Talk:Flight deck

Military history: Aviation / Maritime C‑class

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Aviation C‑class

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C

This article has been rated as C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Disambiguation page

Flight deck is another name for cockpit. I think we need a disambiguation page. Acdx 13:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All that is needed is a simple disambiguatio link at the top of the page linking to Cockpit. - BillCJ 14:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Armored Deck Questions

American carriers had an amoured main ( hangar ) deck, while the Brits had an amoured flight deck but also amoured the sides of the hangar as well ( mainly against shell fire). The British lifts were never amoured as the weight meant they would not have any load at all.This was a weak point as on one occasion in the Med, a bomb did explode inside the hangar after penetrating the lift 222.153.244.134 03:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Sockeye[reply]

I'm not sure where you are getting this from; it is my understanding that the lifts were outwith the hangar at either end, and that there were sliding armoured bulkeads that allowed access between the hangar and the lift. Do you have a source for this? It is possible either that the bomb penetrated the bulkhead, or indeed it was open at the time. Emoscopes ^Talk 09:18, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the negative tone about British carriers, the higher hangar hieght of US Ships was since they would carry spare planes hung from the roof. No planes needing 20ft till after the war. Dont forget the Ark Royal and early Illustrious had two hangar decks as British doctrine was to have a clear flight deck. If it wasnt for the indroduction of the proximity fuse there would have been quite a few more wrecked US carriers during the last year of the Pacific war 222.153.244.134 04:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Sockeye[reply]

The early 3 Illustrious ships had only a single deck. Indomitable had a half-length hangar underneath the main hangar, and the Implacable and Indefatigable had two full-length hangars with restricted clearance in the lower. Emoscopes ^Talk 09:18, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At best, the British carriers can claim equality to their US counterparts - deck armor may have been instrumental (extremely occasionally; the RN only credits one kamikaze defeated to deck armor, that being the famous Formidable hit that's so frequently bandied about as typical of the RN's damage control) in defeating successful kamikaze attacks, but the heavier CAP available to the American ships and better US AAW ships were far better in preventing successful kamikaze attacks in the first place. The 5"/38 DP was by far the best heavy AA gun in the war, Allied or Axis; it fired a heavier shell just as fast as the British 4.5" high-angle. "The bomber will always get through" proved to be false in the Pacific War. Not that it was really that true in the European war either; the success of the Allied bombing campaign had far more to do with superior Allied tactics, the P-51 Mustang and the time-band strategy, before those were developed, Allied bombers (including the B-17 and Avro Lancaster) were being steadily slaughtered by the Luftwaffe. Iceberg3k 16:44, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you about the clear decks, and I have been meaning to address the issue myself. THe fact that the FAA stored all its planes in the hangars, rather than parking at least half of them on the main deck as the USN did, had more to do with the amount of planes carried than which deck was armored, for a given carrier size. I don't know when the FAA began regularly spotting planse on the decks, but ut was at least since the Korean War, esp with thte increasing size of jet aricraft.

