Personal Aircraft Carrier

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by Toot, Sep 15, 2006.

  1. mark775

    mark775 Guest

    "definitely go the seaplane route"
    (This will undoubtedly be the ONLY time I concur with T-Dude on ANYTHING.)
    Seaplanes fly to boats all of the time up here. Even a few have ended up on conventional small landing craft. A ramp, a winch, soft wet rubber to glide on and the job is done. Check out http://www.landingcrafts.net/landing-crafts-for-sale.html
     
  2. floydrob
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    floydrob Junior Member

    sounds like a great plan! i passed my PPL after 47hrs flight time on my 16th birthday, so fly every weekend, normally a cessna 172p which is a flying caravan!. there are smaller, lighter and easier to fly twin person aircraft which would fulfil this 'tender' purpose, and they r cooool!! i think it wud be great idea! but needs to be safe!. even with a headwind, i wouldnt be comfortable landing a cessna in anything under 250 feet!, but then again i have only been flying since august!

    what about a drawbridge type thingmy with a lagoon inside, where a seaplane can be parked? that would be cool!! and no need for a 200ft boat with all the deckspace taken up by a runway! if i had a 200ft boat i'd want all the deck for pleasure purposes! and helicopters arent as cool as planes! u just get in a flying caravan with me and i'll show u even that old thing can be cool! and fun!
     
  3. Boston

    Boston Previous Member

    just go with a pair of huge wheels and call it a boat



    had to throw this one in

     
  4. weelilboats
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    weelilboats New Member

    weren't they building a giant luxury liner with a airstrip on top of it think its being built now
     
  5. Greenseas2
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    Greenseas2 Senior Member

    Luxury liner aircraft carrier? Not today or any other

    Can't wait to have a zillion dollar suite on the approach end of a ship with a bunch on untrained civilian pilots trying to make landings on a flight deck above. Even at extremes, a ship of this sort is too far out to reach. Navy pilots under go a tremendous amount of training in carrier ops and do a lot of practice, first on a land based field with carrier flight deck dimensions marked on it, then on a carrier:( . Also, what sort of catapult is going to launch civil aircraft and where would aircraft that would be so lucky to achieve a landing that they can walk away from be hangered? NO, No, No, No, No. Who ever told you this fable is only using his head for a hat rack.
     
  6. Cheapshot
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    Cheapshot Junior Member

    Two Words: Ultra Light

    Also, ponder this for a moment. The US Navy has a C-130 called Fat Albert that sports a set of what I call RAT motors (Rocket Assisted Takeoff) on each side of it to aid in short runway takeoffs. Apply this to an ultralight plane aboard a small personal aircraft carrier and there you have it. I'm also sure that a tail hook could be easily added under the aircraft for short runway landings. The only trick is arrestor cables and the hydraulic system needed for it.
     
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2009
  7. Boston

    Boston Previous Member

    or "fish food"
     
  8. riverliver2b
    Joined: Mar 2008
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    riverliver2b Junior Member

    civilian aircraft carrier

    Since my original posting last year, through an unlekely chain of events I have acquired the sternwheel aircraft carrier I was referring to (alas, minus the aircraft). While not, perhaps, precisely what the originator of this thread was originally picturing, the Lilly Belle nonetheless is technically a private aircraft carrier. She is a 62' foot towboat pushing a 42' barge (actually an overgrown pontoon boat) originally equipped with lifting tackle sufficient to launch and recover a small amphibious biplane. Unfortunately I can't locate a picture with the plane aboard at the moment...sorry
     
  9. Squidly-Diddly
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    Squidly-Diddly Senior Member

    My thoughts on Supertanker/Carrier combo from prior thread

    "personal" for the CEO or some status hungry oil sheik, or maybe an oil dependent nation (buying or selling)

    even if actual landing a C-130 not possible, at least they could drag chute out lots of cargo onto the deck

    a supertanker is wide enough that you could park planes on one side and land and take off on the other, and massive enough that extra stores could be carried under the deck in conex boxes






    how about using a super-tanker?

    I would not presume to tell a fisherman how to run his deck, but a supertanker is just a big gas can and I don't see any compelling need for the large superstructure at the stern.

    The Japanese carrier captains were able to guide their ships well enough with out a superstructure. Yes, they later added them, but for a 'part time' carrier, and with todays closed circuit TV, I would stick to a completely flat deck for the sake of the planes.

    Maybe a bridge that could be raised on a mast when making port, with the mast simply lowing into the hull for air ops.

    Just install a modular deck over the existing plumbing you see on a tanker's deck.

    If figure tankers are pretty cheap and they are just lots of steel plates.

    If I was planning any carrier ops the first thing I would want is a couple big cheap super-tanker 'flat-tops' for several reasons.

    While the operational robustness is impressive, a carrier is always one bad landing away from a USS Forestall disaster, I'd want a backup landing deck in the vicinity.

    Rather not risk a bad landing, and thus the carrier, and ejecting from a questionable plane, you could have a extra, dedicated landing deck that could not only handle the risk, but could be configured in ways not practical on a carrier deck, such as a thick layer of foam, or yet to be invented apparatus such a massive net.

    All ships of valuable to anti-ship missiles, I'd rather send a big hollow supertanker with a few planes on deck in harms way than a multi-billion dollar carrier with thousands of crew. An empty supertanker could take numerous massive hits with little effect, even more if the tanks were a little more compartmentalized than normal...just a few more flat steel plates.

