Personal Aircraft Carrier

I have bought an airplane recently. And a good tip is don't buy new.

I would sugest the Helio Stallion

It carrys 10 people, has a cruise speed of 175knots, designed to operate out of 350ft Stalls at 37knts. I also think it would be better becuase it is offered in a tricycle landing gear which would help visability on landing.

The "eco" version of this would be the compair 7, it takes off in a simular 300-400ft.

Personally I wouldn't go with a barge becuase you would become too reliant on the tugs, but more of a converted ex-container vessel. Theirfor you could make your own power and move around more freely.

just an idea.

 

acctually this might work out best, with 180hp it will hop off the ground with a 500 pound load in 290ft, I imagine the 240hp option will yeild even better results. But I would still plan on a 300ft deck as you need room for error.

http://www.zenithair.com/stolch801/performance.html

The "hornet" has even more impressive numbers, it also seats 4 people.

http://www.aircraftkits.com.au/aircraft/Hornet_STOL.htm

takes off in under 150ft but it cruises under 100knts so it's quite a slow-poke

 

expenses

The stallion is a great aircraft and I have no experience with the hornet. Any time you enter an experimental mode, you want to keep expenses to an absolute minimum. The stallion and hornet don't come cheaply and a 300 foot barge to convert and power carries an astronomical price. Regulation 198 foot barges are relatively inexpensive and a superSTOL experimental aircraft is affordable to a small group of enthusiasts. Key to the effort is also finding a real world practical function for the project. As super STOL aircraft go, it's hard to find one that will take off and land in twice it's own length such as the Storch. And as far as the STOL technology goes, it would be hard to improve on it without going outside the propeller driven arena to something that would equate to the performance of a harrier. Home built helicopters or gyrocopters might be interesting to explore. The concept using gyrocopters might work in that take off and landing would always be in to the wind with a tiny carrier type vessel, thus eliminating the somewhat dangerous cross wind component for autogyro type aircraft. Just thoughts.

 

What about attaching two 198ft barges end to end to make a 396ft barge? I think self propelled is near essential otherwise it looses it's ability to be "useful" and their is little reason to buy it. Search and Rescue/ Border patrol ect... require rapid movement of the base platform otherwise it would be no different from any other airfield besides the fact that it is small and in the ocean.

Can someone send me link to one of these "regulation" barges, I have never heard of such a thing.

 

They operate that helicopter off the barge for logging, is this the type of barge you had in mind?

 

barges

The barge with the CH-54 Sky Crane on it is close except wider and minus the bin walls on the side. Being that this is a drill in practicality, a 198' ft x 45' x 6' barge should be easy enough to power with a couple of used GM 6-71 engines. For the time being, let's not consider accommodations except for a head and small galley in the island. The width of a barge is a limiting factor on length of wing span for a fixed wing aircraft. Once the initial project is completed and tested, future designs for the combination can be expanded where ever one wants to take it and at any greater expense. This would initially be a calm water exercise. It's not envisioned that the vessel would be used in open ocean, but rather as a fun thing close enough to shore for rescue by a standby boat. Where aircraft carriers usually have helos orbiting close by in the event that an aircraft goes off the forward end, something of this nature would probably use an outboard runabout for pilot recovery. As with a larger carrier, the landing strip painted on the deck would have to be at a slight angle so that if an aircraft did go off the end, the aircraft would be clear of the vessel. A lot of safety procedures would have to be written and practiced with a venture of this sort even though it's just a fun project.

 

I think you would be able to find some older dry cargo ships out there to convert to make it a Blue water carrier.

Might be able to convert this barge to power http://www.brownmarine.com/cboat102.htm

it's 600k and looks alitttle.... rough... you would probably want a inspection

after 5 minutes in paint I just drafted up these little beauties.



er1.jpgflight deck

hanger deck-


Not exactly what I call art but you get the idea of what I had in mind.

I don't think we will need an angle deck becuase we don't have catpults and if a plane went off the front it wouldn't sink instantly and would just be pushed out of the way by the barge which might be doing 6-8knots?

I'd like to see what others had in mind

also I found this; http://www.preceptoraircraft.com/STOL King.htm only 2 seats but lands and takes off in 50ft. stalls at 15mph.

 

sources

The barge pictured is either a navy quarters barge or a surplus Army Floating maintenance ship (unpowered) FMS that is 220 feet long. I think that the first attempt should be kept as simple as possible and not include quarters or elevators. The initial concept in any plan is usually to focus on the primary functions of both air and vessel assets. With a project of this sort, it would be very easy to price it out of existence very quickly. Your concept drawing is great for a follow-on development effort. A good source for used barges is Boats and Harbors yellow sheets and Workboat Mabazine. Both are free.

 

Preceptor Aircraft

The Preceptor is a variant of the Slepcev Storch. The major difference is in the landing gear. The Storch has 10 inches of upward shock absorbed movement in the landing gear to enable very rough field landings. I'm not sure if the Preceptor can handle this type of landing without damaging the landing gear. It appears too rigid. I will definitely investigate the Preceptor further. Thanks!

 

Taking KC135Delta's idea a step further. Do you really need a full island like the big boys have? If you limit it to one of those bubbles that sticks up 18-24" through the deck, then there is no limit on wingspan.

 

A word of caution on the Preceptor STOL KING

Preceptor advertises the King Stol as having a 15 mph stall. Not true as they caveat it in brackets saying "power on". This is not true stall speed. True stall is power off when the aircraft stops flying. In truth, they have modified a Slepcev Storch. With wings that are 2 feet shorter, the actual stall speed is probably around 25 or 26 mph. They could get someone killed by their claim if he/she lost and engine and thought stall was at 15. As the Australian manufacturer of the Slepcev Storch just said, "that landing gear would probably snap off during a rough field landing."You can rig the numbers on a Cessna 150, or any airplane for that matter, if you make a landing by using full flaps and hanging it on the prop. Not wise unless you've had a lot of practice.

 

Bubbles

The bubblles are a good idea, but a structure is still needed to support radar and radio antennas as well as providing good close proximity maneuvering visibility for the vessel. The island could be very narrow though....... similar to a submarine conning tower. Think large used propane tank standing on end and welded to a side deck extension.

 

Forgot about all that other stuff.

 

So what's the plan for the first test?

Would we just Rhinoline the deck or something? Some sort of non slip grip surface.

 

non-skid deck

Good idea. A non skid deck is a "must" and something we haven't previously aaddressed.