PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - No cats and flaps ...... back to F35B?
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Old 14th Apr 2012, 11:44
  #434 (permalink)  
LowObservable
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
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t43562 - That has been the theory. Because the B is much easier to land (an operation which is automated to a remarkable degree) the carrier group spends less time working up in home waters and more time available to generate sorties at full rate, anywhere that it might be.

It's also been suggested here that the RAF liked the idea of Joint Force F-35B because you don't have to be a full-time carrier pilot (locked inside big grey floaty thing with a bunch of matelots) to be ship-capable.

However, you're not just training pilots, but the whole wing - maintenance, armourers, deck crew, helo crews - all performing a complicated ballet in a confined space, on a much bigger scale than SHAR or JFH.

And even if you don't go all the way to autoland - surely FBW and full-time autothrottle have to make the job easier? Typhoon, I believe, has a landing mode where you basically dial in the airspeed and hold a HUD pipper on the landing spot, to reduce scatter if you want to use a short runway.
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