Quote:
Originally Posted by j-c-c
This is maybe pertinent but not part of my original consideration:
" Unfortunately, Royal Navy rejected his idea. The first full-deck aircraft carrier, HMS Argus, was completed in 1918 without a superstructure. As Royal Navy’s experience with Furious, which, in her original carrier configuration, had an immense superstructure in the centre of the flight deck, showed that turbulence was a significant problem for landing aircraft."
https://themaritimepost.com/2021/10/...tarboard-side/ |
In 1918 we'd be looking at very 'light', cloth-covered, tail-dragger, bi-wing aircraft, of rather low stall speed , which are hard enough to master 'on land.' And it's easy to imagine the challenge to landing, on the sea, and all wind variables that could be thrown at a pilot.
Add a hundred years though, and I doubt whether or not the presence of a superstructure's 'aerodynamics' could even be felt by a pilot. The 'momentum' of carrier-ready aircraft of modern-day mass and inertias would render them oblivious to a gust that could wreck an aircraft of 1918.
The 'fuel' alone, on a 1970's NAVY F-4 Phantom, would out weigh the 'total' weight of eleven Curtiss JN-4D 'Jenny' airplanes.