AHC - Smallest carrier possible with ability to operate F/A 18

[DD951]

Sort of a combination of all of the above. You needed a more powerful catapult, stronger elevators, improved arresting gear, and a host of other improvements.

The Bug at full load is somewhat lighter than the A-3B, and the Skywarrior operated from the Oriskany, but it also was a much slower aircraft, not just at the top end of the envelope, but at the bottom as well. The A-3B stalled at 130mph, the Bug stalls at 195. The difference in energy transfer to the arrestor gear is enormous, and the same goes for the extra energy needed to get the beast into the air with enough speed to keep the pilot from having to take a swim.

Probably the biggest issue was the simple fact that the older ships were conventionally powered. The Navy dislikes conventionally powered carriers for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest is flight operation performance. Even the JFK, which was the last conventional powered CV the USN built, used to lose 6-8 knots of speed while conducting flight operations due to steam diversion to the catapult system. The boilers couldn't generate enough steam for both flight ops AND full speed screw revolutions at the same time (obviously nuclear reactors don't have the same sort of limitations). The problem was even worse with the older Essex and Midway hulls.

Thanks- was kind of wondering about it, since I haven't really seen a clear explanation of that issue before.

Pretty much sounds like that in order to operate the Hornet from an Essex, a major reconstruction of the carrier would be necessary (probably closer to the modernization of Victorious than anything else), which is an awful lot of money & effort to invest in what would be a 40+ year old hull at the time, & if the powers that be really wanted a small carrier like that (in itself a questionable choice for the USN, though it could make sense for other western navies with carriers or aspirations to gain/regain that capability) they'd be better off just building a new 'CVL' from the keel up.

 

[Riain]

Or design a small aircraft, the Crusader proved that a supersonic fighter with some all-weather capability was possible in the 50s and 60s, which makes it possible in the 70s and 80s.

 

[Dayton Kitchens]

Depends what you mean "operate".

The book "Modern Warplanes" from the early 1990s actually shows F/A-18s taking off from a ski jump with no catapult assist meaning they MIGHT be capable of flying from so called "Harrier carriers".

But just because a Hornet could take off from such a carrier does not mean that

1) They could land on such a small flight deck. Big problem.

or

2) That they could take off with a useful payload. It is possible they could only use a ski jump to get airborne with light fuel loads and minimum armament.

 

[DD951]

Or design a small aircraft, the Crusader proved that a supersonic fighter with some all-weather capability was possible in the 50s and 60s, which makes it possible in the 70s and 80s.

That too, though the Crusader didn't have all that much in air-to-ground capability, & was kind of short ranged, plus couldn't carry the radar needed to deal with the threat of Soviet bombers & the big AShM's they carried.

Though someone could have made a lot of money back in the '60s had they been able to build an airplane that combined the supersonic speed & air-to-air capability of the Crusader & the strike capabilities of the Skyhawk in a package that could operate off the smaller carriers like Hermes & Clemenceau. Not aware of any unbuilt US designs or proposals that could have done that, but maybe there's an unbuilt British or French design from that era which would have been able to fill that niche....

 

[Riain]

I do love pictures.



Of course these were slap-up things, there was little to no bomb sighting and aiming gear, even of the type an A4 had. The serious limitations of the F8 in the 70s stem from its early 50s origins as the first supersonic (generous, transonic might be better) fighter. An aircraft designed as a lightweight multirole carrier aircraft in the early 70s would suffer much less limitations.

 

[NothingNow]

Not just the trick nosewheel, also the extra 6000lb or so of extra thrust from the Speys was needed to operate from the 150' and 199' catapults on the Ark Royal with any weaponload. Another trick the F4K did that USN did not was have a heavy bring back capability, it could land with considerably more unused ordnance than USN Phantoms because the magazines on the Ark were considerably smaller as was the fleet train.

All of which would kinda prove my point, since the F-4K is in a lot of ways a closer comparison to the Hornet's performance than the USN F-4.

Though someone could have made a lot of money back in the '60s had they been able to build an airplane that combined the supersonic speed & air-to-air capability of the Crusader & the strike capabilities of the Skyhawk in a package that could operate off the smaller carriers like Hermes & Clemenceau. Not aware of any unbuilt US designs or proposals that could have done that, but maybe there's an unbuilt British or French design from that era which would have been able to fill that niche....

Something along the lines of the Viggen would be perfect I think. Now, the issue would be getting the UK or France to build such a beast. Or getting the French to decide in the early 60's that the Mirage F1 really ought to be carrier capable, and a suitable replacement for the disappointing Étendard IV, which should then be available in the early 70's.

There was also the Northrop N-156NN that led to the T-38 and F-5, but I doubt you could've made a truly capable multi-role version then. Building it so that you have maximum commonality between the dedicated fighter and strike variants OTOH should be doable, since that'd just mean a different electronics fit and likely nose. Kinda like what went on with the different versions of the MiG-23 at first.

