GreenKnight121
Senior Airman
- 723
- Mar 16, 2014
It was. The Brits had been doing it for awhile before USN adopted it, and initially there was resistance from the flight crew community. The idea of approaching a flight deck that was continually sliding sideways of the approach path, the disturbance of flying through the "burble" (stack gasses) on short final in an early axial flow jet (kind of fussy about smooth intake flow), and only having four wires instead of thirteen didn't give them warm, fuzzy feelings.
Naturally, the possibility of a bolter was a lot more attractive than flying into the barrier, but it required a major change in long established habits. Instead of chopping throttle at the ramp and dropping into the wires, they had to keep the engine spooled up in case of a bolter, which encouraged floating and punished keeping a little extra airspeed margin "for safety". It was counter-intuitive to firewall the throttle crossing the fantail when the intent was to land. It became more critical than ever to cross the fantail on speed, on glide slope, on centerline, and with the proper hook-to-eye value. Only 18-24 inches height difference at the fantail separated a ramp strike/one wire from a four wire/bolter.
Fortunately, the mirror landing system came into existence about the same time (Brits again), making it somewhat easier to achieve the necessary precision.
To those who had to do it, yes, it was a big deal.
Cheers,
Wes
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
In his memoir, Captain (later Rear Admiral) Cambell notes that he mentioned the angled-deck concept to a delegation of U.S. Navy officers in September 1951. As he recalls, "they said very little, but . . . they exchanged significant looks. A few weeks later we heard . . . that the USN were already planning to angle the flight deck of the carrier Midway, for a preliminary trial."
In his Wings on My Sleeve, test pilot Eric Brown noted that he had been directed by his superiors to take "with me details of a new idea to revolutionize carrier-deck landing" when he joined the U.S. Navy's test pilots at the NATC in late summer 1951. Harold Buell, who commanded Fighter Squadron 84 on Antietam (CV 36) in early 1953, later remembered that Brown's espousal of the angled deck did not immediately gain support at the NATC, because Brown "was talking of only a four-degree deck angle, which would drastically limit the number of aircraft on a carrier deck during flight operations. . . . However, the idea sparked further thinking, and when the angle was increased to eight degrees . . . , it was decided to test the concept further."
Preliminary tests in the spring of 1952 with an angled deck painted on Midway's axial flight deck were so promising that the U.S. Navy began converting Antietam to an angled-deck configuration in late summer that same year. In January 1953, tests at sea on Antietam were successful, and Carrier Air Group 8 spent just over two months learning how to use the new deck configuration during exercises off Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
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:
However, neither the news about the USN's intention to modify the Midway nor the results of the satisfactory trials in the Triumph persuaded the Admiralty to take any action other than to agree that the new scheme would be considered for fitting into the design of a new generation of Fleet Carriers (which, in fact, were never built).
Then in May 1953 the USS Antietam came upon the scene. The USN, whose Midway trials had been similar to ours in the Triumph, had done a quick-fix modification to this carrier, one of the Essex class. Limited structural alterations had been prefabricated ashore and were installed in record time.
As a quid pro quo for the fact that the idea was of British origin, and apparently because they knew the Admiralty were dragging their feet, the USN offered to send over the Antietam to give a demonstration of the new technique. Which offer was gratefully accepted, and the ship spent a week operating in the Channel, with the RN pilots participating. Lewis and I were specially invited on board, and were presented to all concerned as the two inventors. The success of this visit persuaded the Admiralty that retrofit action should be started forthwith.