Carrier Aviation

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The UK has been at the forefront of maritime / carrier aviation since the first four Naval Officers (Lieutenants A N Longmore, E Gerrard, Gregory & C Samson) learnt to fly in 1911. Some notable British achievements since then include:

The first landing on a moving ship, (Lt Cdr Dunning, HMS Furious 1917).

HMS Hermes (1923), which was the first ship in the world to be designed and built as an aircraft carrier. (All previous carriers being conversions, including HMS Argus, which started life as an Italian passenger liner and HMS Eagle, as a Chilean battleship).

The raid on the Italian Fleet in Taranto Harbour (11 November 1940), by 21 Swordfish Biplanes flying from HMS Illustrious. 3 Italian battleships were put out of action and a number of other ships and dockyard installations damaged. Only 2 aircraft were lost during this operation. (This attack obviously gave the Japanese a few ideas for their subsequent attack on Pearl Harbour!)

The first landing of a jet aircraft on a carrier (Lt Cdr E M Brown, flying the prototype Sea Vampire, HMS Ocean, December 1945).

The first use of the Helicopter to transport troops from ship to shore during amphibious operations (Suez 1956, 45 Commando RM were landed from the carriers Theseus and Ocean by Whirlwind and Sycamore helicopters operated by 845 Naval Air Squadron and the Army/RAF Joint Helicopter Unit).

In the early 1970’s Lt Cdr Doug Taylor invented the ‘Ski Jump’. This upward curving ramp, at the front end of the flight deck, ensures the aircraft is launched on an upward trajectory and gives considerable performance gains when compared with the corresponding flat deck, short take-off.

However I believe Britain’s greatest carrier achievements were the Angled Flight Deck, Mirror Projector Landing Sight and the Steam Catapult. Whilst these inventions are no longer in use by the Royal Navy, they can still be found on American and French carriers.

Faced with the increasing speed, size and weight of post war aircraft, but constrained by the use of existing war built hulls, the RN had to find ways of safely operating these aircraft at sea. The solutions are illustrated below:

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The angled deck can trace its history back to trials of the ‘Flexible Deck’ in HMS Warrior in 1948-49. These tested the concept of operating undercarriage less jets at sea. Whilst the tests were successful, the proposals were not carried forward due to their radical nature and the lack of military impetus in the post wars years.

However in the summer of 1951 a conference was called to look at ways of operating undercarriage less jets in operational, rather than trial, conditions. The elimination of the crash barrier but the retention of the forward deck park was agreed to be the most desirable outcome. During the conference, Capt Dennis Cambell produced some sketches showing the flexible deck angled 10 degrees to port, thus allowing an aircraft which missed the arrester wires to go round again for another landing attempt, without interfering with (or crashing into) any aircraft parked forward.

This proposal produced little interest at the time, but another conference member, Mr. Lewis Boddington, a scientist at RAE Farnborough came to the conclusion that the angled principle could be applied forthwith to the carrier HMS Ark Royal, which was then nearing completion. Tests of the angled flight deck were soon arranged for the trials carrier HMS Triumph, the flight deck's landing line being repainted 10 degrees off the centre line. However, as the arrester wires were not altered these tests were only on a ‘touch and go’ basis

These trials proved so successful that HMS Centaur became the first British ship to be fitted with an Angled Flight Deck, in 1953, followed shortly by HMS Ark Royal, which has the distinction of being the first warship to enter service already fitted with an angled deck. However, as is usually the case with British inventions, it was the Americans that first implemented the angled deck operationally, on USS Antietam.

The Angled Deck

The Mirror Projector Landing Sight

  

 

 

During the War Years a DLCO (Deck Landing Control Officer) or ‘Batsman’ assisted landing aircraft by giving the pilot visual clues of his angle of approach to the carrier. With the increase in aircraft speed in the post war period, pilots had less time to interpret the batsman’s signal and reacting to it, before reaching the flight deck threshold. It was generally agreed that letting pilots judge their own approach was a better method and so the mirror landing sight was born.

This was invented by Commander N Goodhart and consisted of a gyro controlled mirror facing aft on the port side of the flight deck, with a spare to starboard. By watching a projected ball of light in the mirror and comparing this with a datum line of green lights placed either side, the pilot could immediately judge if he was too high or low. Over the years the mirror landing sight was further developed (by John Curran Ltd of Cardiff and RAE Bedford), the mirror being replaced by graduated bars of light, as demonstrated in the illustration.

  The slogan 'FLY NAVY' was coined during the mid 60's in response to the then Labour Governments decision to scrap the RN's remaining fixed wing carriers. It is some what ironic that the new Labour administration is promising too build 2 new large carriers as replacements for the Invincible and her sisters.....

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The final, post war, carrier invention was the steam catapult. Aircraft had, up until this time, left the carrier’s flight deck by a number of different means, the most obvious being the free take off, which was still being employed by the Skyraider AEW1 in the 1950’s. Rocket assisted takeoffs (RATOG) was also used quite effectively by aircraft participating in Korean operations during 1950-1953.

Catapults had been around since the 1930’s (when they were fitted to the carriers Glorious and Courageous) however these early devices were powered either by compressed air or cordite. It was Commander C C Mitchell RNVR who first suggested taking steam from the ship’s main boiler to power the catapult. Trails on HMS Perseus during 1950-1952 showed an aircraft weighing 30,000lbs could be launched with a speed of over 90 knots, which was a considerable increase over the air hydraulic catapults then in service. The steam catapult also proved to be considerably more reliable. By the time the RN's last fixed wing carrier was retired in 1978 (HMS Ark Royal), the steam catapult was regularly launching aircraft weighing over 60,000lbs at 110+ knots. 

It is only now that the Americans are looking to replace Steam Catapults, on their next generation carriers, with electromagnetic catapults.

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The Steam Catapult

 

This page was last updated on: 07 April, 2008 20:50.