The Hornet would probably not have been able to steam at full speed in such
rough weather, Chuck. And the pitching of the ship in such weather would have
caused more problems; I don’t believe that the pilot could have accurately
anticipated the pitching motion – as was related in one of the narratives.
Steam to the rear for takeoff? Not for fast jets, surely? If you accept that
the a loaded bomber will be off the ground (or deck) at no less than around
170kts (based on what I can remember of a loaded Tornado’s performance), and
that the catapult can be adjusted for the energy required, I had always thought
that steaming forwards would be the only necessity. I learn something new . .
.
It was a heroic push, whatever the detail of the launch.
Chris
> On 12 Dec 15, at 13:51, Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> There was a lot more than 35mph coming over the flight deck. The Hornet (an
> Essex class carrier) was capable of nearly 33 knots on its own. During the
> Dolittle takeoff there was a 40 knot gale blowing. The only casualty during
> the launch was a seaman who was blown by the wind into one of the props and
> suffered a badly mangled arm. The history of the Dolittle raid is covered in
> some detail here starting about 1/4-way down the page.
> <http://www.airvectors.net/avb25.html <http://www.airvectors.net/avb25.html>>
>
> But sometimes the wind speed over the deck is just too much and the ship
> needs to run in reverse to compensate. Although I worked for IBM for 30 years
> I also worked for a couple other companies after that. For a couple of years
> I was the engineering design manager for Henschel which was a long time Navy
> contractor going back to the 1920s. My engineering team designed and built
> navigation consoles for the Nimitz and other Nimitz class carriers. These
> could be used by the air-boss to control the ship during launches. Their
> features included telling the air-boss how to run the ship in reverse when
> wind speed over the deck was too great for safe launches going forward.
>
> ps: If you ever get on a WWII or Korean war era ship and get onto the bridge
> you'll find many instruments with the name Henschel. We even made brass
> ship's bells long ago.
--
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