics of CVN-78 Ford I was struck by how much smaller the deck island is compared to the "Nimitz" class

And then the new RN QE's have TWO islands - both larger than the Fords for a much smaller carrier

Any idea why?

Did the plans get stuck in the photocopier??

[Willard Whyte]

Perhaps because the Americans have been building proper carriers for a while, and know what they're doing*

*apologies for the oxymoronic turn of phrase!

Of course, it doesn't need a chuffing great funnel either.

Interesting that USS Gerald R. Ford was laid down in Nov '09 and will enter service in March '16. H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth was laid down in July '09 - and will be comissioned in 2017...

[Roadster280]

Interesting that USS Gerald R. Ford was laid down in Nov '09 and will enter service in March '16. H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth was laid down in July '09 - and will be comissioned in 2017...

The UK last built an aircraft carrier in the 1980s. perhaps you could squeeze OCEAN in as a a "kind of". The US has built 8 or so in that time, each one 4x the size of the CVSs. One might say they know what they are doing.

So only being a year behind isn't too shabby in my book. And the other one will only be a year or two behind the first.

[sandiego89]

Maybe they need more room for the "goofers" to watch the crashes :}

On a more serous note, I have seen the FORD up close in person and you can readily see how different and how far aft the island is. The FORD island was shaped to reduce radar cross section and was moved back to optimise deck aircraft operations. And yes a much smaller space for "goofers" or in US terminology "Vultures Row"

Remember the UK carriers will require trunking for gas turbine exhaust- this influnces island placement and size. A nuclear carrier does not require this.

The UK carriers decided to split ship naviagtion (bridge) and flight operations.

Here on the UK carriers: Queen Elizabeth Class (CVF) - Naval Technology (http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/cvf/)

"Advantages of the two island configuration are increased flight deck area, reduced air turbulence over the flight deck and increased flexibility of space allocation in the lower decks. The flight control centre in the aft island is in the optimum position for control of the critical aircraft approach and deck landings."

[KenV]

The Ford class island is also 20 ft taller and was moved aft and slightly outboard relative to the Nimitz class. The idea behind the Ford class was to maximize the acreage of the flight deck to maximize both sustained and surge sortie generation. Sustained sortie generation is supposed to be 30% higher than the Nimitz class with the surge rate even higher. The new electromagnetic catapults (vs the usual steam catapults) are critical to supporting the higher sortie rates.

QE class have a much smaller complement of aircraft aboard and they are STOVL, so they all have to use the single launch ramp, as compared to four catapults on the Ford. Perhaps (I really have no idea) sortie generation is driven by the number of aircraft on board all using STOVL type operations, and so the deck area is not the driving criteria, allowing use of more deck area for the islands. Maybe.

[Willard Whyte]

The UK carriers decided to split ship naviagtion (bridge) and flight operations.

Perhaps combining sea and air ops as one cohesive whole isn't such a bad idea...

What the hell, maybe the Royal Marines can have a cordoned off section to themselves too...

[KenV]

The UK carriers decided to split ship naviagtion (bridge) and flight operations. When I read about that some time ago I wondered if that was a good idea or not. USN does not view separating command of ship operations from command of flight operations as a good idea. Which begs a question. Is the captain of RN carriers a black shoe (a navy ship driver) or a brown shoe (a naval aviator)? By law USN carriers must be commanded by a naval aviator, and the skippers being brown shoes, they don't want to be separated from flight ops. So having two islands that separate the command functions like that just would not fly in USN. I'm not suggesting such separation is bad, but that it just would not work the way USN carriers are organized.

[ORAC]

However, looking at the Andrew's success in carrier innovations - angled deck, catapults, optical AIDS, ski jump etc - I wouldn't cast scorn until the concept has been practiced in operations.

It would also be worthwhile to consider relative sizes and volumes vs flight decks to see what, if any, penalty is accrued.

[Willard Whyte]

However, looking at the Andrew's success in carrier innovations - angled deck, catapults, optical AIDS, ski jump etc - I wouldn't cast scorn until the concept has been practiced in operations.

"When I left you, I was but the learner; now *I* am the master." As Darth Vader would say.

[Pontius Navigator]

Interesting that USS Gerald R. Ford was laid down in Nov '09 and will enter service in March '16. H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth was laid down in July '09 - and will be comissioned in 2017... ah, but one will have aurcraft

[Compass Call]

What does 'CVF' stand for. Google doesn't come up with an answer.

