Thornycroft Patented Design for Fast Seaplane Carrier (1924)

[Triton]

Drawings of the Thornycroft Patented Design for Fast Seaplane Carrier (1924) from the Hiraga Archive at the University of Tokyo.

These images were originally posted by Nick Sumner on the Warship Projects Discussion Boards 3.0
http://www.phpbbplanet.com/warshipprojects/viewtopic.php?t=3895&mforum=warshipprojects

Hiraga Archive source:
http://rarebook.dl.itc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/hiraga/login.do?loginCode=logout

 

[Pirate Pete]

Not perfect I know, but I "stitched" the images together when I saved them to my PC from the same site.....

 

[Avimimus]

I would be very curious if anyone more knowledgeable had opinions about the feasibility and effectiveness of such a design.

It also makes wonder about the potential for catapult launched, sea recovered aircraft (ie. enough buoyancy to float, skis to land, but not able to take off from the water) - although the design is obviously for conventional seaplanes.

 

[Thiel]

I would be very curious if anyone more knowledgeable had opinions about the feasibility and effectiveness of such a design.

It also makes wonder about the potential for catapult launched, sea recovered aircraft (ie. enough buoyancy to float, skis to land, but not able to take off from the water) - although the design is obviously for conventional seaplanes.

I'm not certain, but I think the recovery system was tried on land and it had a tendency to damage the aircraft.

 

[Jemiba]

To my opinion, the sloping stern worked in a similar way, as the "Schleppsegel" (towed sail)
used on the German catapult ships (drawing via http://www.zeitreise-bb.de/boebl/boebl/luftp.htm)
An aircraft design taking-off and landing on water, but with only marginal buoyancy we had here
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,9793.0/highlight,martin+328.html, maybe workable if shore based, but otherwise probably prone to a high attrition rate. But those
aircraft could have better performance, than pure flying boats, I think.
A hydroski arrangement on an othrewise conventional aircraft was tested on an Auster J5, see here:
http://www.photoship.co.uk/JAlbum%20Ships/Hovercrafts%20Flyingboats/

 

[Mike Pryce]

It's also similar to the sloping stern of Thorneycroft's seaplance/fighter carrying lighters:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361523/Worlds-oldest-aircraft-carrier-discovered-rusting-River-Thames.html