Improve That Design: How Aircraft Could Have Been Made Better (Cold-War Edition)

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Well, the RN first began to consider angled landing paths in June 1945, but only formally decided to investigate them in August 1951.

It is hard to determine when the USN first began to consider the idea, but the design of the USS United States in 1946-47 moved the aircraft elevators & catapults to the deck-edges (placing the cats on sponsons) to clear the landing path, and looking at that design it would be easy to ask "what if we removed one of the side catapults and used that for an angled landing path?".

The following is from: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANGLED-DECK AIRCRAFT CARRIER Innovation and Adaptation
Thomas C. Hone, Norman Friedman, and Mark D.Mandeles

The RN began their first tests with a 5.5 degree angle landing path painted on HMS Triumph (a light fleet carrier of 18,000 tons full load displacement, flight deck length 690', flight deck width 80'). These tests were performed 11-15 February 1952.

USS Midway's painted-angle tests were in May 1952, Anteitam's angle deck was fabricated and installed from September 1952 to December 1952.

The Angled Deck contains the following statement from Dennis Campbell, one of the two RN officers credited with originating and developing the angled deck concept:
 

The primary reliability issue was that, with the long feed path from the magazines to the gun breeches in the Crusader, the feed mechanism would freeze if the gun was fired during a high-G turn.



 
1. It was not that big of a deal with prop planes and the first/first-and-a-half generation carrier jet fighters (Banshee & Panther/Cougar).

2. Actually, the USN almost had just what they needed for Korea... if not for Leroy Grumman's stubbornness.

Yes, the USN could have had swept-wing Cougars, with their higher top speed and better maneuverability & improved carrier handling qualities, at the same time it got its first straight-wing Panthers... the first production F9F-2 flew in August 1949, so that's 3 years that could have been saved!

Absolutely agree... long before the USN gave up on that fiasco, engines that actually delivered better performance (J57 etc) were operating... it should have been dropped years earlier, and the newer engines incorporated into the designs.
 

1. The General Electric T58 turboshaft (license-built by Rolls-Royce as the Gnome) powered lots of helos in the 1960s-80s (Hueys, CH-46s, Wessexes, SH-3s/Sea Kings, SH-2 Seasprites, etc). It was first run in 1959, and initially produced 1,050 shaft horsepower (H.1000 model), and 1,250 shp by 1962 (H.1200). The R1820 engines of the Tracker/Tracer/Trader family produced 1,525 horsepower each - which was matched in 1966 by the H.1400 series of T58/Gnome. Concurrently, the P series of T58/Gnome for turboprop engines was also available, in otherwise identical models at the same times.

So by ~1966 the S-2/E-1/C-1 family could have been re-engined with turboprops... and it a 4-blade prop was installed instead of the 3-bladed ones of the piston engines, the same engine power could have produced more performance!


2. The problem was that the Vulcan installation reduced available volume in the nose, which forced the USAF to install a radar which, in the words of a former USN F-4/F-14 pilot I have conversed with, had the performance of a nearsighted man without his glasses. He had done an exchange tour on USAF F-4Es, and said that the AN/APQ-120 radar "could barely detect bombers at the same range that the radar in the F-4B or F-4J could detect single-engine fighters".

The USAF gave up considerable radar performance to get that gun.
 
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The B-47 did get upgraded engines... the early J47-11s in the B-47A/B produced 5,200 lb thrust - by the B-47E they had J47-25A(W)s, which produced 5,970 lb [7,200 lb with water injection for take-off].

The problem with increasing the engine power too much is the same as part of why the B-52 never got the 4 large-diameter tubofans as replacements for its 8 smaller-diameter turbofans in the 1980s... the wings of both aircraft are actually pretty flexible, and the increased thrust on the end off the lever-arms that we call pylons would produce a leading-edge-up twist during take-off, which would not only really screw up take-off handling (and possibly induce a wingtip stall condition before ever leaving the ground), but also severely stress the wing structure with every take-off.
 
From what I found off an online site, 85.5 knots would be the approximate IAS/CAS for 95000 feet at Mach 1
You do realize, don't you, that you're actually travelling a lot faster in actual velocity than 85.5 knots, right? The air density correction between IAS/TAS is HUGE at those altitudes.
so Mach 4 would be 342 kts, which does seem a touch slow. That said, even if your stall speed was 185 to 200 knots that would yield 261.6 to 346.4 knots as a stall speed in theory.
You might want to dig a little deeper on speed relationships in excess of mach 1 at higher altitudes. I believe you'll find there are some non-linearities there.

That said, stall speeds vary with mach number, so...
Yeah, like that...
 
