Quote:
Originally Posted by j-c-c
I agree, but not observing anything does not by itself indicate nothing intentionally aero was not addressed, and hence my original question here.
A triple negative?
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1) I read a paper by the Office of Naval Affairs on aircraft carrier design.
The whole process is compromise between competing aspects of shipborne activities and contingencies.
2) Between the time that a design is 'frozen', construction begins, and the time when construction is completed, 'carrier compatible; aircraft may have evolved, especially with STOL/VTOL designs, which don't need as much 'runway' ( some need 'none', and takeoff velocities.
3) In 'ALL' design scenarios, the carrier must satisfy all aircraft parameters for takeoff and landing, with only one propellor in service ( as a twin-engine commercial airliner must be able to fly effectively with one 'dead' engine).
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The only other thing I saw was, in regard to a photo of the USS Kittyhawk, with a departing F-18 fighter just clearing the leading edge of its flight deck.
Both runways on this carrier have 1/4-round, leading-edge fairings, as you'd see on the bottom of an open-test-section wind tunnel nozzle at the test-section's entrance, which prevents vena-contracta entry loss formation and the attendant turbulence formation.
The 1/4-round fairing would not prevent boundary-layer buildup downstream of the 'nose', but it would mitigate 'flow separation' right at the 'end' of the runway.
Some design group clearly was thinking of the ramifications to airflow in the absence of the edge radii.