CVB-59 concepts

Re: CVA-59 concepts

From Friedman's book on US Carriers
 

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Re: CVA-59 concepts

Did the positioning of the cats; angled out to port and starboard, influence the development of the angled flight deck?

To me the layout almost suggest that a logical progression would be to create an angle flight deck to port and starboard, and have a centreline island (Furious style).
 
Re: CVA-59 concepts

JohnR said:
Did the positioning of the cats; angled out to port and starboard, influence the development of the angled flight deck?
Click to expand...

I don't think so. The angled flight deck was invented in the RN by analysing the new take-off and landing patterns for jet aircraft. These designs and USS United States have axial decks but splayed out catapults. I think the desire was mostly to mount more catapults and there isn't more room in the bow so they got splayed out to the sides a bit.

Would a middle island and two angled decks be better? No, either you need two sets of arrestor wires to be in the same place for each landing path, or you keep the axial layout and risk the bolters running into the island. You've also got some turbulence problems with the middle island.
 
Re: CVA-59 concepts

red admiral said:
Would a middle island and two angled decks be better? No, either you need two sets of arrestor wires to be in the same place for each landing path, or you keep the axial layout and risk the bolters running into the island. You've also got some turbulence problems with the middle island.
Click to expand...

I suppose I've been influence by the pictures of the UAV carrier that has the V flight deck and midship superstructure and island.
 
A bit over armed in my opinion! :)
What are those guns are?
 
Tzoli said:
A bit over armed in my opinion! :)
What are those guns are?
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Looks like twin 5-inch/54s, possibly an early take on the Mk 41 that was replaced by the Mk 42 single gun. Looks a lot like the guns on early versions of the Montana.

Which suggests this was a really early sketch, since the specs quickly evolved in replace the twin 5-inch guns with singles and to replace at least some 5-inch guns with twin 3-inch/70s.
 
sienar said:
It looks like a fixed tower in this illustration
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They oscillated back and forth on that front. and even when a retractable island was specified, they also required provision to easily make it fixed.
 
The stern elevator was tested on the USS Thetis Bay LPH 6 and found undesirable. Hence why it was never subsequently used.

15877511408_2d12d6bcc7_b.jpg
 
red admiral said:
Re: CVA-59 concepts

JohnR said:
Did the positioning of the cats; angled out to port and starboard, influence the development of the angled flight deck?
Click to expand...

I don't think so. The angled flight deck was invented in the RN by analysing the new take-off and landing patterns for jet aircraft. These designs and USS United States have axial decks but splayed out catapults. I think the desire was mostly to mount more catapults and there isn't more room in the bow so they got splayed out to the sides a bit.

Would a middle island and two angled decks be better? No, either you need two sets of arrestor wires to be in the same place for each landing path, or you keep the axial layout and risk the bolters running into the island. You've also got some turbulence problems with the middle island.
Click to expand...
The catapult design for the waist ones almost certainly got revised so both were on one side of the ship is due entirely to how you would have to fit the steam piping and the machinery in below the flight deck. With it on both sides of the ship, it would take up more shop space and possibly hanger space than having it sponsoned out to one side only.
 
The caption says artist's impression but the question is whose artist? A Navy artist, shipbuilder artist or Av Week's artist?
Some features do seem odd - the spamming of gun mounts for one (I count at least 13 5in twin-mounts and 30 3in twin-mounts!!), and the starboard midships catapult looks useless given what looks like a fixed mast and island in the way...
 
T. A. Gardner said:
The catapult design for the waist ones almost certainly got revised so both were on one side of the ship is due entirely to how you would have to fit the steam piping and the machinery in below the flight deck. With it on both sides of the ship, it would take up more shop space and possibly hanger space than having it sponsoned out to one side only.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about that.

I'm rereading the section of Friedman about the switch to the angled deck, and a couple of things jumped out.

1) It seems like the switch to steam catapults may have happened along with the switch to the angled deck, or not long before it in any case. Before late 1952, they were planning to use the new powder catapults instead. Those didn't eventually work out, so steam was gratefully adopted. But that suggests that steam arrangements were a secondary consideration. [Edit: there is a little discussion of the changes needed to switch to steam, like elimination of powder charge stowage, but the addition of a steam accumulator, etc. Nothing about this impacting hangar space.)