Also it seems to be a very short range ship - "CVF holds food, fuel and stores for an endurance of seven days between replenishments."

CC

[ORAC]

What does 'CVF' stand for. Google doesn't come up with an answer.

Also it seems to be a very short range ship - "CVF holds food, fuel and stores for an endurance of seven days between replenishments."

CCCarrier Vessel Future (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zifzYILoTjwC&pg=PP40&lpg=PP40&dq=ship++%22carrier+vessel+future%22&source=bl&ots=eZQGX3bgyy&sig=Z_DSVJkNR8S8trlCBggcrfg39mM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjvk8Dr5KLKAhVMchQKHS81B1MQ6AEIUTAL#v=onepage&q=ship%20%20%22carrier%20vessel%20future%22&f=false)

[Wageslave]

When I read about that some time ago I wondered if that was a good idea or not. USN does not view separating command of ship operations from command of flight operations as a good idea. Which begs a question. Is the captain of RN carriers a black shoe (a navy ship driver) or a brown shoe (a naval aviator)? By law USN carriers must be commanded by a naval aviator, and the skippers being brown shoes, they don't want to be separated from flight ops. So having two islands that separate the command functions like that just would not fly in USN. I'm not suggesting such separation is bad, but that it just would not work the way USN carriers are organized.

Far from being a legal requirement, the RN historically has a very disappointing history of
carriers being commanded by big gun or small ship admirals/skippers and seldom by naval aviators to the detriment of the aviation contingent. Their operational failures for this reason are legion and part of the history books.
Worse, it now looks as if the new "carriers" air groups are to be "led" by Air Force rather than Naval commanders. What they could know about Naval operations is utterly beyond me! Or, I suspect, them.

It's not a happy prospect.

[Not_a_boffin]

Carrier Vessel Future (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zifzYILoTjwC&pg=PP40&lpg=PP40&dq=ship++%22carrier+vessel+future%22&source=bl&ots=eZQGX3bgyy&sig=Z_DSVJkNR8S8trlCBggcrfg39mM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjvk8Dr5KLKAhVMchQKHS81B1MQ6AEIUTAL#v=onepage&q=ship%20%20%22carrier%20vessel%20future%22&f=false)

It only stands for Carrier Vessel Future on the internet.

CV is not an acronym for Carrier Vessel. It stands for aircraft carrier - the programme was properly known as Future Aircraft Carrier. There's a long convoluted history of the designation CV going back to the very early days of carrier aviation and heavier than air vs lighter than air operations. It is only contemporary halfwits (not anyone posting here) who feel the need to assign a word for every letter in a designation and make things up. A bit like those (of a window-licking persuasion) who describe CVS as Carrier Vertical Strike.

It's just like the internet spods who invented the acronym CATOBAR which makes no sense whatsoever. It only arose in the early noughties when the F35 programme decided (arbitrarily) to designate the "A" version as CTOL. Until then, for decades, CTOL (as in conventional take-off and landing) was understood to refer to cat and trap ops on a ship. STOVL was well established and made sense, STOAL/STOBAR came along to describe the C130/Forrestal trial and later Russian ops on Kuznetsov. The spods made up a nonsensical acronym to describe cat and trap, because they couldn't differentiate between that and land-based ops.

Fords island is where it is to overcome the pinch point to starboard of the arrester engines, which prevents recovered aircraft accessing the (large-ish) chunk of deck area aft of that during a recovery. The new layout maximises the amount of deck area that you can recover, spot and chain aircraft in a single serial before shutting down. Which minimises unpowered moves and handlers needed.

However, I'd be interested in the navigational view from that bridge - another driver for where QE forward island is positioned, together with uptakes (and their separation) and EM emitters and their separation. Could be the USN are paying lots of money for smart antennae to overcome that whereas the RN doesn't need to because other factors drive you towards two separate structures. EMI was a major concern in the early design phases.....

On endurance, that seven days is (like USN carriers) primarily aimed at the air wing consumables, based on high-intensity operations. The overall ships fuel, vittles' etc totals are considerably more plentiful.

It is unlikely that the air-wing commanders will be RAF. Don't confuse the owner of the F35 programme in MoD MB, or the Carrier Strike capability Air Cdre with Wings on the ship.

[West Coast]

By law USN carriers must be commanded by a naval aviator

NFO's have commanded carriers as well.