The FAA was using deck parks on these ships, and their other carriers, later in the war. It allowed them to carry 60-plus aircraft. Emoscopes ^Talk 18:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The section does dwell a bit too much on the armor question, but there are British historians who agree with what the text states in regards to the issue, as cited in the article. If you can find a verifiable source with an opposing view, then by all means cite it in the text. As to proximity fuses, I assume you mean AA guns. - BillCJ 04:18, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the article, as it stands, is very poor. Rather than an encyclopeadic description of flight decks, it has involved into a heavily biased analytic essay of the merits of US carrier design and detriments of British carrier design. It talks as if all British carriers were armoured carriers, when in fact only the 6 Illustriouss, Implacables and the Indomitable were. It really needs heavily pruned down to the bear bones of the issue, and to get back to what it really should be - an article describing flightdecks in a concise, unbiased and encyclopaedic manner. Emoscopes ^Talk 09:18, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Essex Class American carriers were built with wooden flight decks. From above thr British Deck armor was instrumental in less damages from kamikazes. However in the South Pacific, I believe the British could cook their meals on the deck. Most Essex Class American carriers as the got the post war conversion and an angled deck had the complete flight deck replaced at one time with metal, necessary for the heavier aircraft. The USS Lexington did not get the deck replaced alll at once, was patch work. I believe there was an early to mid 1980's story of the nosewheel of an A-6 Intruder going throught tht flight deck. Modern Super-carriers have metal strenghtened flight decks not armored. The main deck for strength is still the hangere deck. In the hanger deck is 2 spots for 3 sections there are flex joints allowing each section independant movement. Wfoj2 18:50, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The detailed discussion of the benefits/drawbacks is a bit excessive for an article about flight decks in general, so I spun off the comparison into its own article. Anynobody 01:14, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article is Comparison of armoured to unarmoured flight deck designs. Kablammo 15:04, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have to laugh when I hear our US 'cousins' trying to decry the UK armoured flight deck as 'inferior' to the US wooden ones. The UK armoured carriers were designed for operations in the Mediterranean, where they were likely to come into range of land-based enemy aircraft, so the bombs liable to be used against these ships were likely to be heavier than ones carried by carrier-based aircraft. For those thinking that a wooden deck had any superiority over a 3" armoured one then just look at how HMS Illustrious stood up to the repeated attacks that it suffered in that theatre, any one of these attacks would have sunk any US carrier easily. Then there's the BPF's record, where no UK armoured carrier hit by multiple Kamikazes was out of action for more than a few hours, around five/six hours being the longest IIRC. Usually all a Kamikaze did was to leave a large dent in the flight deck, which, when any fires were put out, was then filled with quick-drying cement. At one point, the RN was painting the outline of an additional deck lift (elevator) in the centre of the flight deck to draw-off Kamikazes from the vulnerable US carriers, Japanese pilots having been told to ignore any carrier with two lifts, i.e., UK ones. The fact is, for a US carrier to be hit by a Kamikaze was a disaster, for a UK-one it was merely an inconvenience. The only reason that armoured decks were not used post-war was because the Royal Navy assumed any subsequent major conflict would involve nuclear weapons, and no amount of armour was going to be of any use against them. So if anyone wants to say how 'superior' the US wooden decks were I suggest they ask the US Marines on Okinawa as, at one point, the BPF supplied ALL the air cover for the landings as the US carriers had all either been put out of action by Kamikazes or had 'retired hurt'. Oh, and look at the Illustrious, launched in 1939, and then compare her to the US carriers built immediately after WW II. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.253.10 (talk) 15:20, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I edited the image caption because the image is incorrect. I actually did want to remove it, but thought that a little too bold. Friedman discusses the differences between USN and RN carriers and makes it very clear that it was USN doctrine and their permanent deck park that was the major factor in USN carriers having a much larger aircraft capacity. Roberts and Watton, Anatomy of the ship - Victorious, p9 show that RN armoured carriers could and did carry spare aircraft in their hanger overheads, and Victorious had 23ft of clear height between the deck support beams.Damwiki1 (talk) 08:57, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For the Record

sourced from H.T. Lenton, British and Empire warships of World War II; The Malta class were designed to carry armour;

4.5 inch belt amidships
1 inch flight deck
2.5 inch central strake on main deck and outboard strakes on middle deck
2-3 inch box citadels
3 inch steering gear roof and closing bulkheads
1.5 inch longitudinal bulkheads.

Emoscopes ^Talk 19:49, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Angled and axial deck animations added

To illustrate difficulty/danger of missed approach on straight flight decks and the evolution of the angled flight deck. Anynobody 05:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Brilliant stuff! :) Emoscopes ^Talk 07:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. I was thinking about parking some planes on the Centaur and Nimitz to further illustrate the parking advantage, and tweak the color a tad on the Yorktown so the planes are easier to see. Does this sound like a good idea? Anynobody 07:56, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that's a good idea. Also, perhaps add a fourth animation with a deck barrier up, to prevent the landing aircraft crashing into the parked ones. Perhaps also emphasise on the caption that in the first animation, aircraft can only land or take off, but in the later ones, they can do both at the same time. Emoscopes ^Talk 08:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll work on the suggestions you made (the take off or landing only nature of the axial deck carrier, and the deck barrier). Hopefully I can have something in the next couple of days. The replacements I've uploaded look a bit better than the originals. I also fixed the scaling of the giant Vampire on Centaur.

