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Carriers
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! |
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.
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Brilliant ! Of course, the Royal Navy cannot make a film like that at the moment, can they.............
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Carriers
The RN won't be able to make a movie like that in the future either..... No cats n traps for them.
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MELBOURNE in SloMo - what else?
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 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://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l2...m.jpg~original |
Are you in any of those shots Spaz?
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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. |
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 ] (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. 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). |
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! |
Great film, beautifully shot. Nothing quite like a sunny day on the deck of a carrier!
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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!
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SpazSinbad
Re the Evans attempted ejection. Do you know what was the interlock problem that prevented ejection? John |
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...." 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=cbcd6...340707E6%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. |
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.
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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’.” |
Barry's Adventures are told herein.
FOLDER: FAA A-4G Skyhawk RAN PDFs FILE: Evans887+889adventures180pp.pdf (100Mb) https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=cbcd6...340707E6%21119 Same file available here also: FOLDER: A4G_Skyhawk_RAN_FAA_PDFs FILE: Evans887+889adventures180pp.pdf (100Mb) https://drive.google.com/?authuser=0...0s4VWNERFJLQ2s |
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." |
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 |
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" LSO "On the Roger" Debrief excerpt: LSO Debrief HMS Eagle ‘On The Roger’ 1968 |
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. |
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