This technique has the potential for future relevance as a range of aircraft carrier navies begin to examine the operation of lighter, uncrewed, aircraft from their ships’ decks. A hybrid launch method which has the potential to substantially increase the performance of lower powered aircraft catapults. Where it gets more interesting, with potential relevance for the configuration of future carriers’ deck layout and equipment, was the demonstration of the novel ‘Carrier Ramp Assisted Take-off’ method: combining a catapult with a ramp of a shallow gradient. Optimal environmental conditions, they also showed that the ramp was no slouchĪnd proved substantial performance improvements over launch from a flat deck Of the aircraft catapult for launching large, heavy, aircraft under less than While the US studies and test programmesĬontinued to demonstrate the broad utility and greater relative effectiveness The experience most V/STOL aircraft operators have On the American experience of simulating and trialing ramp launch ofĬonventional carrier and land-based aircraft. ‘conventional’ aircraft from ‘Ski-Jumps’. There is, however, a less well-known story, focusing on the subsequent workĭone by several other navies to trial and, in some cases, deploy large A well-known lineage of ramp operations for short and/or vertical take-off and landing aircraft stretching into contemporary naval affairs in the British Queen Elizabeth class, Italy’s Cavour and Trieste and the Spain’s Juan Carlos I. This is a story of the aircraft carrier ‘Ski-Jump’ that some casual, and most professional, observers will be loosely aware of. All of these ships, along with a number of other classes of ‘Harrier Carrier’ operated by several other navies, saw considerable operational success with their ‘Ski-Jumps’, operating several generations of the Harrier until 2010. These proved highly successful and led to the addition of 7⁰ ‘Ski-Jumps’ to HMS Invincible and HMS Illustrious and 12⁰ versions on HMS Hermes and HMS Ark Royal. Further development and computer modelling were applied to Taylor’s original ideas by Hawker to produce a full-scale trials programme, conducted at Royal Aircraft Establishment Bedford from 1976-1978. In the UK the Hawker Siddeley Aviation company picked up the idea for use with their Harrier V/STOL aircraft. The concept was first convincingly proposed in Lt Cdr.(Royal Navy) Douglas Taylor’s 1973-4 thesis ‘the operation of fixed wing Vertical/Short Take-off and Landing (V/STOL) aircraft from confined spaces’ and has, in the almost five decades since its publication, continued to draw intense interest. The search for mechanically simpler alternatives has taken many forms, arguably none more prolific and successful than the use of a ramp, commonly described as a ‘Ski-Jump’, to assist with aircraft launch. The operation of ‘conventional’ aircraft, those normally launched from an aircraft carrier using a steam (or more recently electromagnetic) catapult, from ships without this complex deck equipment has long drawn the eye of the major navies.
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