2) The switch to the angled recovery deck kicked off a ton of other arrangement changes, very rapidly.

a) The port landing area pushed the deck park to starboard. It also meant that you needed to push the elevators all to starboard, except the one at the forward end of the port sponson. (This one could fail in the down position without killing the landing area, but any others aft of that to port would be mission critical) That alone probably meant there was no place to put a catapult to starboard, since the whole deck edge was now occupied by elevators or the island (of which more to follow)​
​
b) The increased clearance from the recovery lane on the port side to the island areas on the starboard allowed for a fixed island. This solved the issues of where to place radar and how to handle exhaust gasses. But it also meant the island needed to be larger, so that the stacks could be trunked up through it. And again, this enlarged island crowded out any hope of a starboard catapult.​
​
c) [Edit 2:] Relocating radar and other electronics from the gallery to the island freed up a bunch of space for other uses, both shops and berthing.​
 
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sienar said:
It looks like a fixed tower in this illustration

av week 51-10-29
View attachment 693019
Click to expand...
Gah, such horrible elevator locations...
  • That forward in-deck elevator means you'd have to push any planes brought up backwards to line them up on the catapults. This means it takes longer to set a plane on the cats and launch.
  • The two aft in-deck elevators are in the way of planes landing. WTF
  • Side elevators block the catapults when in use.

Fixes:
  • Remove all in-deck elevators entirely.
  • swap locations of island and starboard deck-edge elevator. This blocks the starboard waist cat, so put that on the port side, staggered enough that you can have planes spotted on both waist cats ready to go as soon as the JBD is out of the way. This also puts the island about where the exhaust stacks need to be, so you can enlarge the island to run the exhaust trunking up through the island.
  • Move port deck-edge elevator to aft of the catapults.
  • Add a second deck-edge elevator starboard side, aft of the island, about where the in-deck elevator is.
  • Depending on whether the plan is one massive strike or lots of continuous strikes, you may want a third elevator on the starboard side to receive planes headed to the hangar from where the arresting gear stops them. This will be in front of the Island, probably pushing the island back even further, which reduces the trunking needed for the exhaust.
And then there's the armament, but I don't want to get into that.


A Tentative Fleet Plan said:
View attachment 710816
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nice model!
 
Scott Kenny said:
Gah, such horrible elevator locations...
  • That forward in-deck elevator means you'd have to push any planes brought up backwards to line them up on the catapults. This means it takes longer to set a plane on the cats and launch.
  • The two aft in-deck elevators are in the way of planes landing. WTF
  • Side elevators block the catapults when in use.

Fixes:
  • Remove all in-deck elevators entirely.
  • swap locations of island and starboard deck-edge elevator. This blocks the starboard waist cat, so put that on the port side, staggered enough that you can have planes spotted on both waist cats ready to go as soon as the JBD is out of the way. This also puts the island about where the exhaust stacks need to be, so you can enlarge the island to run the exhaust trunking up through the island.
  • Move port deck-edge elevator to aft of the catapults.
  • Add a second deck-edge elevator starboard side, aft of the island, about where the in-deck elevator is.
  • Depending on whether the plan is one massive strike or lots of continuous strikes, you may want a third elevator on the starboard side to receive planes headed to the hangar from where the arresting gear stops them. This will be in front of the Island, probably pushing the island back even further, which reduces the trunking needed for the exhaust.
Click to expand...
You do know that centreline elevators was part of the flight deck pre cold war? They do not effdct the landing of the planes at all.

That forward centreline elevator might had been used for striking down the aircraft which was landed, the two deck edge elevators was likely to be used to supply the forward catapults with planes. Or just look at the Modernized Essexes and Midways.

There are 3 more elevators to use if the wing catapults are in use I don't see an issue.

Surely it's an artist impression based on limited info but apart from the gun armament and maybe too close bridge it isn't that bad a design.
 
A Tentative Fleet Plan said:
View attachment 710816
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I think describing this model as having an “angled deck” in aircraft carrier terms is a bit of a stretch.

Noteworthy are arrestor wires - far forward compared to the actual supercarrier ones, and showing the need for the waist cats. Why so far forward? Perhaps the aft elevator ?

The island seems to be a retractable one, though personally I wouldn’t want to be in one after a lot of retraction-extension cycles, especially if the ship had been spending time in the North Atlantic.

”Stacks” are extended well out from the ship - and again, I wonder about their durability in stormy seas.
 
From Naval Aviation News 1952.
 

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OK,we can delete or merge it with this thread.

Threads merged
 
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T. A. Gardner said:
The stern elevator was tested on the USS Thetis Bay LPH 6 and found undesirable. Hence why it was never subsequently used.
Click to expand...
They did return in the Tarawa class LHAs. A differernt design for a different aviation capability, but there nevertheless.
 
JoeCalPo said:
They did return in the Tarawa class LHAs. A differernt design for a different aviation capability, but there nevertheless.
Click to expand...
Probably a case of What's old is new. That is, the designers forgot past use in designs, and put it in then found it wasn't a great idea so they dropped it on the follow on LHD's in favor of a second deck edge elevator.
 

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