HMS Queen Elizabeth

[HarryW]

98elise said:

Mave said:

Ginetta G15 Girl said:

Mave said:

If you're trying to manoeuvre at low relative speed to the carrier, you want the wind over deck to be in the same direction as your direction of flight.

An angled flight deck on a carrier lies at about 9 degrees. Are you seriously telling me that WAFU Pilots can't cope with a less than 10 degree X-Wind?



Additionally, all the Carrier has to do is steer 9 degrees off the wind and then the headwind is straight down the deck FFS!

Edited by Ginetta G15 Girl on Monday 10th December 21:17

Before you start ROFLing and FFSing think about what you wrote. Then think about what happens to the wind over the flight deck when the aircraft carrier is steaming along at 30 knots and turns through 9 degrees...

You really haven't thought about this.....and you're arguing with a pilot!

.... But how do we know they are a pilot....

[AshVX220]

NDA said:

AshVX220 said:

It's purely down to the capability of the aircraft. When we briefly started doing some work on a Cat and trap variant of QE, she was given an angled deck, then (probably within a year) the whole idea was canned and we were back to where we are with a straight landing deck.

You worked on her? That must have been fascinating.... I was interested on the TV documentary how newcomers to the ship were getting totally lost. Understandable I guess as it's huge and everything looks remarkably similar. Having been alongside (as far as legally permitted) an American Nimitz class in my little 8m boat, I felt the word 'awesome' to be appropriate.

I know nothing about warships and planes - but I had always assumed that the angle of the runway had the advantage of taking the planes away from the control towers.

Yeah, I loved it, one of my career highlights. When I joined the team she was just a CGI image and a lot of electronic design stuff. I left the team shortly after she was commissioned and dragged out of dry dock. As for finding your way around, like any war ship you get used to it, but one of the guys on our team developed an app called "Plat-Nav" (Platform Navigation), which was very clever and used a lot while she was in build (I don't know if the crew are allowed to use it, after all, you want your crew to know where they're going). Now I work for a very small team within the F-35 organisation.

That could be an added advantage, but I think the main reason was to be able to launch/recover at the same time (could be wrong though).

[andy97]

NDA said:

I know nothing about warships and planes - but I had always assumed that the angle of the runway had the advantage of taking the planes away from the control towers.

I am going to stick my head above the parapet here and hope it wont be shot off, but my understanding, (as a mere ex Seaman Officer) is that the angled flight deck was originally developed to allow simultaneous launches and recoveries using steam catapults and arrestor wires (cats and traps).

In the QEC (and the Invincible Class), this isn't required/ possible because the F35 (and formerly, the Harrier) requires a long(ish) conventional jet powered and non catapult assisted take off run before the lift engine (& nozzles) are applied to assist with lift. For the recoveries, particularly with the rolling vertical landing, the aircraft similarly requires a decent length of unrestricted runway to perform the landing. Quite simply, there is not enough room on the deck of QEC for an angled flight deck that allows simultaneous F35 launches and recoveries.

[Boatbuoy]

Sorry, this image has been bugging me, and needed some artistic editing...



Carry on.

[DMN]

You've missed out the hole in the flight deck caused by the crane falling on it, but otherwise thats good work.

[Boatbuoy]

I made the educated assumption that as it was illustrated with aircraft on the flightdeck that it was depicted in 'operational' status, hence the omission of mid-refit details.

[FourWheelDrift]

I'm just waiting for the Russians to do a simultaneous launch of it's aircraft on the catapults.

[anonymous-user]

Back to this wind thing.

Does the (angled deck) carrier just sail into wind when they have aircraft landing and accept the 10 degree crosswind?

Wouldn’t it be making small course changes when aircraft are landing to make the relative wind more of a headwind on the offset landing ‘strip’ ?

Or does the carrier just head directly into wind and let the pilots deal with it? Obviously 10 degree offset isn’t bad but with gusts etc then it might get worse (or better) when it backs or veers?

I would have thought the carrier would steer a course that would have the wind lined up with the landing deck not the ships axis? Also if the ship just steered a course directly into wind, wouldn’t all the ship’s structures create turbulence on short final?

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 12th December 15:17

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 12th December 15:17

[Boatbuoy]

If the tide is running at 150knts, then effectively its quite similar to being on a conveyor belt.......

[andy97]

El stovey said:

Back to this wind thing.

Does the (angled deck) carrier just sail into wind when they have aircraft landing and accept the 10 degree crosswind?

Wouldn’t it be making small course changes when aircraft are landing to make the relative wind more of a headwind on the offset landing ‘strip’ ?

Or does the carrier just head directly into wind and let the pilots deal with it? Obviously 10 degree offset isn’t bad but with gusts etc then it might get worse (or better) when it backs or veers?

I would have thought the carrier would steer a course that would have the wind lined up with the landing deck not the ships axis? Also if the ship just steered a course directly into wind, wouldn’t all the ship’s structures create turbulence on short final?

Edited by El stovey on Wednesday 12th December 15:17

Edited by El stovey on Wednesday 12th December 15:17

The ship has operational and navigational considerations and the course it sails will be a compromise to balance out those priorities.

