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Re: Britannian Aircraft
Posted: December 12th, 2012, 7:03 pm
by eswube
Unless the tail is box-like like on Vickers Vimy (but doesn't look like that, rather H-shaped), I'd say it's still not enough.
For a H-shaped tail it's span should be increased roughly by half IMHO. and length (along the length axis, that is) to equal vertical stabilizers.
Re: Britannian Aircraft
Posted: December 13th, 2012, 8:31 pm
by APDAF
Like it is now?
Re: Britannian Aircraft
Posted: December 13th, 2012, 10:53 pm
by Trojan
I would say that a carrier conversion personally would be very difficult considering how big that plane is compared to the average carrier of its time period. Plus the fact that it would be very difficult to stow such an aircraft below decks ( huge elevators would be needed) the take off and landing performance probably are not good enough for a carrier deck. Also it was never done IRL
Re: Britannian Aircraft
Posted: December 13th, 2012, 11:07 pm
by Thiel
Nor does it make any sense.
Re: Britannian Aircraft
Posted: December 14th, 2012, 1:33 am
by Raxar
The main problem is, like Trojan said, is that a bomber is too large to fit effectively on a carrier. It's going to be cumbersome to launch, land, store, and maintain. The only time bombers were ever used off and aircraft carrier was the Doolittle raid, and those planes were never intended to make it back. Furthermore, they had to be carried across the Pacific Ocean on Hornet's flight deck, not in the hangars, (elevators are too small and you can't fold the wings) which didn't allow for the use of her fighters. (Enterprise had to come along to provide aircover.) Furthermore, if you look at pictures of the planes taking off, you can see that some of the first ones barely made it off the deck. So, no, as Thiel said, it makes no sense to try and operate bombers off a carrier. In fact, these restrictions actually caused the development of dive and torpedo bombers, as well as other carrier-borne aircraft.
Re: Britannian Aircraft
Posted: December 14th, 2012, 3:01 am
by TimothyC
Actually, there is one other time bombers were flown off of carriers. Starting in the late 1940s the USN flew P2Vs off of carriers in an effort to get a nuclear mission for said carriers. That said, they were clumsy, and suffered many of the same restrictions that were in effect for the Doolittle raid. They were replaced in service by the AJ Salvage.
Re: Britannian Aircraft
Posted: December 14th, 2012, 8:00 am
by APDAF
Raxar wrote:The main problem is, like Trojan said, is that a bomber is too large to fit effectively on a carrier. It's going to be cumbersome to launch, land, store, and maintain. The only time bombers were ever used off and aircraft carrier was the Doolittle raid, and those planes were never intended to make it back. Furthermore, they had to be carried across the Pacific Ocean on Hornet's flight deck, not in the hangars, (elevators are too small and you can't fold the wings) which didn't allow for the use of her fighters. (Enterprise had to come along to provide aircover.) Furthermore, if you look at pictures of the planes taking off, you can see that some of the first ones barely made it off the deck. So, no, as Thiel said, it makes no sense to try and operate bombers off a carrier. In fact, these restrictions actually caused the development of dive and torpedo bombers, as well as other carrier-borne aircraft.
There is quite a bit of a difference between this and a B-25 Mitchell, mainly the fact that it's a biplane which has more lift, and that the wings are made of wood and canvas and should be easy to clip or adding hinges for storage and you could always make the nose stubbier.
Re: Britannian Aircraft
Posted: December 14th, 2012, 9:08 am
by KHT
Raxar wrote:The main problem is, like Trojan said, is that a bomber is too large to fit effectively on a carrier. It's going to be cumbersome to launch, land, store, and maintain. The only time bombers were ever used off and aircraft carrier was the Doolittle raid, and those planes were never intended to make it back. Furthermore, they had to be carried across the Pacific Ocean on Hornet's flight deck, not in the hangars,
APDAF, note that what Raxar was talking about wasn't only the fact that it's very messy to launch full-sized bombers off CVs, but the fact that they are usually to large to store effectively on CVs. They require much larger space than regular fighter-sized planes, not to mention larger elevators. So, if you don't want to carry your bombers on deck, you'd have to specialy build a CV for the purpose, something highly unlikely, considering the Brittanian admirality and emperor doesn't like change(your own words, mind you).
Re: Britannian Aircraft
Posted: December 14th, 2012, 10:39 am
by eswube
The only twin-engined carrier-borne bomber of the era roughly comparable with Your VK-3 was Douglas T2D, which was just little more than half as large as Your VK-3 (wingspan of 17,37m and length of 12,80m to Yours VK-3s current 30,94m x 20,27m).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_T2D
Too many technical issues to overcome and besides I'm not sure if that would be even practical.
So my advice is: forget about it - stick to smaller carrier-borne planes.
Re: Britannian Aircraft
Posted: December 14th, 2012, 2:11 pm
by TimothyC
KHT wrote:APDAF, note that what Raxar was talking about wasn't only the fact that it's very messy to launch full-sized bombers off CVs, but the fact that they are usually to large to store effectively on CVs. They require much larger space than regular fighter-sized planes, not to mention larger elevators. So, if you don't want to carry your bombers on deck, you'd have to specialy build a CV for the purpose, something highly unlikely, considering the Brittanian admirality and emperor doesn't like change(your own words, mind you).
To add to this, the largest of the WW2 carriers - the Midway Class - displaced around 60k tons, while CVA-58 (which was designed for bomber ops) would have displaced ~80k tons, and CVA-59 displaced ~75k tons at launch [All numbers are approximate full load numbers from Friedman's US Carriers].