How to land on an aircraft carrier ?
 

Hello everybody,

following a discussion with a fellow pilot, I was wondering if any of you think if it would be possible to land a small SEP airplane, for example a C172 on a (military) aircraft carrier.

If you check the length (+- 300m) in combination with a speed of 30kts and a little headwind, I would say this shouldn't be a problem, even without grappling hook. However, it's a ship that goes up and down, so wouldn't the probability of bouncing be very high ?

And on a totally unrelated note: is there a location somewhere where you could train/learn/do this as a civilian ? :8

Kind regards,
Digits

Why the bloody hell do you want to do this? Just out of curiosity? Sorry pal but military ships are not a playground for your spamcan and curiosity!!!

Dont worry, bose and guppy will be along shortly and will gladly tell you how they've done it in various aircraft ranging from Sopwith Camels to the venerable F14 Tomcat...;)

P.s or you could take a flying holiday in San Diego, call up So Cal Approach and ask for some approaches onto the USS Midway or the other carriers of the Pacific fleet moored in the bay!

Well if a Hercules can do it why not!!

YouTube - C-130 Hercules on an Aircraft Carrier!!

With the speed of an aircraft carrier and the sort of windspeeds you can expect at sea the problem would not be landing..................it would be stopping the aircraft being blown off the deck.

Don't forget the PPR...

30 knots over the deck sounds like it might just blow a C172 off of the carrier once the aircraft had lost its forward energy. I seem to remember a humorous article in a flying mag where the author – a GA pilot - was offered a tour of a carrier and a go in the flight sim they trained their pilots on. He got his aircraft up off the deck flew a circuit and landed OK but had forgotten to put the brakes on so he got blown off of the back of the ship.

I must admit a fly in onto a carrier sounds a bit of hoot. I can imagine quite a few people would want to get that one into their log books if it can be done. It would prob make a great way to get people in for some safety training about integration of recreational GA and military flying as well building relationships with the community.

So what exactly are they for these days anyway? :rolleyes:

In his excellent book Think Like a Bird the author Alex Kimbell (an AAC pilot) describes dropping in on an aircraft carrier in an AAC Beaver. Well worth a read

I seem to remember that the Navy landed a Tiger Moth on the Ark sometime just before they were both decommissioned?

Thank you all for your comments soo far.

Why do I want to do it ? Let me use a famous quote here: "If you have to ask why, you'll never understand" ;)

Anyway, since there are companies in the USA that let you simulate air to air combat with some laser tag equipment, I didn't think it would be so farfetched that there would be companies that could let you land on an aircraft carrier. So please, keep replying and bouncing of ideas :ok:

Found this on UK Microlight and Paramotor records

If a flexwing can do it, with the turbulence of a ski jump in front of it, then a Cessna should be able to.

The same webpage mentions a powered parachute trike which took of from USS Midway in San Diego harbour and flew across the USA with the intention of landing on USS Yorktown on the East coast. The latter was cancelled due to weather and the pilot landed in a carpark instead.

There was also a South Vietnamese pilot who landed his Cessna Bird Dog with his wife and five:eek: children on board, on a US carrier (also Midway) off Vietnam. The pilot had allegedly never seen a carrier before...

There's an old microlighting video called "The Dream" which has got some good footage of those flexwing landings on Illustrious.

I think that they must have had absolutely still conditions - if you read the literature on ship landings, the turbulence within the burble (technical term for wake over the deck) would just blat most smaller aeroplanes out of the way - even helicopters regularly struggle.

G

How would this be different from land ? If we assume the ship always stears right into the wind, how would the turbulence on the ship be different from a runway with for example trees nearby ?

Did it as a passenger in a C150 in Pensacola Harbor [sic] in 1986, as a guest of the local flying club, who in turn were invited by the US Navy (possibly the Marines? It was a while ago).

Still wind, with the ship moored, and each of the four civilian aircraft had to be lowered onto the hangar deck before the next could land.

We were given the escorted tour and dinner in the Officer's Mess, then one-by-one raised to the main deck for individual take-off.

I'm led to believe that this was one of the last occasions.

i would think in your average flexwing you might struggle to actually catch the carrier...:}

Check 2:35 for a light aircraft landing on a carrier - desperate times, obviously. The sight of a Chinny being pushed of the deck hurts me badly!

If you know any private companies that have their own aircraft carriers then the British government would like to hear from you!

TT (with a handful of carrier landings to my name albeit in helos).

If a Swordfish can do it Shirley anything can? I remember Ark Royal doing 5knots astern to allow some French Fougas to catch us up & land!

Laminar flow (which is what you get normally over sea), striking firstly the leading edge of the flight deck, then being interrupted by the enormous amount protuberances over the structure of the ship, then finally downwash on the back of the flight deck as it drops down towards the sea.

A quick google shows very little in the public domain I'm afraid, but this paper give a reasonable introduction to the problem without too much maths.

G

to quote your original statement, assuming the ship steams at 30kts and has a slight headwind (lets say 10kts) then you could easily approach at 70 kts and have a "deck speed" of 30 kts. This would give you speed in hand to deal with the turbulence and more than enough stopping distance. That said with a 300 meter deck to aim at then you could land a 172 on it at anchor with no wind assuming you were light and landed nice and early. Just not too early mind!
I never get Prune, someone asks a simple question out of curiosity and gets told of for it. Keep asking 'Pal'!:)