 

[Archibald]

. Or getting the French to decide in the early 60's that the Mirage F1 really ought to be carrier capable

It nearly happened, in the first half of the 70's. But Foch and Clemenceau were just too small to field both attack and interceptor aircrafts in sufficient numbers, and Navy commander Alexandre Sanguinetti decided in favour of more attack aircrafts plus air defence mission transfered to frigates. That's the main reason why the Crusaders were not replaced.
Re-red Red Storm Rising: Tom Clancy had it perfectly right.
Bluntly: what can EIGHT CRUSADERS do against hundred of soviet antiship missiles ?
I mean, there was no room for anything like a Tomcat on French carriers, and that was not considered a problem because, in case of war, they would patrolled jointly with US carriers and their Tomcat protective screen. The rest of the time (Lebanon, 1983, or out of the African coast) missile frigates were to protect the carriers. That was the philosophy.

As for the modernized Crusader - it's one of these great missed opportunities. Even a J-79 would have resulted in a great boost.
Vought V-1000 anybody ?

 

[Riain]

I hadn't given it much thought, but it comes as a bit of a surprise to see how much carrier is needed to operate the F/A 18; basically USN carriers from Midway onwards, the 2 RN Audacious class and the Charles de Gaulle. The only other conventional carrier aircraft built since the 50s is the Super Etendard, and this is very limited in comparison.

This means all AH idea on keeping conventional carriers in service fall over because of a lack of aircraft. It's a double whammy, a navy wanting to get an ex-RN carrier would be saddled with keeping it going as well as developing a better aircraft, too much for pretty much every candidate.

 

[La Rouge Beret]

This is rather fascinating so... what about a Navalised F-16?

I am interested in seeing what would be the most capable aircraft capable of being launched from a Hermes sized carrier?

Alternatively, would a smaller Navy be almost required to have nuclear propulsion in order to have sufficient wind over the deck and launch aircraft?

 

[Riain]

Its not so much the engine, although nuclear propulsion is a great steam generator for both engines and catapults, as the bulk needed to have catapults powerful enough to launch a Hornet.

An F16N would be too light to slam onto a carrier, it would break in half.

 

[Matt Wiser]

The Navy rejected a navalized F-16 for two reasons: weak landing gear, and their preference for two engines. This despite Congressional pressure to buy the same airframe that won the AF Lightweight Fighter Contract (which became the F-16). California and Missouri beat out Texas in this one....Northrop and McAir beat out General Dynamics.

 

[Dayton Kitchens]

Ironic though that a navalized F-117A is not only possible but not that difficult.

Easy enough that I've heard that some tests were done with existing F-117As flying from U.S. carrier decks.

 

[Matt Wiser]

A naval F-117 was rejected due to the effects of salt air on the aircraft's surfaces. The Navy would've found out the hard way that the A-12 would've had similar issues.

 

[DD951]

I hadn't given it much thought, but it comes as a bit of a surprise to see how much carrier is needed to operate the F/A 18; basically USN carriers from Midway onwards, the 2 RN Audacious class and the Charles de Gaulle. The only other conventional carrier aircraft built since the 50s is the Super Etendard, and this is very limited in comparison.

This means all AH idea on keeping conventional carriers in service fall over because of a lack of aircraft. It's a double whammy, a navy wanting to get an ex-RN carrier would be saddled with keeping it going as well as developing a better aircraft, too much for pretty much every candidate.

Yeah, pretty much seems like it, as for the smaller navies to keep their CTOL carrier capability once the likes of Crusaders & Skyhawks become obsolete and/or worn out, and/or the likes of WW2-vintage RN hulls wear out, it'd either require a whole series of PODs so that the countries in question make the different policy choices & have the improved budgetary situations needed to upgrade to something at least the size of Midway, Audacious, or CdG, [or in the case of the RN, keep them], or have someone develop a new carrier-capable, modern, high-performance fighter-bomber capable of operating off of a small carrier like a Centaur, though unless such a plane existed among the myriad of British projects that got killed off in the late 1950s, I don't know where that would be coming from.

Seems kind of telling how few countries managed to pull that off, and the French & Brazilian efforts involved keeping ships & planes well past their best-by date in the process.

 

[DD951]

This is rather fascinating so... what about a Navalised F-16?

I am interested in seeing what would be the most capable aircraft capable of being launched from a Hermes sized carrier?

Alternatively, would a smaller Navy be almost required to have nuclear propulsion in order to have sufficient wind over the deck and launch aircraft?

Adapting planes that started life as land-based designs to carrier operation doesn't tend to work out that well.

If we're talking about historical aircraft, then the most capable fighters that could operate from Hermes would probably be the Sea Vixen or Crusader with the mods the French had done, & on the attack side, the Buccaneer.

