Wrong Plane on Carrier

Suppose you had a WW2 era propeller fighter and tried to land it on a carrier despite it not being meant to land on a carrier at all. Let's suppose it was meant to land on a land strip exactly the same length as the carrier (you can imagine a super long carrier, an Enterprise clone that's just longer if you want).

If it was designed for a longer strip, it would likely overshoot.

So, how would the landing fail? Would it fail in a way with the plane bouncing off the carrier?
 
Depends on the plane?

Hurricanes and Gladiators landed on Glorious at the close of the Norway campaign (although that ultimately ended in tragedy when the twins turned up and sunk her)

A Spitfire on Wasps 2nd club run to Malta had to turn back and land on Wasp after the Aux fuel tank failed to operate.

Pilot Officer Jerrold Alpine Smith managed to land with plenty of deck left - about 5 meters short of the Bow!
 

SsgtC

Banned
Let me count the ways: ramp strike, bolter (not catching a wire), hitting the deck to hard and your gear collapsing, not hitting the deck hard enough and bouncing it, losing control after touching down and hitting the island or going off the deck edge.

Edit: the most common for a pilot not carrier qualified: misjudging the fact that your airstrip is moving away from him

Hmmm... are there any ways for a plane to fail to land on a carrier besides "insufficient runway"?
 
Last edited:
Let me count the ways: ramp strike, bolter (not catching a wire), hitting the deck to hard and your gear collapsing, not hitting the deck hard enough and bouncing it, losing control after touching down and hitting the island or going off the deck edge.

Edit: the most common for a pilot not carrier qualified: misjudging the fact that good aitstrip is moving away from him

Please enlighten me. How does a ramp strike, bolter, and losing control after touchdown work? And what makes these specific to carriers (as opposed to short land strips)? It seems once you hit the deck, you're home free as long as there is enough runway. And why is bouncing only a problem for carrier strips as opposed to pavement?

Oh, I think the last problem is not a problem of the non-carrier plane itself, but the pilot.
 

SsgtC

Banned
A ramp strike is hitting the fantail of the ship due to coming in below the glide path. A bolter is carrier specific, since on land, it's not critical to catch a wire to stop. Hell, most airfields don't even have arresting gear. Going off the deck edge means your plane is going into the ocean after hitting the hull on the way down. You've got about .5 seconds to decide to punch out. And no, you're not home free once you're on deck. Land at the wrong angle, and instead of rolling down there angled deck, you'll go straight down the length of the deck and hit the aircraft parked forward. Bouncing it on landing, your tailhook could grab a wire, and you and your plane get involved in a tug-of-war with a 100,000+ ton ship. Guess who's gonna win?

Please enlighten me. How does a ramp strike, bolter, and losing control after touchdown work? And what makes these specific to carriers (as opposed to short land strips)? It seems once you hit the deck, you're home free as long as there is enough runway. And why is bouncing only a problem for carrier strips as opposed to pavement?

Oh, I think the last problem is not a problem of the non-carrier plane itself, but the pilot.
 
There's more to it than deck length; the carrier is moving into the wind so the while the plane is doing 80kts the wheels are maybe 40kts slower, so the plane only has to stop from 40kts with its brakes. WW2 carriers had a bunch of wires and a crash barrier, there was no doing a bolter in WW2, that's an angled deck thing.
 
A ramp strike is hitting the fantail of the ship due to coming in below the glide path. A bolter is carrier specific, since on land, it's not critical to catch a wire to stop. Hell, most airfields don't even have arresting gear. Going off the deck edge means your plane is going into the ocean after hitting the hull on the way down. You've got about .5 seconds to decide to punch out. And no, you're not home free once you're on deck. Land at the wrong angle, and instead of rolling down there angled deck, you'll go straight down the length of the deck and hit the aircraft parked forward. Bouncing it on landing, your tailhook could grab a wire, and you and your plane get involved in a tug-of-war with a 100,000+ ton ship. Guess who's gonna win?

There's more to it than deck length; the carrier is moving into the wind so the while the plane is doing 80kts the wheels are maybe 40kts slower, so the plane only has to stop from 40kts with its brakes. WW2 carriers had a bunch of wires and a crash barrier, there was no doing a bolter in WW2, that's an angled deck thing.

"Bolter's" happen, see the Corsair here and frankly it has most of the listed 'issues' illustrated:

Randy
 
Suppose you had a WW2 era propeller fighter and tried to land it on a carrier despite it not being meant to land on a carrier at all. Let's suppose it was meant to land on a land strip exactly the same length as the carrier (you can imagine a super long carrier, an Enterprise clone that's just longer if you want).

If it was designed for a longer strip, it would likely overshoot.

So, how would the landing fail? Would it fail in a way with the plane bouncing off the carrier?
I'd think nearly any well-piloted, single-seat WW2 era prop fighter could land on a carrier without a hook, provided two of these three are in place: the carrier is 30+ knot capable, has good WOD, and lastly a crash barrier.
 
Last edited:
I'd think nearly any well-piloted, single-seat WW2 era prop fighter could land on a carrier without a hook, provided two of these three are in place: the carrier is 30+ knot capable, has good WOD, and lastly a crash barrier.

"Nearly" being the key word... Spit on the deck at 7:08 :)

Randy
 

Archibald

Banned
I do know that Curtiss P-40s flew out of carriers transporting them in WWII.

It is a matter of size and weight and landing speed. Just compare a P-40 and a Phantom; let's say, USS Enterprise and USS Nimitz. While the ships didn't grew enormously bigger in overall SIZE (say, deck surface), the aircrafts they carried grew in weight and landing speed astonishingly.

hence it was possible to fly a P-40 out of WWII carrier without a catapult (landing was probably different !) but once jet fighters happened, that kind of trick was dead and buried.

By the way, they should try to land a C-130J aboard Nimitz or Jerry Ford. The carrier is quite bigger than Forrestal, while the C-130 didn't grew much since 1963...
 
Last edited:
Top