    When serving as a supertanker the crew might miss their nice views from the superstructure, but they might enjoy the benefits of land based fixed wing aircraft visiting.

    Not sure how big or what type of aircraft could land on a supertanker without all sorts of modifications.

    Not sure how much "hard to relocate" heavy equipment is currently housed in the superstructure.

    Who wants to draft up an "artist's conception" to sell this to some status hungry oil sheik?
     
  10. wardd
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    wardd Senior Member

    i believe that the systems on a carrier are way more expensive than the hull and would a ex tanker be able to develop wind over deck speed to launch and recover

    then theres aircraft maintenance facilities ships self defense aircraft fuel storage and handling, elevators, catapults, arrester gear, munitions storage and handling

    soon you have a carrier
     
  11. Squidly-Diddly
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    Squidly-Diddly Senior Member

    what "systems", just lop-off the super structure, weld some

    hard points all across the existing deck, bolt some columns on those and bolt deck panels to the columns sort of like a "computer floor", over the normal plumbing that tankers have on their decks.

    Have fork lift on the deck in case you need to bring up some stores from under deck conex boxes. Also good to shield other aircraft from those landing as seen in the movie "The Bridges at Toko-Ri".

    Part of requirements for US Navy carrier ops is for planes to be able to both launch and land without catapults or arresting wires, respectively, and also to do so without the carrier doing 40 knots into a headwind. They might need to do it "straight on" and use most of the deck but they can do it. They just can't do it as rapidly.

    Yes, I'm aware of "mission creep" and the Pentagon's habit of adding bells and whistles.

    I figure a supertanker could carry an extra 100 conex boxes on original deck no problem, for maintenance and supplies.
     
  12. Théodose
    Joined: Jul 2010
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    Théodose Junior Member

    Hello, everyone !

    I stumbled upon this thread while searching news about concrete-hulled submarines (search engines can give surprising results sometimes) and found it a very interesting read. So I decided to give it a try and settled on different aspects illustrated on the attached image :
    1. Using a standard 195ft river barge costs no more than 200k$ and give us a good way to start once the land-based landing trials are finished.
    2. The ship is conceived for light STOL aircrafts with folding wings which can fit in hi-cube 40' ISO containers, already the case for the Fi-156 Storch, the Kitfox IV and probably the PL-9 Stork.
    3. Adding a ski-jump ramp will reduce the take-off distance, allow heavier aircrafts to use the LCAC and improve the safety of touch-and-go manoeuvres.
    I used shipping container architecture as it gives several advantages in comparison to classical shipyard operation :
    • It considerably reduces the construction cost, because bare containers can be purchased for 1500$ each and a German company offers fully customized inhabitable containers for 6000$ each. If we price each 20' container used in the design between 5000$ (taking into account the proportion of heavily modified units) and 10 000$ (upper limit), the whole superstructure with the equivalent of 44 containers will cost between 220 00$ and 440 000$.
    • The whole system is reconfigurable and reusable into another larger ship after the initial blue water tests
    • The containers' walls can be easily armoured with a steel/concrete/steel/concrete/steel composite armour, like illustrated by the drawing below, to defeat firearms up to .50 and RPGs in combination with slat armour.

    This small version,limited to large lakes and coastal waters, is intended to help small state organisation (coast guards, customs services, third-world navies, ...) in their missions of survey and defence against pirates, insurgents and smugglers. But a larger version, based on the container barge described in the link below, could be envisioned to serve a much more powerful air wing including larger non-folding wings aircrafts.
    http://www.usbarge.com/US_Barge_container_barge.html
    This imposing ocean-capable barge is wide enough to allow the use of an angled deck and other facilities more akin to a conventional aircraft for a fraction of the normal price.
     

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  13. jonr
    Joined: Sep 2008
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    jonr Senior Member

    While simply using a seaplane and winching or hoisting it aboard is easiest, I like the idea of building the boat to be capable of going faster than the stall speed of the plane - allowing completely vertical takeoffs and landings.

    Not so clear to me is what happens when you have cable running from a boat that is rising and falling 10' (waves) connected to a plane that is at a fixed height. Maybe lots of shock cord and a padded landing spot help - the parasailing boats probably know.
     
  14. FAST FRED
    Joined: Oct 2002
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    FAST FRED Senior Member

    "The only trick is arrestor cables and the hydraulic system needed for it."

    not needed,

    For single plane operation the simplest is to string heavy chain alongside the deck.

    As the wire is picked up the chain end gets pulled , more and more chain follow ,till the aircraft stops.

    This simple system is at most US Naval Air Stations in use since WWII in case of an over run ,brake failure..

    A bulldozer puts the chain back in place in minuets.

    A landing mirror system (gyro stabelized) might be needed if the sea state is high during aircraft recovery.

    Although a really high buck Auto Pilot might be better for amateur hour.

    Learning to do a mirror landing takes the USN over 100 practice landings , in a remote location with an observer vidioing to explain the errors and technique .

    FF
     

  15. jg451
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    jg451 Junior Member

    If you wanted to go smaller scale, you could try an ultralight aircraft . Hell, fhey only weigh about 450lb all up and stall at no more than 25mph. On take off with a decent headwind the carrier would run off and leave the plane behind. Seriously, even with the larger two seaters, no sweat. In fact if someone built one of those things, even with the lawyers and the insurance, I can imagine scads of the ultralight & two seat crowd slavering at the chance to become a carrier qualified pilot. Painting markings, getting tailhooks, bombing runs. Don't get me started!

    Thanks,
    Jon
     
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