Flight test operations and simulation will be used to establish the maximum and minimum limits (wind speed and direction) for landing and taking off aircraft and the ship will sail the best course it can to achieve the aircraft operations safely whilst achieving its other priorities. This means that it wont always sail the optimum course but it will sail the course that means the wind over the deck is within the aircraft operating limits.
The Officer of the Watch (OOW) and Flying Control (FlyCo) will liaise to establish the most practical course.
And yes, the superstructure does cause turbulence and when the operating limits are being worked out, this is taken in to account for the course that can be sailed relative to the wind speed and direction.

Edited by andy97 on Wednesday 12th December 20:17

[Teddy Lop]

andy97 said:

I am going to stick my head above the parapet here and hope it wont be shot off, but my understanding, (as a mere ex Seaman Officer) is that the angled flight deck was originally developed to allow simultaneous launches and recoveries using steam catapults and arrestor wires (cats and traps).

In the QEC (and the Invincible Class), this isn't required/ possible because the F35 (and formerly, the Harrier) requires a long(ish) conventional jet powered and non catapult assisted take off run before the lift engine (& nozzles) are applied to assist with lift. For the recoveries, particularly with the rolling vertical landing, the aircraft similarly requires a decent length of unrestricted runway to perform the landing. Quite simply, there is not enough room on the deck of QEC for an angled flight deck that allows simultaneous F35 launches and recoveries.

I thought the angled deck allowed you to carry out the complicated and critical recovery procedure, without impacting readiness ie a fresh one sat in the cat - given the flexibility of vstol in both acts is it such an issue?

[Condi]

Boatbuoy said:

I made the educated assumption that as it was illustrated with aircraft on the flightdeck that it was depicted in 'operational' status, hence the omission of mid-refit details.

Will it do 'operational status' again, or is that picture drawn from memory?

[andy97]

Teddy Lop said:

I thought the angled deck allowed you to carry out the complicated and critical recovery procedure, without impacting readiness ie a fresh one sat in the cat - given the flexibility of vstol in both acts is it such an issue?

Yes, because the F35 has to get ready to start it's take off run a long way aft; it would therefore be in the middle of the angle deck, compromising landing anyway.

[Mansells Tash]

What I don't get is why bother with the cat & trap / ramp bks anyway, all they need is 2 conveyor belts on either end of the ship, one running forward to launch it and another running the opposite direction at the landing end to land on.

...and before any of you jump in saying I'm wrong, I've spend hours and hours on Flight Sim 2000 so I know what I'm talking about.

[prand]

Mansells Tash said:

...and before any of you jump in saying I'm wrong, I've spend hours and hours on Flight Sim 2000 so I know what I'm talking about.

The earnestness of this statement has tickled me for some reason

[98elise]

Mave said:

98elise said:

You really haven't thought about this.....and you're arguing with a pilot!

Which bit of what I wrote do you disagree with?

Everything. I don't think you understand how planes fly, or how aircraft carriers operate!

[Mave]

98elise said:

Mave said:

98elise said:

You really haven't thought about this.....and you're arguing with a pilot!

Which bit of what I wrote do you disagree with?

Everything. I don't think you understand how planes fly, or how aircraft carriers operate!

You think I don't understand how planes fly because I think that if an aircraft has a 10 degree crosswind limit, you don't want to design an aircraft carrier to have a nominal 9 degree crosswind all the time?

You think I don't understand how aircraft carriers operate because I think the angle between the keel and the flight deck is fixed?

If those are your thoughts, then I don't think much of them!

[RizzoTheRat]

Mansells Tash said:

What I don't get is why bother with the cat & trap / ramp bks anyway, all they need is 2 conveyor belts on either end of the ship, one running forward to launch it and another running the opposite direction at the landing end to land on.

...and before any of you jump in saying I'm wrong, I've spend hours and hours on Flight Sim 2000 so I know what I'm talking about.

I'd rather see it done the other way around, getting around the airport would be a lot more interesting if you hooked your baggage trolley in to a catapult instead pushing it down a travelator

[Cold]

It's just recently been announced that she'll be heading back to Scotland for a planned dry-dock inspection during the summer. Rosyth will look after her for six weeks to do some poking around of her wet bits. For a brief time she'll be within an Instagram photo distance of HMS Prince of Wales.
Link to Dot Gov site

At the moment, she's still alongside at Portsmouth with various parts of her covered in temporary plastic sheeting while guns and other loud stuff are being bolted on.

[98elise]

Mave said:

98elise said:

Mave said:

98elise said:

You really haven't thought about this.....and you're arguing with a pilot!

Which bit of what I wrote do you disagree with?

Everything. I don't think you understand how planes fly, or how aircraft carriers operate!

You think I don't understand how planes fly because I think that if an aircraft has a 10 degree crosswind limit, you don't want to design an aircraft carrier to have a nominal 9 degree crosswind all the time?

You think I don't understand how aircraft carriers operate because I think the angle between the keel and the flight deck is fixed?

If those are your thoughts, then I don't think much of them!

I served on them long enough to understand how they operate