Flight deck
On smaller naval ships which do not have aviation as a primary mission, the landing area for helicopters and other VTOL aircraft is also referred to as the flight deck.
Initially consisting of wooden ramps built over the forecastle of capital ships, a number of battlecruisers, including the British HMS Furious and Courageous class, the American USS Lexington and Saratoga, and the Japanese Akagi and battleship Kaga, were converted to aircraft carriers during the interwar period.
The first aircraft carrier to feature a full-length flight deck, akin to the configuration of the modern vessels, was the converted liner HMS Argus which entered service in 1918.
The angled flight deck, invented by Dennis Cambell of the Royal Navy, was one prominent design feature that drastically simplified aircraft recovery and deck movements, enabling landing and launching operations to be performed simultaneously rather than interchangeably; it also better handled the higher landing speeds of jet-powered aircraft.
[citation needed] Two months later, on 18 January 1911, Ely landed his Curtiss pusher plane on a platform on Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay using the first tailhook system, designed and built by circus performer and aviator Hugh Robinson.
On 9 May 1912,[2] Commander Charles Samson became the first man to take off from a ship which was underway when he flew his Short S.27 off HMS Hibernia, which was steaming at 10.5 kn (12.1 mph; 19.4 km/h).
Later, removable "flying-off platforms" appeared on the gun turrets of battleships and battlecruisers starting with HMS Repulse, allowing aircraft to be flown off for scouting purposes, although there was no chance of recovery.
After World War I, battlecruisers that otherwise would have been discarded under the Washington Naval Treaty—such as the British HMS Furious and Courageous class, the American USS Lexington and Saratoga, and the Japanese Akagi and battleship Kaga—were converted to carriers along the above lines.
Being large and fast they were perfectly suited to this role; the heavy armoring and scantlings and low speed of the converted battleship Eagle served to be something of a handicap in practice.
Because the military effectiveness of aircraft carriers was then unknown, early ships were typically equipped with cruiser-calibre guns to aid in their defense if surprised by enemy warships.
When aircraft carriers supplanted battleships as the primary fleet capital ship, there were two schools of thought on the question of armor protection being included into the flight deck.
The angled flight deck was invented by Royal Navy Captain (later Rear Admiral) Dennis Cambell, as an outgrowth of design study initially begun in the winter of 1944–1945.
A committee of senior Royal Navy officers decided that the future of naval aviation was in jets, whose higher speeds required that the carriers be modified to "fit" their needs.
[18] The redesign allowed for several other design and operational modifications, including the mounting of a larger island (improving both ship-handling and flight control), drastically simplified aircraft recovery and deck movement (aircraft now launched from the bow and landed on the angled flight deck, leaving a large open area amidships for arming and fueling), and damage control.
Because of its utility in flight operations, the angled deck is now a defining feature of STOBAR and CATOBAR equipped aircraft carriers.
From September to December 1952, USS Antietam had a rudimentary sponson installed for true angled-deck tests, allowing for full arrested landings, which proved during trials to be superior.
[22] With the introduction of jet aircraft the risk of damaging propellers was no longer an issue, though take off would require some sort of launching cradle.
The flexible deck idea was found to be technically feasible but was abandoned, as the weight of carrier aircraft increased and there were always doubts about the ability of an average pilot to land in this way.
The US Navy evaluated a shore-based flexible deck made by Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. using two modified Grumman F9F-7 Cougars.
[26] During the Cold War era, multiple unorthodox alternatives to the conventional flight deck were proposed and, in some cases, experimented with.
The Skyhook system was developed by British Aerospace, involving the use of a crane with a top mating mechanism hung over the sea to catch and release VTOL aircraft, such as the Harrier jump jet.
[29][30] The system was marketed to various foreign customers into the 1990s, such as to enable Japan's fleet of helicopter destroyers to operate Harriers by installing the Skyhook on board.
Described as being the first water-based aircraft to harness jet propulsion in the world,[34] the SR.A/1 attracted interest from both British and American officials, with data on the project being transferred.
[35] However, officials concluded that the concept had been rendered obsolete in comparison to increasingly capable land-based fighters, together with the inability to resolve engine difficulties, compelling a termination of work.
[40] During the test flight phase, the hydro-skis generated violent vibrations during takeoff and landing, while a fatal crash caused by structural failure also marred the programme; the Navy opted to cancel all production aircraft.
Another proposal would have involved the conversion of redundant Second World War-era fleet submarines to enable carriage and launch of a seaplane model of the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft, which would have been equipped with hydro-skis for takeoff similar to those of the Sea Dart.
