Why are aircraft carriers right handed?
 

The Island on aircraft carriers is always on the right hand side, or starboard.

My question is why?

Is is because aircraft are more likely to swing to the left if there is a problem on take off or landing?

Is it because the ships are easier to dock?

The first aircraft carrier which wasn't a "flat-top" was a British design so surely the French would have gone the other way and built it with the Island on the left.

I think that as the ship came first then the reason is more nautical than aeronautical - hence the post being in JB rather than in questions.

I await your responses...

Left hand down a bit.

(Navy Lark, Sub-Lieutenant Phillips)

A guess, but it's probably something to do with the fact that most pilots
prefer to fly left hand circuits, also they will automatically turn left to avoid
something. Don't ask me why they do though. :ok:

So do all pilots dress to the left as well? :}

Fos

How's about........it means the pilots always know which way to land.

Saves all that looking at the wind sock, wittering on the radio etc.

Maybe its to do with vessels traditionally berthing port side alongside (hence PORT side). So the operational side of the vessel is to seaward.

Only a possibility maybe?

Seems the most likely suggestion yet.


Though wouldn't they have preferred the steering gubbings (and leccie hook-up) to landward?

Todays aircraft carrier doesn't need a leccie hook up, it generates enough power to light up a medium sized city.. Interesting question, I was involved with the sea for most of my working life and it never occured to me to query the position, it seemed natural to put it there. Never sailed on one though..

Pretty obvious, surely. Tradition. Viking and other. The steering board has always been to, ahhh, starboard. That no doubt is where Lars or Leif or Snorri, being right-handed, wanted to stand, and Lars, Leif or Snorri was the heavy hitter. Maybe it was Sweyn.

Initially the island was placed on the starboard side because early propeller aircraft turned to the left more easily because of torque. Once the starboard side position was established it became difficult to change. Pilots used to landing with the island to their right would be confused on a ship with the island on the other side, there was nothing to be gained by changing the location, so it stayed in the same place.

There were, however, two carriers with their islands to port. The Japanese Akagi and Hiryu were fitted with port-side islands. Each was meant to work in a tactical formation with a starboard-island ship (Kaga and Soryu respectively); it was thought that putting the islands opposite sides would improve the flight patterns around the carriers, with aircraft marshalling in opposite directions in the circuit. The carriers with islands on the starboard would travel on the portside of the formation and their aircraft would circle to port. Those with islands on the port travelled on the starboard and their air groups circled to starboard. Wartime experience showed it to be an unnecessary complication with no advantages. The idea was scrapped after the first two ships of the class, the remaining 2, and all later carriers, having starboard islands.

What happens if you land from the opposite direction? Is the island not on the other side then?


(I know, I know all the arrester gear, and on British carriers a great big ramp does not allow for a landing in the opposite direction but why waste a good wind-up?)

Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu (the Imperial Navy's four finest carriers) were all sunk by the Yanks at the Battle of Midway (4-7 June, 1942) so in any event, it didn't do them any good....

MOST carrier ops are done with the ship SAILING (not stationary) into the wind. This gives a small advantage to aircraft taking-off and landing (WRT airspeed).

Don't all those masts and sails get in the way of the aeroplanes? :confused:

We are sailing, we are sailing,
Home again 'cross the sea.
We are sailing stormy waters,
To be near you, to be free.

HMS Ark Royal

Do they have hands?

Of course, they man the pumps.....

All carrier ops are done sailing into wind, assuming there is a surface wind. The 25 kts over the deck is pretty much a minimum req. I think you'll find for conventional launch/landing. The carrier would never be stationary, and I'd expect it to be making a minimum of 15-20 kts if launching/recovering. The sea state if the surface wind was 35 kts or more (Beaufort 8) may well preclude ops anyway.

The old man was in the penultimate HMS Ark Royal for her first commission in 1955, and I followed him into the Andrew in 1978, the year after she was paid off.

AA,

It has been done, more than once, for CV's to launch while at anchor. Not often and not pretty, but it has been done. Believe it was the USS Saratoga (but might have been another), that suffered an embarrassing grounding in Naples (?). She launched her air wing while at anchor. Admittedly, the a/c were light with no stores, so operationally not a player, I'd agree with you, but it has been done.

I have read of its being done at anchor in the RN, certainly with Seafires (one went in and killed the pilot) and I believe with Seahawks.

Had a catapult at RAE Bedford when I was there (1970s). Had no choice but to do it "at anchor!" F4s and Buccaneers mostly I remember.

arriers Left-Handed
 

Perhaps they should put the island in the middle - one side for taking off and the other for landing.

