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Old December 5th 07, 01:19 AM posted to rec.aviation.military.naval
Mike Kanze
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Posts: 114
Default The start of jet operations in US Navy.

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?

Not sure, as I am not a snipe, but ship size would be a definite factor.

Steam cats require beaucoup steam. To operate steam cats and all of the other steam-powered auxiliary equipment - as well as steaming at 30+ knots to assure sufficient wind over the deck and distilling fresh water for the needs of your equipment and the 5,000+ souls who man your carrier - you require a bodacious steam generating capability.

Such capacity needs dictate a rather large ship to host all of this activity. Experience with steam cats also helps greatly. Only the US and France have current steam cat "corporate knowledge" here.

Anyone with better info please step in and enlighten us.


--
Mike Kanze

"Have you ever felt like your patron saint is a man named Murphy?"

- Anonymous

"F Hansen" wrote in message ...
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?