Originally Posted by
visibility3miles
Just asking, but can’t they do something to change the shape of things on the ship to reduce the “burble affect?”
Get someone like an audio engineer that knows how to design things that affect acoustic waves or an architect or architectural engineer that knows how to deal with wind blowing around buildings and other stationary objects? These people exist…
Wild stab in the dark, maybe have a retractable windshield in front of other planes on deck would make the winds less tricky. Then again, that adds an additional problem if the retractable windshield fails to retract.
Make the approach to landing on an aircraft carrier as easy as possible would probably pay off in terms of lowering the stress level just a notch, even if the deck is pitching and heaving.
The capability of computational fluid dynamics to handle these things is increasing steadily, as computer power grows. Nonetheless it involves trying to solve the Navier Stokes equations- 3 interrelated partial differential equations- over a significant period of time and a substantial space. That is serious number-crunching- as hard as designing modern VSTOL aircraft. Like a lot of engineering, the answer you get also depends on the assumptions at the input. As a result the 'answer' to modelling whether it is CFD for shipbuilders, CFD for weather men or CFD for architects and builders is a range of outcomes of varying probability. The model with 100% probability does not exist.
After that you finalise by including all the other constraints and 'wants', expecting to get something that will not be perfect, but that should be acceptable to a minimum standard pilot on the approach.
Then you can build and try a wind tunnel model to see what that tells you. Often it tells you nowt, for good engineering and physics reasons.
Then you build a war canoe, and do what Spaz has pointed to, to see what you got. Finally you put a calibrated test pilot into an aircraft and get him/her to go look at it for real.
Magic Carpet, and follow on systems are an attempt to tackle the problem from the other end. Build something that can cope with the conditions behind your carrier, whatever they are likely to be.
As a side benefit you get a bigger potential pool of carrier pilots, because they don't have to be able to fly the meatball in any conditions.
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