Guy Alcala wrote:

Certainly. I'll have to use the figures for the PBJ-1H, essentially the
marine version of the B-25H. With a bombload of 6 x 500 lb bombs plus the
75mm cannon and ammo, at a t/o weight of 35,106 lb. (considerably heavier
than Doolittle's B-25Bs), the t/o runs are as follows (note, this is for a
field not a carrier deck):

0 wind, 1495 feet.
15 knots, 1064 feet.
25 knots, 813 feet.

Nice of you to use a version that's almost 7000 pounds heavier.

Please note that the Hornet was worked up to just about full speed, i.e.
30+ knots, and there was a considerable natural wind blowing when Doolittle
& Co. took off.

Glad it wasn't an unnatural wind. But so what? From what I remember
they were anticipating and trained based on about 40 knots over the
bow when they took off. That they got more was a bonus.


In point of fact, the Navy conducted flight tests using a slightly
modified P-51D (I think) on USS Shangrila in 1944. The plane was
easily able to take off using the same space as Navy fighters

And how, pray tell, was it able to "take off using the same space as a navy
fighter," when (even assuming the '1,185 ft.' figure for the P-51D's t/o
run given in "America's Hundred Thousand," is _not_ a typo) the
contemporary F6F-5 and F4U-1D only required t/o runs under the same
conditions of 780 ft. (405 feet less than the P-51D) and 840 feet (345 feet
less) respectively?


Apparenttly very easily. If you read the rest of the report you quote
below it mentions that they had deck left when they lifted on all the
takeoffs.

and no
catapult and easily landed using a hook fitted for the tests. The
results were quite favorable but not compelling enough to continue.

'Quite favorable' is an interesting way of putting it. Eric Brown's
comments are rather different:

"Landing the Mustang required concentration, for at an approach speed of
105 mph the view was bad, and high-rebound ratio landing gear made a
three-point landing tricky, This state of affairs was exacerbated by the
aircraft's lack of directional stability, on the landing run. The U.S.
Navy abandoned the Mustang's deck-landing trials on an aircraft carrier for
these reasons."

It just shows you're taking material out of context. The problems
were because they had made so few modifications for the initial tests.
Had they continued, modified landing gear and modified tail were among
the anticipated changes.

The view was bad, but certainly no worse than the Corsair. And until
strut changes were made to the Corsair it had the same bouncing
problems.

And tests were not abandoned because of poor results. The results were
quite good. They were abandoned because the P-51 did not show any
significant advantage over the naval aircraft it would have replaced.

All of which makes the later Corsair sound like a great deck-landing a/c by
comparison.

Why should it? The Corsair was notorious for bad visibility during
landing.

But what, exactly, does this digression have to do with the
ability of a P-47 to make a non-catapult take off from a Casablanca or
Bogue class CVE that's only allows roughly half the t/o run, and is 15
knots slower than the Shangri-La?

P-51's were mentioned in the discussion and you posted those
meaningless numbers which had nothing to do with getting a plane off
of a carrier..

Scott Peterson

--
Despite the cost of living, have you
noticed how it remains so popular?

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