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Authors: Tom - Nf Clancy
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retracted to their “ready landing” position, so that another aircraft can be landed as quickly as possible. When it is done properly, modern carriers can land an aircraft every twenty to thirty seconds.
Aircraft Structures: Controlled Crashes
Any combat aircraft is subjected to extraordinary stresses and strains. However, compared with your average Boeing 737 running between, say, Baltimore and Pittsburgh, carrier-capable aircraft have the added stresses of catapult launches and wire-caught landings that are actually “controlled crashes.” That means your average carrier-capable fighter or support aircraft is going to lug around a bit more muscle in its airframes than, say, a USAF F-16 operating from a land base with a nice, long, wide, concrete runway. This added robustness of carrier aircraft (compared with their land-based counterparts) is a good thing when surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft guns are pumping ordnance in their direction. But it also means that carrier aircraft, because of their greater structural weight, have always paid a penalty in performance, payload, and range compared with similar land-based aircraft.
This structural penalty, however, may well be becoming a thing of the past. Today, aircraft designers are armed with a growing family of non-metallic structural materials (composites, carbon-carbon, etc.), as well as new design tools, such as computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) equipment. They have been finding ways to make the most recent generation of carrier aircraft light and strong, while giving them the performance to keep up with the best land-based aircraft. This is why carrier-capable aircraft like the F/A-18 Hornet have done well in export sales (Australia, Finland, and Switzerland have bought them). The Hornet gives up nothing in performance to its competitors from Lockheed Martin, Dassault-Breguet, Saab, MiG, and Sukhoi. In fact, the new generation of U.S. tactical aircraft, the JSF, may not pay any “structural” penalty at all. Current plans have all three versions (land-based, carrier-capable, and V/STOL) using the same basic structural components, which means that all three should have similar performance characteristics. Not bad for a flying machine that has to lug around the hundreds of pounds of extra structure and equipment that allow it to operate off aircraft carriers.
All of these technologies have brought carrier aircraft to their current state of the art. However, plan on seeing important changes in the next few years. For example, developments in engine technology may mean aircraft with steerable nozzles that will allow for takeoffs and landings independent of catapults and arresting wires. Whatever happens in the technology arena, count on naval aircraft designers to take advantage of every trick that will buy them a pound of payload, or a knot of speed or range. That’s because it’s a mean, cruel world out there these days!
Hand on the Helm: An Interview with Admiral Jay Johnson
Guiding Principals: Operational Primacy, Leadership,
Teamwork, and Pride.
Admiral Jay Johnson, Steer by the Stars
D uring the long history of the U.S. Navy, there have been many inspirational examples of individuals coming out of nowhere at the time of need to lead ships, planes, and fleets on to victory. During the American Civil War, for example, a bearded, bespectacled gnome of an officer named Lieutenant John Worden took a new and untried little ship named the Monitor into battle. When Worden faced the mighty Confederate ironclad ram Virginia at Hampton Roads in 1862, his actions with the Mon itor saved the Union frigate Minnesota, the Union blockade fleet, and General George McClellan’s army from destruction. 14 More importantly, his inspired use of the little turreted ironclad forever changed the course of naval design technology, and made the wooden ship obsolete forever. There are other examples.
A mere half century ago, the
Aircraft Structures: Controlled Crashes
Any combat aircraft is subjected to extraordinary stresses and strains. However, compared with your average Boeing 737 running between, say, Baltimore and Pittsburgh, carrier-capable aircraft have the added stresses of catapult launches and wire-caught landings that are actually “controlled crashes.” That means your average carrier-capable fighter or support aircraft is going to lug around a bit more muscle in its airframes than, say, a USAF F-16 operating from a land base with a nice, long, wide, concrete runway. This added robustness of carrier aircraft (compared with their land-based counterparts) is a good thing when surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft guns are pumping ordnance in their direction. But it also means that carrier aircraft, because of their greater structural weight, have always paid a penalty in performance, payload, and range compared with similar land-based aircraft.
This structural penalty, however, may well be becoming a thing of the past. Today, aircraft designers are armed with a growing family of non-metallic structural materials (composites, carbon-carbon, etc.), as well as new design tools, such as computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) equipment. They have been finding ways to make the most recent generation of carrier aircraft light and strong, while giving them the performance to keep up with the best land-based aircraft. This is why carrier-capable aircraft like the F/A-18 Hornet have done well in export sales (Australia, Finland, and Switzerland have bought them). The Hornet gives up nothing in performance to its competitors from Lockheed Martin, Dassault-Breguet, Saab, MiG, and Sukhoi. In fact, the new generation of U.S. tactical aircraft, the JSF, may not pay any “structural” penalty at all. Current plans have all three versions (land-based, carrier-capable, and V/STOL) using the same basic structural components, which means that all three should have similar performance characteristics. Not bad for a flying machine that has to lug around the hundreds of pounds of extra structure and equipment that allow it to operate off aircraft carriers.
All of these technologies have brought carrier aircraft to their current state of the art. However, plan on seeing important changes in the next few years. For example, developments in engine technology may mean aircraft with steerable nozzles that will allow for takeoffs and landings independent of catapults and arresting wires. Whatever happens in the technology arena, count on naval aircraft designers to take advantage of every trick that will buy them a pound of payload, or a knot of speed or range. That’s because it’s a mean, cruel world out there these days!
Hand on the Helm: An Interview with Admiral Jay Johnson
Guiding Principals: Operational Primacy, Leadership,
Teamwork, and Pride.
Admiral Jay Johnson, Steer by the Stars
D uring the long history of the U.S. Navy, there have been many inspirational examples of individuals coming out of nowhere at the time of need to lead ships, planes, and fleets on to victory. During the American Civil War, for example, a bearded, bespectacled gnome of an officer named Lieutenant John Worden took a new and untried little ship named the Monitor into battle. When Worden faced the mighty Confederate ironclad ram Virginia at Hampton Roads in 1862, his actions with the Mon itor saved the Union frigate Minnesota, the Union blockade fleet, and General George McClellan’s army from destruction. 14 More importantly, his inspired use of the little turreted ironclad forever changed the course of naval design technology, and made the wooden ship obsolete forever. There are other examples.
A mere half century ago, the
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