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Taking off from an aircraft carrier can be insanely dangerous too
If you thought that only landings were hard on aircraft carriers, David Cenciotti at the Avioationist found this photo an E-2 Hawkeye launching through a wave, just as "the ship's bow lowered." (sploid.gizmodo.com) More...
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Calling fake on that one. I was on the Eisenhower for 3 years and sea state you can see in the photo could not possibly cause 95000 tons of ship to move enough to get a bow wave like that. It's roughly 90 feet from the flight deck to the water.
I agree with you Charles.
Special, today only: free wash with every takeoff!
Rogue wave, courtesy of photoshop?
Practicing doing water drops for the next fire season?
What are those guys doing out in the middle of an active flightline?
Practicing doing water drops for the next fire season?
What are those guys doing out in the middle of an active flightline?
How true.
The aircraft can straight away dive into water, at a high velocity, never to be seen again !
After all why and how the raised take off platform evolved (ski jump)?
So much so, old style flat decks were modified to have ski jump, raised launching decks. Not only to have easy altitude gain , but also to adjust for trimming, longitudinal variations in angle of the carrier .
Therefore, the person on the deck who signals to the pilot to release brakes for take off has a great responsibility, written and/or unwritten, for the safe take off !
for a more elaborate description please refer to following link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_carrier
" Deck structures
.........
A more recent configuration, originally developed by the Royal Navy but since adopted by many navies for most smaller carriers, has a ski-jump ramp at the forward end of the flight deck. This was first developed to help launch STOVL aircraft take off at far higher weights than is possible with a vertical or rolling takeoff on flat decks. A ski-jump works by converting some of the forward rolling movement of the aircraft into vertical velocity and is sometimes combined with the aiming of jet thrust partly downwards. This allows heavily loaded and fuelled aircraft a few more precious seconds to attain sufficient air velocity and lift to sustain normal flight. Without a ski-jump launching fully loaded and fuelled aircraft such as the Harrier would not be possible on a smaller flat deck ship before either stalling out or crashing directly into the sea....... "
Happy ThanXgiving Day to all.
The aircraft can straight away dive into water, at a high velocity, never to be seen again !
After all why and how the raised take off platform evolved (ski jump)?
So much so, old style flat decks were modified to have ski jump, raised launching decks. Not only to have easy altitude gain , but also to adjust for trimming, longitudinal variations in angle of the carrier .
Therefore, the person on the deck who signals to the pilot to release brakes for take off has a great responsibility, written and/or unwritten, for the safe take off !
for a more elaborate description please refer to following link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_carrier
" Deck structures
.........
A more recent configuration, originally developed by the Royal Navy but since adopted by many navies for most smaller carriers, has a ski-jump ramp at the forward end of the flight deck. This was first developed to help launch STOVL aircraft take off at far higher weights than is possible with a vertical or rolling takeoff on flat decks. A ski-jump works by converting some of the forward rolling movement of the aircraft into vertical velocity and is sometimes combined with the aiming of jet thrust partly downwards. This allows heavily loaded and fuelled aircraft a few more precious seconds to attain sufficient air velocity and lift to sustain normal flight. Without a ski-jump launching fully loaded and fuelled aircraft such as the Harrier would not be possible on a smaller flat deck ship before either stalling out or crashing directly into the sea....... "
Happy ThanXgiving Day to all.
