Newsgroups: sci.military
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!cbnews!cbnews!military
From: swilliam@dtoa1.dt.navy.mil (Williams)
Subject: Re: Left-handed carriers
Organization: David Taylor Research Center, Bethesda, MD
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 01:54:11 GMT
Approved: military@att.att.com
Message-ID: <1990Nov20.015411.24143@cbnews.att.com>
References: <1990Nov15.013451.1767@cbnews.att.com> <1990Nov16.051801.21552@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Lines: 38



From: swilliam@dtoa1.dt.navy.mil (Williams)

>In a book I have of WWII hardware, they talked about the port-side islands of
>Japanese carriers.  Apparently, putting them there created dangerous tubulence
>problems.

Not necessarily, but it was true for Hiryu, which had a port-side island.
Her sister ship, Soryu, had a starboard-side island.  But, because of
the location of the horizontal smokestack on the starboard side, Soryu's
island was located in front of the smokestack.

When the Hiryu was commissioned a few years later, several of the senior
pilots on the Soryu was transferred to the Hiryu.  These pilots complained
that it was more difficult to land on the Hiryu than on the Soryu.
A study was made, and it was determined that there was air turbulence
behind the island that stretched beyond the end of the flight deck.
This wasn't the case on the Soryu; the air turbulence behind the island
on the Soryu had smoothened out at the end of the flight deck.

The island on the Hiryu was located in the middle, across the flight
deck from the smokestacks, whereas the island on the Soryu was located 
about 1/3 the deck length from the bow, just ahead of the smokestack.

Apparently the lesson learned from the island locations in the Hiryu 
and Soryu was preserved in the minds of the Japanese carrier designers, 
because in the future Shokaku class carriers, the islands were located 
way out in the front, just like in the Soryu.

Interestingly, the Akagi, which had a port-side island, did not have
this problem.  Both Akagi and Kaga were * H U G H * carriers, and Akagi's 
island was in the middle.  Apparently the distance from the Akagi's 
island to the end of the flight deck was long enough for the air
turbulence to smooth out.  Furthermore, Akagi's flight deck was wider
than the Hiryu's.