View Single Post
  #6  
Old December 4th 07, 01:27 PM posted to rec.aviation.military.naval
F Hansen
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1
Default The start of jet operations in US Navy.

Ogden Johnson III wrote:
[snip]
OK, they observed good practice in footnoting. They also engaged
in bad writing, and possibly thinking. Their statement you
quoted said 800 airplanes, jets, lost in carrier operations.
Their footnoted statement said that the Navy lost 776 airplanes.
Absent any breakdown, one has to presume that the 776 figure
includes aircraft of all types, jet and prop, lost in all phases
of Navy flight operations, land-based and carrier-based.

I don't have time to research this, but assuming, for ease of
calculation, for 1954 a breakdown of prop vs jet of 50/50, and
an operational breakdown of 50/50 land-based/carrier-based, the
776 is reduced to 338 jets, and further to 194 carrier-based
jets. Left uncalculated is the number of mishaps in
take-off/landing operations, which would be where "carrier
operations" makes a real difference, and enroute travel,
simulated air-to-air combat, simulated air-to-ground, etc.
operations, in which carrier based vs land based makes no
difference. Fixating on a target and flying too low to recover
from your dive is no different vis-a-vis the type of aircraft you
are flying or where you started your flight and intended to end
your flight. It still kills you and breaks the aircraft.

It was a stretch to convert that to 'In 1954 alone, in working to
master jet aviation off carriers, the U.S. Navy lost nearly eight
hundred aircraft' Misleading at best, outright fudging the
numbers to support your postulation at worst.


I agree, given the factors used to break the number down are reasonably
in the ballpark. It would be interesting to see how USAF accident loss
rates compared for the same period, also the total no of planes in
operation for the USN in the period.

While I'm at it: ISTR reading that US and France are the only two
carrier operators using steam catapults with success. If true, is this
due to the size of the carriers or some specific technical challenge
involved?