F-111 bombers flying from carriers ?

Remember the famous World War 2 raid when those B-24 bombers were
placed on the USS Hornet and sent to bomb Japan ?

I just got done reading that in 1965 the United States landed C-130
Herculees planes on a US aircraft carrier.

So that got me thinking. I'm not a Navy man or Air Force man, so this
question may sound crazy to some of you, but please at least address
it.

Let's talk hypothetically here. What if, at some point late in the
cold war the United States decided to stage a " Doolittle " type raid
on some country by having a small number of F-111 bombers take off
from a giant Nimitz class carrier. Could it have been done ?

Remember the 1986 raid on Libya ? Our F-111 bombers had to fly about
4,000 miles from their bases in Great Britain.

Or would the F-111 have been too big ? I'm not talking about storing
the planes below the carrier deck, or about having them return to the
carrier and land on it.

But would it have been possible to have a special mission and have
F-111's take off from a carrier ?

"Mike" wrote in message
om...
Remember the famous World War 2 raid when those B-24 bombers were
placed on the USS Hornet and sent to bomb Japan ?

I just got done reading that in 1965 the United States landed C-130
Herculees planes on a US aircraft carrier.

So that got me thinking. I'm not a Navy man or Air Force man, so this
question may sound crazy to some of you, but please at least address
it.

Let's talk hypothetically here. What if, at some point late in the
cold war the United States decided to stage a " Doolittle " type raid
on some country by having a small number of F-111 bombers take off
from a giant Nimitz class carrier. Could it have been done ?


Possibly but why bother ?

Extending strike range are what tankers and in flight refuelling gear
were developed for.

Keith

In article , Mike
wrote:

Remember the famous World War 2 raid when those B-24 bombers were
placed on the USS Hornet and sent to bomb Japan ?

....the "30 seconds over Tokyo" raid.

I just got done reading that in 1965 the United States landed C-130
Herculees planes on a US aircraft carrier.

So that got me thinking. I'm not a Navy man or Air Force man, so this
question may sound crazy to some of you, but please at least address
it.

Let's talk hypothetically here. What if, at some point late in the
cold war the United States decided to stage a " Doolittle " type raid
on some country by having a small number of F-111 bombers take off
from a giant Nimitz class carrier. Could it have been done ?

Why bother when the F-111 could be ariel refueled?

Remember the 1986 raid on Libya ? Our F-111 bombers had to fly about
4,000 miles from their bases in Great Britain.

Thanks to French faggots that wouldn't give us permission to
overfly their precious country. Next time, we should just bomb Paris
and get it over with. Perhaps they would have been more cooprative
if we would have let the Nazis stay there for a few more years.

Or would the F-111 have been too big ? I'm not talking about storing
the planes below the carrier deck, or about having them return to the
carrier and land on it.

The F-111 was supposed to have a Navy version that was carrier ready,
but it never got off the drawing board. It was just too heavy to be
workable. The F-14 ended up doing the job.

The F-111 and C-130 are different kinds of planes. The C-130 is
a prop plane, and it has enough horsepower to do a short field
take-off. It can even be fitted with RATO bottles to help decrease
the take-off distance. The F-111, however, needs to get up to speed
in order to take off, and it takes great deal longer amount of
runway to do so as compared with the C-130. A carrier just wouldn't
be long enough.

But would it have been possible to have a special mission and have
F-111's take off from a carrier ?

Again, it just wouldn't be worth the effort. The only scheme that
I can see is that you would modify a number of F-111's with a beefed
up nose gear, and cat launch it with a near zero fuel load. That
might be light enough to get off of the deck. Once you get airborne,
then you would have to hit a tanker right away. But if you have to
tank anyway, why bother with the carrier?

-john-

--
================================================== ==================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ==================

"Mike" wrote in message
om...

Remember the famous World War 2 raid when those B-24 bombers were
placed on the USS Hornet and sent to bomb Japan ?


They were B-25s.



I just got done reading that in 1965 the United States landed C-130
Herculees planes on a US aircraft carrier.

So that got me thinking. I'm not a Navy man or Air Force man, so this
question may sound crazy to some of you, but please at least address
it.

Let's talk hypothetically here. What if, at some point late in the
cold war the United States decided to stage a " Doolittle " type raid
on some country by having a small number of F-111 bombers take off
from a giant Nimitz class carrier. Could it have been done ?

Remember the 1986 raid on Libya ? Our F-111 bombers had to fly about
4,000 miles from their bases in Great Britain.

Or would the F-111 have been too big ? I'm not talking about storing
the planes below the carrier deck, or about having them return to the
carrier and land on it.

But would it have been possible to have a special mission and have
F-111's take off from a carrier ?


Possible? Sure. The F-111B was intended for the Navy from the start, seven
were finished and it did make a few carrier landings and takeoffs, although
after the Navy had withdrawn from the program. But there's no advantage in
putting a high speed, long-range, air-refuelable strike aircraft on a slow
speed mobile airbase. Just fly 'em there.

"John A. Weeks III" wrote in message
...