Nuclear power might not be necessary- the problem with conventional steam powerplants is that diverting steam to feed the catapults takes too much from the turbines, causing the ship to slow unacceptably, but, at least in theory, one could avoid that in a non-nuclear ship that uses gas turbines to drive the ship, & has a couple steam boilers for the cats- a Tico/Sprucan gas-turbine plant cranks out 80,000 shp on 2 shafts, & a Burke 100,000 shp (for comparison, CdG has about ~83,000 SHP from what I've been able to find through google)

 

[Riain]

Yeah, pretty much seems like it, as for the smaller navies to keep their CTOL carrier capability once the likes of Crusaders & Skyhawks become obsolete and/or worn out, and/or the likes of WW2-vintage RN hulls wear out, it'd either require a whole series of PODs so that the countries in question make the different policy choices & have the improved budgetary situations needed to upgrade to something at least the size of Midway, Audacious, or CdG, [or in the case of the RN, keep them], or have someone develop a new carrier-capable, modern, high-performance fighter-bomber capable of operating off of a small carrier like a Centaur, though unless such a plane existed among the myriad of British projects that got killed off in the late 1950s, I don't know where that would be coming from.

Seems kind of telling how few countries managed to pull that off, and the French & Brazilian efforts involved keeping ships & planes well past their best-by date in the process.

When it comes to performance aircraft design peaked in the early 60s, nothing is faster than an SR71 and a Hornet does the same speed as a Crusader. The big problems are maintainability and electronic capability, and the electronics can be drastically upgraded if the political will is there. Little New Zealand did a major upgrade of their A4s in the 80s which gave them viability in the regional sense up until 2000 or so, any Skyhawk or Crusader operator or better yet group of operators could do the same. However there is a definite end point to all of this, about the mid 90s, at which point everyone has to build something like CdG to operate the Hornet or get out of the CTOL game.

 

[Archibald]

Yeah, pretty much seems like it, as for the smaller navies to keep their CTOL carrier capability once the likes of Crusaders & Skyhawks become obsolete and/or worn out, and/or the likes of WW2-vintage RN hulls wear out, it'd either require a whole series of PODs so that the countries in question make the different policy choices & have the improved budgetary situations needed to upgrade to something at least the size of Midway, Audacious, or CdG, [or in the case of the RN, keep them], or have someone develop a new carrier-capable, modern, high-performance fighter-bomber capable of operating off of a small carrier like a Centaur, though unless such a plane existed among the myriad of British projects that got killed off in the late 1950s, I don't know where that would be coming from.

Seems kind of telling how few countries managed to pull that off, and the French & Brazilian efforts involved keeping ships & planes well past their best-by date in the process.

The ideal aircraft would have a single turbofan, one and two seat variants, a swept wing or VG. It would be supersonic yet it would have to land at speeds well below 140 kt. Oh, and it also should be able to carry a lot of air-to-ground ordonnance.
I can't see a lot of aircrafts corresponding to that.
- Vought V-1000
- Saab Viggen
- Mig-23
- Mirage F1 with the M53 (and not the Atar)

Prototype-wise, Dassault had a better aircraft than the F1, the Mirage G. It had a licence-build TF-30 with 10 tons of thrust, two seats, and it landed at 116 kt.
http://aama.museeairespace.fr/typo3temp/pics/46aa1e7904.jpg
Before the Mirage G was the Mirage F2: the F1 bigger brother and somewhat a fixed wing Mirage G.
http://aama.museeairespace.fr/typo3temp/pics/26e17f654e.jpg

 

[La Rouge Beret]

This is entirely right so we are after an aircraft to be able to launch from a clapped out WW - 2 era light fleet carrier or you are designing a plane to launch from a new carrier.

As for the F - 16 I am aware of the limitations, however it was designed in the United States home to some of the greatest engineers in the world. Surely, they can find a solution for this.. one would hope.

Which is a big ask for a small Navy considering we are not even talking about the tanker to keep the carrier underway. The updated shooters to provide the outer and inner screens against the Submarine and Air threat.

Sounds like the Japanese Maritime Self Defence force has a carrier in this scenario...

My thoughts would be the only way this would work would be in a world where medium powers have a greater commitment for independent action or a larger threat from the Communist bloc.

 

[Riain]

The F35's greatest dimensions were set by the lift size on the HMS Invincible, because it was expected to enter service on this ship class. Considering how easy it was for medium navies to ditch their carriers trying to build both a new carrier and a new aircraft in the same timeframe is virtually ASB.

 

[La Rouge Beret]

Yeah which is the conclusion I am reaching is if a medium power navy wanted to retain a fixed wing capability, it could only do so through a V/STOL platform.

Which in the 70's there were a few differing options, including a modified Kidd class from memory in addition to the RN Invincible class.