[ORAC]

NAB,

The meaning of CVF may be a made up acronym to fit in with the historic CV nomenclature, but it isn't just on the Internet. That page is from the House of Commons Defence Committee Future Carrier and Joint Combat Aircraft Programmes: Second Report 2005-2006.

[Not_a_boffin]

I know. And where do you think the researcher putting it together got it from?

Not the MoD.

Doesn't reflect well on the HCDC.

One has to confront these things, lest they gain acceptance through use. A bit like people saying "could of" vice "could have".

[ORAC]

But, like the SR-71 vs the RS-71, is it now the official meaning?

[Not_a_boffin]

Not yet. Hence the need to correct it.

If left uncorrected you end up with things like "Lightning" or "Sea Lightning", when everyone knows it's actually called "Dave".

[BEagle]

Not_a_boffin wrote:

If left uncorrected you end up with things like "Lightning" or "Sea Lightning", when everyone knows it's actually called "Dave".

That stupid name is only used by 'Internet spods', MSFS geeks and spotters....:8

Military aircrew refer to it as the F-35B.

[Not_a_boffin]

Not_a_boffin wrote:



That stupid name is only used by 'Internet spods', MSFS geeks and spotters....:8

Military aircrew refer to it as the F-35B.

Sense of humour u/s this morning Beags?

[ORAC]

If the designator followed the original list shown here, (http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/index_ships_list.htm) it ought to be CVV.

[Not_a_boffin]

If the designator followed the original list shown here, (http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/index_ships_list.htm) it ought to be CVV.

Except that CVV only applies if you operate in the VTO mode.....

Not to be pedantic or anything!

CVV was of course also that strange Carter-era attempt at a smaller carrier, which funnily enough had a CTOL (cat and traps) fit.

[Captain Dart]

i'm plumping for CVF meaning Carrier, Fixed Wing, Fighter? USN and later, RAN squadrons used the following designations:

V for fixed wing (someone once told me the original word was 'vehicular' when applied to the carrier itself), H Helicopter, F Fighter, S anti-submarine, C Composite, A Attack, T Training. I think Q was for spooky stuff.

E.g. the RAN squadron VF 805 was fixed wing, fighter. HC 723 was Helicopter, Composite (several types and roles).

So as not to confuse the Americans, Australia's old HMAS Melbourne was designated as a CVS: Carrier, Fixed Wing, Anti-submarine.

Speaking of islands, I remember Melbourne's being bloody close to my starboard wingtip when hook up or boltering in an S-2.

[Pontius Navigator]

NaB, caught a big one there 😁

[ORAC]

V for fixed wing (someone once told me the original word was 'vehicular' when applied to the carrier itself) From my previous link...

"The following is taken from "United States Naval Aviation 1910-1995, Appendix 16: US Navy and Marine Corps Squadron Designations and Abbreviations":

On 17 July 1920, the Secretary of the Navy prescribed a standard nomenclature for types and classes of NAVAL VESSELs, including aircraft, in which lighter-than air craft were identified by the type "Z" and heavier-than air craft by the letter "V". The reference also speculates that: "The use of the "V" designation has been a question since the 1920s. However, no conclusive evidence has been found to identify why the letter "V" was chosen. It is generally believed the "V" was in reference to the French word volplane. As a verb, the word means to glide or soar. As a noun, it described an aeronautical device sustained in the air by lifting devices (wings), as opposed to the bag of gas that the airships (denoted by "Z") used. The same case may be regarding the use of "Z". It is generally believed the "Z" was used in deference to Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. However, documentation has not been located to verify this assumption."

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/a/(KGrHqR,!oQFCr6w))fLBQ4GC4fn,Q~~/s-l400.jpg

[Not_a_boffin]

NATO ship designations definitions are at APP20. With the exception of "N" for nuclear, all suffixes to CV describe role, rather than operating mode.

[KenV]

NFO's have commanded carriers as well. You are of course correct. I inappropriately lumped NFOs in with Naval Aviators. My bad. :ugh: But they are brown shoes. :ok:

[KenV]

Far from being a legal requirement, the RN historically has a very disappointing history of carriers being commanded by big gun or small ship admirals/skippers and seldom by naval aviators to the detriment of the aviation contingent. Their operational failures for this reason are legion and part of the history books. Worse, it now looks as if the new "carriers" air groups are to be "led" by Air Force rather than Naval commanders.
Wow. That might work in the UK, but having black shoes command the carrier and Air Force pukes command the air wing on the carrier and each has their own island on the ship just would not work in USN. Interestingly, the ship guys and aviation guys aboard those ships would not even have a common uniform. The only difference in USN as that the ship guys and aviation guys have different colored shoes, and that was enough of a problem that one of those infamous Z-grams from CNO Zumwalt banned brown shoes for several years.

