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From: ron@hpfcso.fc.hp.com (Ron Miller)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Angled flight decks
Message-ID: <1991Jan10.024814.2640@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 10 Jan 91 02:48:14 GMT
References: <1990Dec15.012857.14523@cbnews.att.com>
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From: ron@hpfcso.fc.hp.com (Ron Miller)


I'm amazed to see how many variations there are on "why do carriers
have angled decks" in this forum. Some are correct, and some are
focusing on secondary benefits.


The simple answer is to allow a "touch-and-go" if the hook doesn't
catch the wire instead of a "touch-and-crash-into-the-barrier-or-other-
airplanes" of the old straight deck designs.

I found an entry in his logbook for a *night* where my father had 
*18* 'no-arrest' attempts in an F-3H Demon. The problem was that
the anti-bounce dashpot that keeps the arresting hook from banging
back up after contacting the deck wasn't working. He was getting 
good approaches and touchdowns but the hook kept skipping for 17
passes!!!

If he'd been landing on a straight deck ship, I might have been 
a fatherless child upon the first pass :-(

(He was also pretty upset that no one told him what the problem was.
He was getting mighty concerned that his flying was bad and might get
him killed before he made a safe landing.)


The additional catapaults off the angle deck didn't appear until
the Forrestal class "supercarriers"  Such smaller ships as the
wooden-decked Essex was operating jets(F-3H and preceding) with 
an angled deck and steam catapaults in the mid 60's. But it 
only had room for bow cats.  

In addition, the F-4 wasn't operated off Essex class at all. The F-8
Crusader was their fighter complement.

Ron Miller
(I chose submarines)