Personal Aircraft Carrier

RATO...Turn your take off roll into nuthin'

Steve

 

Like the idea of the seaplane. A crane would not be neccesary as you can have the stern sloped down as a ramp and winch the seaplane up the ramp and store it on an angle. Maybe fold the wings up to reduce wind drag

 

There was a 150' or so charter yacht that carried both a helicopter and a small amphibious plane. Not sure of the details but it was called the Nadine and sank in the Med a while back. When the crew was being airlifted off they threw the helo in the water to make room for the basket!

 

A few months back we had a guy wanting advise on building a personal submarine. He had a rich client with 50 million dollars to spend apparantly. He wanted a 40 foot door in it for a helecpter ( or missiles).

Now we have a discussion on a personal air craft carrier.

Should we be worried?-- are we worried?

5 years ago some guys walked into a flight school and asked to learn how to fly a jumbo jet, we dont want to learn how to take off or land" they said.

Were we worried then?


Shouldnt someone call someone CIA or some thing.

 

A carrier landing with a prop plane simply requires a lARGER than normal engine. The "backside of the power curve" flying is taught to all prop carrier pilots.

An ultra light would have even lower landing speeds , but hardly have excess power or a structure to catch an arresting wire.

The early USN carriers launched amphibs that could land ashore or allongside, and be crained aboard.

A mirror landing system could be easily constructed , but on boats they are gymboed, so the visual glide path remains stable , as the carrier dances in the seaway.

Build one , Ill fly aboard in my Ultralight, if you can go fast enough , or anchored if the wind is 30K.

FAST FRED

 

Fred, were you a carrier pilot before?

If so, what did you fly?

regards,

SR

 

Hehe. Yes, I was thinking about the behind-the-curve problem. That's why I threw out the Fieseler Storch replica as my first choice for a "full-sized" aircraft. Most of them use a LOM engine which is good for 140hp. It's not an ungodly amount of power, granted, but it's a pretty serious engine for a 1200lb gross weight 2-seater.

Ultralights would work too. They could take off slow enough with a good headwind/forward boat speed.

The gymballed glideslope device would also make life a lot easier. And, again, it'd just be cool.

 

Back in "the old days" every US Navy pilot was carrier trained.

I learned on the T-28 , 6 landings on the ancient Lexington, and another half dozen for multi engine qual with a S-2F, 1964.

Never flew carriers operationaly , was in SP2H , or P2V7 as deep ocean patrol pilot.

Today the cost of carrier training is only spent on folks that will be carrier operational in the Fleet.

Too bad , landing on a postage stamp was great fun!

FAST FRED

 

Phew, and to think I was the only nut around I would vote for a GEM seaplane tender and a good crane anytime.

 

Jack
The CIA probably monitors this site as well as others.
G'day CIA people.

Poida

 

Baby aircraft carriers? LSTs flew observation Piper Cubs on and off narrow flight decks.

But you don't even need a deck with a Stinson or Cub.....other LSTs (or LSIs?) had "Brodie Devices" which were a wire stretched from masts leaning up and over the side. The Cub had an arrestor hook erected above the top wing. You just flew into the wire and hooked and slid to a stop along the 300' wire.

Take off was similar but in reverse.

I can't load the pics, sorry.

http://www.warfoto.com/bh216a.jpg

http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/1016001802.jpg

http://www.avcom.co.za/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=51907&sid=824a2a8cb18be0974f5930eef636201b

 

Fred;

That's neat, the P-2V Neptune, precurser to what I flew for 4 years, the nasty old P-3. P-3s are pretty limited now as to how many hours they can fly per month, due to airframe fatigue issues. The 737 replacement for the P-3 will come none too soon!

I would have much rather flown the T-28 than the little T-34C turbo weenie! The T-44 was a great multi engine trainer, however, and I really loved that airplane. It was fun to land. The T-tail kingairs I fly now are much more touchy in the flare, easy to land, but hard to land well...

R/SR

 

The Japanese WWII Submarines used to carry spotter planes..did that make them an aircraft carrier?

Toot
You would be better off putting your aircraft design skills to designing a lightweight stowable seaplane. Flight decks are expensive. Maybe you could buy one of the old floating bridges and just tow that around behind you

Cheers

 

An ultra-light is just an over-sized model with a self-aware payload. A model glider can be launched on a towline at a high angle of incidence and can go up like a rocket in still air with the towing person moving at far less than the flying speed; same principle as a kite. The towline attaches just ahead of the CoG. This would get you up in a light breeze or from a slow moving boat. Getting down is simpler, unless you want to survive the experience.

 

Recently got a magazine with the 100 biggest privately owned boats. Few had heliports. Looking at what they have on board such as bars, accomodation, pools and the boats usually carry more crew than guests. If rich people had an airport built into their boat it would have to reduce the amount of other goodies that they would rather have.

On to something else I don't think that anybody else has mentioned because I'm probably wrong (what's new) although you don't probably need a great deal of length for a prop plane to land you will still need the width so as well as the wing span with a safety clearance you need the cockpit.

This means for the boat to have the right proportions for a boat for handling etc. it means it would still have to be fairly long. A lot of money to spend with very little benefit over a chopper.

Incidently one of the boats carried a twin hulled boat for taking the 4 wheel drive ashore.