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Re: Aircraft Carrier in reverse???

Posted by Sammy on Sat Dec 13, 2003 11:46:44 PM

In reply top Re: Aircraft Carrier in reverse??? posted by Tulio on Sat Dec 13, 2003 11:14:15 PM

OK, I got an email from a friend of mine who related that yes in fact the ship was moving backwards. You can tell its going backwards since you are looking at the bow (front) of the carrier with the wake in front of it. The bow is pointed in shape and the rear (fantail) is usually pretty square shaped.

Apparently the USN did a test to see if it were possible to land aircraft on the carrier in a downwind situation. This was due to the fact that with a straight deck carrier they had to move all the planes to the back of the deck in order to launch aircraft and conversely move all the planes on the deck forward when they were recovering them. This flaw in this plan is that a plane couldn't land back on the carrier if it had a problem shortly after take-off.

The test was to decide if it was possible to land the plane back over the bow (downwind). An arrestor cable was temporarily installed up front and the boat was put in reverse. The Yorktown actually reached a speed of 20 kts in reverse!

I guess that it wasn't practicle since it wasn't a procedure that was adopted by the USN.

My friend finished by saying that there is a full story/article on this test in a NAVY Yearbook that he has. He will look it up and pass on the info to me.

Thanks
Sammy


: There is a wake clearly visible, so the ship was moving fo
: rward; I don't know how they can tell that it was moving b
: ackwards? The water in the front, looks to me like the "Ne
: ptune beard" mentioned in Spanish language sea books.
:
: The carrier's aircraft complement is also seen parked by t
: he front end of the landing deck.
:
: Could someone please, put me out of my misery and explain?
:
:
: Thanks!
:
: Tulio, the baffled.

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