Just think how efficient that would be;)

Kinda of on the same topic, but I've seen a line of booms extending about the deck width to the right in some pictures. What were these for?

Funny, you don't sound Japanese.......

It's been done.

HMS Furious (?)

AA,

Whilst at CU in Dec 78 I witnessed HMS ARK ROYAL disembarking its Air Group, I believe it paid off after that deployment.
SJ

Why does the boss driver on the bridge of those airyplane thingies sit in the left hand seat? also one believes some of the Carriers on convoy escort duties during our last bout of unpleasentess with those continentals, did not have any superstructure at all on the upper deck,
:rolleyes:

They did have superstructure on the upper decks but they may have been open to the elements!!!!

Very early carriers were simply flat decks bolted onto the existing structure. Scary!

Some carriers had deck-edge netting carried outwards on booms, IIRC. Others may have had radio masts etc, which would have to be folded out of the way for air ops.

Yes, lots. (All hands on deck!)

This is actually a "hangover" from Commercial Aviation.

They had to standardise on what side of the Hairyplane the main cabin doors would be (so as not to confuse the airstairs drivers - easily done:oh: ). And the great commercial BOAC ("Better On A Camel" - or was it Imperial Airways in those "pre-PanAm" days) decided that, as charabangs always had the doors to the left, so would the new-fangled Hairyplanes

In those days, a flight from "Blighty" to Far-Flung Empire (such as the popular Chinese destination airport HFD - Hoo Flung Dung International:suspect: ) took several days, and several night-stops (navigation being largely following rivers, mountain ranges, and in the case of well - colonialised areas - motorways) It was considered "Fourringer Perks" to chat up the best looking feeeemales on the flight.

This meant that the Fourringers had to sit on the left side of the Hairyplane, in order to "assess" the oncoming feeeemale pax, as they boarded, as to which were worthy of their valuable time in the bar of the night-stop hotel, to "build their strength" for the following day's 1000 km sector, following roads, rivers, and conspicuous configurations of paddy fields (the latter on routes that were later to be handed over the Air Cunnilingus and Ryan).:{

In those far-of times, the gallant Fourringers were the gods of the profession, much envied and their positions sought-after by the lowly Effos (as well asthe Effees, and even more lowly Navoffs and Radops, and much later the Peethrees of the Trydent) and deemed them selves worthy of all the perks they could get.

So what's changed?:E

What I want to know is why is the Navy also called the Andrew?:confused: :confused:

Why are aircraft carriers right handed?

Well it's obvious: they haven't figured out how to build ambidextrous ones yet...


Getting back onto a serious track here: the French have made some modifications to the carrier Charles de Gaulle, after all their problems with her propellors.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...DG_cartoon.jpg

In the event of any future incapacitation of the carrier's main propulsion due to enemy attack (or even just shoddy craftsmanship), provision has been made so that a pair of Rafales can be strapped-down onto the after-part of the flight deck. This will provide the Charles de Gaulle with a "get you home" auxilary power source...

Wasn't there an instance of a couple of F4s, Scooters and A6s used to maneouvre a carrier into it's berth using jet thrust?

It must have been a very hot day then...offshore winds?!

SRT, That procedure predates the carrier jet age.

I have read of and seen a photo of a carrier being helped into berth by a line of piston engined aircraft; Skyraiders and Bearcats IIRC.

The manoeuvre was done in "The Bridges at Toko-Ri" (William Holden, Grace Kelly, et al, about 1954). The politics between the Commander of the Air Group who did not want to burn out his engines and the captain who wanted to berth his carrier formed a sub-plot in the movie.

All I can say is that the aircraft involved must have had exceptionally strong undercarriage to shift so many tens of thousands of tonnes of deadweight.
What they should have done was to heave unemployed or unemployable, flipper-equipped, aircrew overboard at the back end with instructions to swim and push.
It is much cheaper and does not interfere with the ongoing operational status of the ship as long as they are instructed to talk as normal and keep up the airflow over the deck.

Great spelling of manoeuvre there Davaar, I'd have expected nothing less from you! :ok:

If one had been born a woman, I'd have quite fancied William Holden methinks. As it was, I sometimes harboured secret thoughts of wishing he was my dad sometimes as an adolescent. As for Grace Kelly, well, I've always fancied Princess Caroline... :O

Anyway, I think aircraft-carriers are an outdated concept. They look impressive from any angle but the image is mainly a projected one.