The F-111 was supposed to have a Navy version that was carrier ready,
but it never got off the drawing board. It was just too heavy to be
workable. The F-14 ended up doing the job.


It got a bit further than the drawing boaed. Seven F-111Bs were completed
and one did make a few carrier landings and takeoffs.

On 26 Jul 2003 12:42:09 -0700, in rec.aviation.military
(Mike) wrote:

Remember the famous World War 2 raid when those B-24 bombers were
placed on the USS Hornet and sent to bomb Japan ?

B-25 Mitchells, actually. The B-24 Liberator was just a bit too large for
carrier operations.

I just got done reading that in 1965 the United States landed C-130
Herculees planes on a US aircraft carrier.

A Marine KC-130 aboard FORRESTAL (CV-59).

So that got me thinking. I'm not a Navy man or Air Force man, so this
question may sound crazy to some of you, but please at least address
it.

Let's talk hypothetically here. What if, at some point late in the
cold war the United States decided to stage a " Doolittle " type raid
on some country by having a small number of F-111 bombers take off
from a giant Nimitz class carrier. Could it have been done ?

Remember the 1986 raid on Libya ? Our F-111 bombers had to fly about
4,000 miles from their bases in Great Britain.

Or would the F-111 have been too big ? I'm not talking about storing
the planes below the carrier deck, or about having them return to the
carrier and land on it.

But would it have been possible to have a special mission and have
F-111's take off from a carrier ?

Highly unlikely. The F-111 was much too heavy for the carrier catapult gear, and
could not attain flight speed on a runout.

"IBM" wrote in message

William Hughes wrote in
:

[snip]

Highly unlikely. The F-111 was much too heavy for the carrier
catapult
gear, and could not attain flight speed on a runout.

Didn't the original F-111 concept include a naval version?

It did. The F-111B had some significant differences from the Air Force
version, though, including the landing gear and associated structural
bulkheads. Attempting to cat-shoot an Air Force F-111 without the naval
version's landing gear (but assuming the minimum mods to fit a hold-back
linkage to hook it up to the catapult at all) would probably have
unfortunate effects.

The F-111B also had extended wings and tail. These may have reduced the
required catapult end-speed, though I suspect they were mainly needed to
reduce landing speed. In any case, it's another potential problem for
launching the regular F-111 off a carrier.

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
special about bravery." -- Andy Rooney (attributed)

"Mike" wrote in message
om...
Remember the famous World War 2 raid when those B-24 bombers were
placed on the USS Hornet and sent to bomb Japan ?

I just got done reading that in 1965 the United States landed C-130
Herculees planes on a US aircraft carrier.

So that got me thinking. I'm not a Navy man or Air Force man, so this
question may sound crazy to some of you, but please at least address
it.

Let's talk hypothetically here. What if, at some point late in the
cold war the United States decided to stage a " Doolittle " type raid
on some country by having a small number of F-111 bombers take off
from a giant Nimitz class carrier. Could it have been done ?

Presumably so as the F-111 was going to be used as a carrier aircraft. Note
that F-111's have tail hooks. Australian air aircraft still have them
although the pilots aren't trained for it.

To quote an un-named F-111 expert "Yes, you could land an (Australian) F-111
on a carrier *ONCE* as the stresses would probably ground the aircraft
forever more". Of course, until it is done we'd never know..........

Remember the 1986 raid on Libya ? Our F-111 bombers had to fly about
4,000 miles from their bases in Great Britain.

Could simply do air-to-air refueling.

Or would the F-111 have been too big ? I'm not talking about storing
the planes below the carrier deck, or about having them return to the
carrier and land on it.

The idea was to use them as carrier aircraft...

But would it have been possible to have a special mission and have
F-111's take off from a carrier ?

Probably in a "Doolittle" situation. I'm sure you could fit some JATO/RATO
equivalents if need be, remember the Doolittle raid was essentially a one
way trip.

--
The Raven
http://www.80scartoons.co.uk/batfinkquote.mp3
** President of the ozemail.* and uunet.* NG's
** since August 15th 2000.

"The Raven" wrote in message
...

Presumably so as the F-111 was going to be used as a carrier aircraft.
Note
that F-111's have tail hooks. Australian air aircraft still have them
although the pilots aren't trained for it.


I'm sure Australian F-111 pilots are trained to use the tailhook, just as
their USAF counterparts were. USAF tactical aircraft have been equipped
with tailhooks for quite some time. I imagine the F-111B tailhook was a bit
more substantial than that on the F-111A/D/E/F/G though.



To quote an un-named F-111 expert "Yes, you could land an (Australian)
F-111
on a carrier *ONCE* as the stresses would probably ground the aircraft
forever more". Of course, until it is done we'd never know..........


The scenario presented here doesn't include landing on the carrier, just
launching from it.

On 27 Jul 2003 03:18:01 GMT, in rec.aviation.military IBM wrote:

William Hughes wrote in
:

[snip]

Highly unlikely. The F-111 was much too heavy for the carrier catapult
gear, and could not attain flight speed on a runout.

Didn't the original F-111 concept include a naval version?

It did, but it turned out to be a pig - too big, too heavy and totally unsuited
for it's intended mission.