Oops, goof! (Deleted)
Gotta watch those engine model numbers... T58, not T56.

The reason is simple... they are for the USN - to operate from the Essex class CVA/Ss - in 1969-70 6 SCB-27A/125 Essex class CVSs decommissioned, and from 1971-76 1 CVS and 6 CVAs decommissioned - turbopropped ASW/AEW/COD aircraft could have been useful for those, since the E-2/C-2 and S-3 could not operate from them. Note especially that the S-3 Viking did not enter service until 1974, and it was not until ~1978 that the last S-2s retired from operational squadrons aboard USN CV/CVNs!

Then there are (were) the allied navies operating S-2s from much smaller carriers... Canada operated them from HMCS Bonaventure from 1957-70 (to 1990 from land); Australia operated them from 1967-82 from HMAS Melbourne (to 1984 from land); The Netherlands operated them from HNLMS Karel Doorman from 1960-68 (to 1976 from land); Argentina operated them from 1960 (first aboard ARA Independencia, then from 25 de Mayo (ex-Karel Doorman, purchased in 1968) until 1986 (until 2017 on exercises with Brazil from Minas Gerais and from land to current); and Brazil operated them from Minas Gerais from ~1961-2001 (then from land to current).

Several other nations operated S-2s from land, some have turbopropped theirs (Taiwan, as one example, from 1967-2017) and so on.
 
Gotcha, tired brain in the mid shift. Think I'll go see if I can rustle up some midrats, then rack out. BZ.
Me too... need to be up for work in 5 hours!

A note to my above post - only 2 USN supercarriers operated S-2s... CV-62 Independence on her June 1973-Jan 1974 (S-2Es) and July 1974-Jan 1975 (S-2Gs) cruises - and CV-63 Kitty Hawk on her Nov 1973-July 1974 and May-Dec 1975 cruises (S-2Gs all).

Deployments of USS INDEPENDENCE (CV 62)
Deployments of USS KITTY HAWK (CV 63)
 
Well if I recall the contract for the swept wing derivatives weren't F9F's with swept wings like the Cougar, they were different aircraft. The design had went through changes and quickly was called the XF10F, and from there went from a longer slicker F9F aircraft shape (but larger) to a deep-bellied aircraft with variable incidence wings, and eventually variable-sweep wings.

The F9F-6 Cougar largely (there was technically some awareness of the MiG-15 prior to Korea though I'm not sure to what extent it affected USN thinking) took shape during the Korean War with the USN quickly issuing Grumman a contract to make some modified Panthers with swept wings. This managed to all be done by September, 1951.

Yeah, the speed of sound is around 660.1 at around 30000' - 35000' then stays there for awhile, while I know there are areas in the atmosphere where it goes up and down, you're still moving very quickly -- it just gives an idea of how much airflow is going over the plane.

The stall-speed changes with mach number owing to supercritical flow and shockwaves -- the pressure-gradients seem to make it easier for the airflow to separate so the critical AoA lowers. I don't now how stall-speed changes from high subsonic to supersonic, however.
 
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Actually, CalFire is operating a batch of late model S2s as tankers with 1400 HP PT6s (-67s, I think).
My bad! I made that comment based on info from a relative who's a firefighter in CA and thinks he knows a lot about airplanes. Turns out those planes actually have Garrett TPE331s of 1600+ HP.
I've seen a couple videos of CalFire's stoofs in action, but none showing enough engine nacelle detail to disprove my "information". To tell the truth I didn't know the TPEs had gotten that far up the horsepower scale. They used to be such cute little 700 HP screamers.
 

How about a pneumatic or even explosive 9(or even a coil spring!) active seperator A3J going M.3 forward, payload going M.3 (relative) backwards, net 0 a/s--sounds fairly ideal to me....
 

Maybe a case of not having to unlearn what were NOW 'bad habits'?
 

But...it had this minor problem with the wings occasionally falling ogg

Embarrassing....
 


Np Joke. They built one. Bit the DoD didn't seem to like planes that could take off again after ditching....
 
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How about a pneumatic or even explosive 9(or even a coil spring!) active seperator A3J going M.3 forward, payload going M.3 (relative) backwards, net 0 a/s--sounds fairly ideal to me....
It had a "separation charge" that was supposed to eject the entire "stores package" (weapon and aux fuel tanks) out the aft end of the bomb bay. It didn't have enough oomph to reliably clear the slipstream, which was more powerful than had been calculated. On more than one occasion this charge was triggered by the jolt of a catapult launch, ejecting the "package" onto the flight deck. A more powerful charge was deemed unsafe, and by that time submarine launched ballistic missiles were beginning to take over the Vigilante's mission.
 

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