Hello, Von Frag.
Senri Nagasue, a former B5N attacker pilot, explains in
his website like follows.
About the operation of the aircraft carrier. (dated 29 Oct 2003)
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When a mother ship launches planes, she sets direction facing to the wind so that she can gain the resultant wind speed of 15 meters per second.
Even the lightest plane (*biplane?) needs 18 meters to run on the flight deck. Torpedo attackers need more than 100 meters to run. If you may see a plane falls a little soon after it has passed the front edge of the flight deck, that is because it has raised the flap a little too early.
For planes homing, the mother ship raises a streamer to the mast half. This is a signal telling "we are under preparation (to gain the necessary resultant wind speed)". She veers against the headwind to gain the resultant wind speed of 15 meters/sec. When the actual wind speed is 5 meters/sec, mother ship needs 20 knot. Then, she raises the streamer to the mast top together with other signal flags like black ball, 1 and 5. This is a sign "We are ready". If you may have chances to watch footage, it will be fun for you to find out such flags on the mast.
Why the resultant wind speed must be 15 meters/sec? The highest speed a mothership can generate is different by each ship and if aircraft pilot was asked to change his landing speed ship by ship, he would be confused and placed in more risky conditions. Therefore, the resultant wind speed is unified to 15 meters/sec so that pilots can control the take-off and landing under the same conditions. Adjusting mother ship speed relies on the anemometer and may occur some extent of error but the standard resultant wind speed is always 15 meters/sec.
In case of the training on the land which includes the night flight training, As the wind speed changes, the path angle of the landing guidance lights is set from 4.5 to 5.5 degrees. In case of the carrier base, it is 6.5 degrees based on the wind speed 15 meters/sec as mentioned. Reference angles of the landing guidance lights for the wind speed are 4.5 degrees for 0 to 4 meters/sec. 5 degrees for 5 to 7 meters/sec. 5.5 degrees for 8 to 10 meters/sec. 6 degrees for 11 to 13 meters/sec. and 6.5 degrees for 14 to 16 meters/sec.
Multiple carriers are to cruise to the same direction at the same speed in the same fleet and there are no trouble among them.
by Senri Nagasue - a former B5N pilot
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This good image is from
other source. It says time interval among planes is estimated 3.4 seconds.