P.S. Feel free to modify the caption as you see fit. Anynobody 22:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Updated

I'm still trying to figure out a good way to illustrate the deck barrier, but as I type this an idea just occurred to me so I'll try to work it in too. The modern angled deck now shows simultaneous launch/recovery. Anynobody 23:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Physics bug in cvs122ani.gif

It seems rather obvious to me that the parked aircraft should be rotating in the opposite direction than shown on impact. The approaching craft will take the inward pointing wings with it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.64.113.125 (talk) 13:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

USS Princeton (CVL-23) was bombed not hit by kamikaze

See www.dcfp.navy.mil - U.S.S. PRINCETON (CVL-23), BOMB DAMAGE - Battle for Leyte Gulf, October 24, 1944 (LOST IN ACTION) for further info (or the link in the section head). Anynobody 10:39, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Moved hurricane bow to aircraft carrier

Since this article is about the flight deck, I have moved this subsection to the aircraft carrier article. Anynobody 19:59, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Flexible decks needs a source

Realistically making a deck that could absorb all the shock of a jet aircraft hitting it at 100-150 knots without causing damage to the jet sounds like wishful thinking at best. They say a carrier landing (with landing gear) is more of a controlled crash than a landing. Without gear it'd just be crashing. Even if it was possible, handling a plane without landing gear sounds like a pain: One would need a tractor/crane and separate cradle for each aircraft landing. Anynobody 10:35, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't mean it wasn't worth trying out, with early jets landing gear counted for a lot of weight, and it was tried. GraemeLeggett 11:58, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's my point, is there some proof that it was tried? How did they plan on handling aircraft like the E-2, S-2, or A-3? Anynobody 21:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, this statement in the ref you added doesn't give enough specifics, what setbacks are they talking about (damage to the fuselage I'm betting if this did happen):

One of the more unusual ideas was to save weight and cut down landing accidents by having undercarriage-less aircraft. They would be launched by a special catapult and would land on a flexible rubber deck. Trials were even carried out with a mock deck at Farnborough, using Sea Vampire aircraft. After initial setbacks the concept proved practical, but even so, the Admiralty abandoned the idea.

Anynobody 21:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have a printed source (Carrier Aviation: Air Power Directory ed. by David Donald, AIRTime Publishing) that states the angled deck was presented by Capt Dennis Campbell at an Aug 1951 meeting of the Royal aircraft Establishment who were discussing the "flex deck". It seems that with the angled deck, there was no need for the rubber deck, as the angle solved all the problems the rubber deck was attempting to address. I'll try to get a proper quote for it later. - BillCJ 22:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The source was a stopgap found quickly online until i got a chance to get Tony Buttler's British Secret Projects: Jet Fighters Since 1950 out from the library again. GraemeLeggett 08:28, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On the subject of the types of planes to be handled (and this is working from memory) - the idea came from the combination of the expected landing weights (naval aircraft are heavier because of folding wings, stressed airframes etc) and the size of the decks. GraemeLeggett 08:44, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure the mention of "flexible deck" is notable, or maybe just has undue weight. By the way, the US Navy uses the term "flex deck" to describe certain carrier air operations: when aircraft are allowed to return to the carrier to land at flexible times. This is unlike typical cyclic operations wherein aircraft can only recover during specific periods.E2a2j (talk) 12:58, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See linked video here: Rubber deck. The pilot is Eric "Winkle" Brown.

Angle deck revised

I have added some additional info on the development of the angle deck. All additions and changes have been check and referencedJacob805 (talk) 12:34, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Catapults section?

For an article about carrier's flight deck, there is VERY little explanation of the CATOBAR system, which is being used by most of the carriers. Comparisons between Sky-Jump, and Catapults would be helpful. Or at the very least, link to the catapult system's page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.147.21.176 (talk) 05:42, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]