WINGS at SEA, Landing a Pusher-Prop on a Postage Stamp....

[xylstra]

A knotty design conundrum! Using some 'imagineering', what if the Curtis XP55 'Ascender' and the Kyushu J7W 'Shinden' went into production and both spawned navalised variants for carrier deployment. The thorny issue of deck landing arises; 3-point tricycle landing gear means the awkward visibilty problem is inherently solved - tick the box and a round of applause! However, another awkward problem (potentially) arises, namely arresting the landing roll. Is a rearward-located tail-hook feasible for a single-engined pusher fighter? Is it even necessary? (this particular question has a huge number of variables associated with; landing-weight, employment of a reversible-pitch propeller, braking effectiveness, etc.). Perhaps a nose-first flexible barrier-fence or even a nose-wheel arrestor cable is the answer - nose-wheel mounted retro-rocket, maybe??
It's interesting that some Japanese carrier-borne aircraft eschewed arrestor hooks in their design. It's also curious as to what the Germans intended for their carrier aircraft, had the Graf Zeppelin not been aborted.
Be interested to hear responses from those with carrier deck operations experience who may care to speculate on the risks of propeller entanglement with wayward arrestor cables (both primary and back-up).

 

[GregP]

There's no issue with fitting an arrestor hook to a tricycle gear airplane, Witness the myriad of tri-gear jets.

That said, most have short landing gear and none of them have a propeller spinning out front. The Tigercat had props, but it also had a nosewheel running interference for the arrestor cables. However, there ARE example of tri-gear airplanes with props out front. It isn't single engine, but the Fairey Gannet has propellers out front of the nose wheel and didn't have any issues.

Granted they were a twin engine and had shorter props than ti would have had if the twin engines had been a single. But it gives you an idea that is was certainly possible.

The Breguet Alize was a very similar airplane, but it had a single turboprop, so we can say a single-engine front prop, tri-gear airplane was possible and practical. Whether or not is was practical in the WWII timeframe is another question.

As for a pusher setup, I do not think a pusher prop with the nosewheel raised at landing attitude would have been practical at ANY time on a carrier due to the prop being VERY close to the runway at touchdown, coupled with the need to raise the arrestor cables so the hook can grab them as it passes them.

 

[MiTasol]

And thrust reverse is going to be almost useless as the time to change from positive to full negative blade angles is too long.

 

[xylstra]

And thrust reverse is going to be almost useless as the time to change from positive to full negative blade angles is too long.

Not necessarily MitaSol: An aircraft landing at say, 90mph will ta distance of about ~130ft/sec. Assuming the pilot immediately engages reverse-pitch upon deck contact a reversible-pitch propeller is considered to provide useful braking thrust throughout the pitch transition phase even though it may take fully 5 seconds to reach the end-stop. in accompaniement with manual braking the reduction in landing roll can be considerable.
See:- Reverse-Thrust Propellers as Landing Brakes on JSTOR
The reversing-time is actually very short in practice. See:- (start watching at about 5min + 30 sec)