I wish you guys well, and you might be able to make it work, but this sounds like an unworkable set up to a guy from across the pond.

[Not_a_boffin]

That might work in the UK, but having black shoes command the carrier and Air Force pukes command the air wing on the carrier and each has their own island on the ship just would not work in USN.

But as it's not the case (or going to be the case) in the UK, we don't have to worry about it.......

[Martin the Martian]

Actually, I thought the name Dave originated on this very forum.

[ORAC]

I thought he was referring to "Lightning"........ :p

[Tourist]

I think I may just have been quoted by BEagle.

Does that mean I have finally arrived, or that I'm finally past it?

:confused:

[Heathrow Harry]

Interesting commets ladies & gemtlemen - but why are the QE islands so much BIGGER?

Do our naval friends require the sea spray in their faces so they can set the correct tack or somesuch?

Maybe its for people who don't like submarines......................

[Not_a_boffin]

Each of those islands has five uptakes of various sizes running through it as well as a number of downtakes / vent spaces. That takes up a significant amount of space if you think about the size of trunking required for air mass flow rates, lagging, access and maintenance space around it. CVNs don't really need to consider that.

Because the antennae arrangements are less "trick" there are more equipment rooms. There are also some arrangements in the islands that we've included to make things easier for the chockheads / bombheads to do their thing, whereas the USN do something else.

There's a different philosophy between Ford and QE, primarily driven by one being a CVN, so you can go all out to minimise the deck area taken on the flightdeck, which helps their method of deck operation. Looking at Ford, I'd be surprised if there was much there other than the handlers room (where the Ouija board lives) FF party ready room, bridge, admirals bridge, PriFly and various radar and comms equipment rooms.

On QE, because you have to position (and size) the islands relative to certain other things (and structure below), you've already paid the penalty for deck area, so you can reap benefits elsewhere (eg less demanding sensor integration).

[Basil]

Why have islands at all? Make it totally flat with UAV radar and cameras off out of the way; blow the exhaust out of the side and tow a Waitrose ship to increase replenishment intervals.
Maybe a hydraulically raised bridge for entering and leaving harbour to keep the sailors happy.
Bas Naval Architects - the best at a sensible price :ok:

[Pontius Navigator]

Bas, already tried I believe by the IJN.

In Akagi '​s predecessor, Hōshō, the hot exhaust gases vented by swivelling funnels posed a danger to the ship, and wind-tunnel testing had not suggested any solutions. Akagi and Kaga were given different solutions to evaluate in real-world conditions. Akagi was given two funnels on the starboard side. The larger, forward funnel was angled 30° below horizontal with its mouth facing the sea, and the smaller one exhausted vertically a little past the edge of the flight deck. The forward funnel was fitted with a water-cooling system to reduce the turbulence caused by hot exhaust gases and a cover that could be raised to allow the exhaust gases to escape if the ship developed a severe list and the mouth of the funnel touched the sea.

Wiki

[ORAC]

They also built a couple with bridges on opposite sides the deck for operating in tight formation. The idea being that one operated a left hand pattern and the other a right hand pattern. Didn't work out, too confusing for the pilots......

[desk wizard]

The Japanese were copying the design of HMS Argus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Argus_%28I49%29)

In November 1916, the ship's design was tested in a wind tunnel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_tunnel) by the National Physical Laboratory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Physical_Laboratory_%28United_Kingdom%29) to evaluate the turbulence caused by the twin islands and the bridge over them. They were found to cause problems, but no changes were made until the ship was nearly complete. In April 1918, Argus was ordered to be modified to a flush-decked (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flush_deck) configuration after the sea trials (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_trial) of the carrier Furious (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Furious_%2847%29) had revealed severe turbulence problems caused by her superstructure. The ship was given a bridge underneath her flight deck, extending from side to side, and she was fitted with a retractable pilot house (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_house) in the middle of the flight deck for use when not operating aircraft.[3] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Argus_%28I49%29#cite_note-3)

[Willard Whyte]

Military aircrew refer to it as the F-35B.

No, twats do.