Late 1960's USN Fletcher-class 'Harrier Carrier' concept

PMN1 said:
How about this for foldaway......

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Transformers, ROLL OUT! :p

Brown was right about the maintenance spaces. CAM Hurricanes were one and done unless the launch was so close to shore that the pilot could get back, so maintenance wasn't relevant. I can see a place for a small ship being able to refuel a Harrier and refill the gun pods - maybe even put a couple of Sidewinders on the wing racks - if it couldn't quite make it back to the CV or find an airborne tanker, but against this you're balancing the loss of range inherent in pure VTOL takeoff over rolling/catapult/ski jump, and you might not get that much extra out of it.
 
I doubt that it would have been a successful conversion. The Fletcher class weighs in at around 2000 tons. The ship is pretty lively for one handling aircraft of any sort. That would indicate that stabilizers would have to be fitted. That in turn means some rearrangement of the machinery spaces.
Then you need fuel and magazines along with at least some basic maintenance space to support the aircraft. Add in fueling pumps, start stations, and other equipment needed to handle the Harriers, and you are likely to find there simply isn't enough space on the hull to do everything and adding superstructure to house it would create additional instability.
The WW 2 Fletcher class could barely support a catapult and floatplane.

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I'd add that the width and heigh above waterline of the flightdeck would be additional issues.

Then, going to all this effort to put Harriers aboard and not upgrading the various weapons and sensors (other than those needed for flight operations which would have to be installed in any case) would make the Harrier version kind of worthless.

I'd assume that helicopters could be an alternate on such a ship, and at that time that means ASW capacity needing the ship to get a much better sonar suite along with some NTDS capacity to make use of the helo's.

On the whole, this idea is too much upgrade to too little ship. Even the Gearing class couldn't handle a small ASW helicopter like the SH-2 Seasprite on about a thousand more tons of hull.
 
Agreed. I even have some questions about the scale of the drawing. I think Harrier is bigger relative to the ship than the drawing suggests.
 
Considering Chakri Naruebet and even Garibaldi are considered by some to be too small to be effective operating Harriers how can anyone seriously contemplate a single Harrier on a WWII vintage destroyer?

I should specify that I like small carriers but only one or two aircraft is ridiculous.
 
TomS said:
Agreed. I even have some questions about the scale of the drawing. I think Harrier is bigger relative to the ship than the drawing suggests.
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That second drawing in particular. It looks like there's an SPS 39 3D radar ahead of the second stack. That's a pretty large radar. The two SPG 51 looking radars just ahead of the flight deck are definitely not to scale either--although I can't figure out why they're even on the ship given you'd need a tartar launcher or two to use them...
 
T. A. Gardner said:
TomS said:
Agreed. I even have some questions about the scale of the drawing. I think Harrier is bigger relative to the ship than the drawing suggests.
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That second drawing in particular. It looks like there's an SPS 39 3D radar ahead of the second stack. That's a pretty large radar. The two SPG 51 looking radars just ahead of the flight deck are definitely not to scale either--although I can't figure out why they're even on the ship given you'd need a tartar launcher or two to use them...
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Looks like the back end of a C.F. Adams instead of a Fletcher, honestly.
 
David Chessum said:
A few years back a company built a device that they mounted on an oil rig support ship - it basically extended a long gangway, the end of which was completely stabilised in 3 dimensions while the ship bounced around underneath it. The idea was that they would put the end of the gangway onto the oil rig, and personnel could simply walk between the ship and the oil rig - it was much quicker, cheaper and safer than transferring them by helicopter, and could be done in much rougher seas.
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It's called active compensation, and it was a big deal when the technology was developed to the point where it worked with a ship maintaining position relative to a fixed platform (or a fixed point in the ocean). Making it work between a moving ship and a moving aircraft is a much more complex problem.

As I noted, it probably can be done today, though it would be big and complicated. With the technology available in the 1980s, it was almost certainly impossible.
 
For convoy protection it's better to put a few Tartar and director in place of a couple 5" mounts. One would need only a small number of missiles to down or scare away a patrol bomber.
A small flight deck with a retractable hangar on a Fletcher could carry a DASH or two. The camera-equipped variant could have been useful to patrol in place of helicopters.
 
Pioneer said:
Here's a really interesting account I found on Project Terminated, by Ronnie Serrano:

'... a couple drawings were done by Pierre Mion for the U.S Navy in the late-1960s which shows using converted Fletcher-class destroyers into makeshift "Harrier Carriers". The plan at the time is to convert the older Fletchers into small carriers to house at the time proposed AV-8A Harriers for use in roles such as convoy protection, anti-shipping/submarine, fleet protection, and amphibious assault roles. The modified Fletchers would carry 1-2 AV-8A Harriers in which they can be rearmed and refuel at any point in time. Also, the Harrier Carriers still had fighting capability with them retaining some of their armament such as their MK-30 127mm cannons. However, while the concept had potential in which the proposal could be done with little problem, the U.S Navy had little interest in the concept and it was later abandoned.'

Does anyone else have anything on these 'Fletcher-class Harrier Carrier' concepts?

Regards
Pioneer
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I just noticed another thing about both drawings. A Harrier is about 50 feet long--47 and change. A Gearing or Fletcher class DD is about 40 feet wide. So, if a Harrier were sitting across the flight deck on one of those ships...
 
T. A. Gardner said:
I just noticed another thing about both drawings. A Harrier is about 50 feet long--47 and change. A Gearing or Fletcher class DD is about 40 feet wide. So, if a Harrier were sitting across the flight deck on one of those ships...
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It's okay, the wheelbase is under 25ft either direction.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
I just noticed another thing about both drawings. A Harrier is about 50 feet long--47 and change. A Gearing or Fletcher class DD is about 40 feet wide. So, if a Harrier were sitting across the flight deck on one of those ships...
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Well, the designs do call for a folding flight deck whose edges extend beyond the hull, so this isn't an automatic show-stopper.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Although, for the pilot trying to land a Harrier on it, it very well might be a heart stopper...
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They landed a Harrier on Andrea Doria, which wasn't much wider. I think the size of the deck is probably the least of the problems with this nutty idea.
 

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