You don't need a ski jump to get planes in the air if you use catapults, so why have a ski jump at all if we're so keen on catapults? Ski jumps are used on carriers when you want a short runway (a catapult already provides this) without having to deal with the cost of a catapult. So I don't understand why the Z has both. Ski jumps force weight limitations on the aircraft and occupy space at the front of the deck that you could otherwise use if it was a flattop.
If you already achieve takeoff speeds using a catapult, why are you taking the extra cost to angle the flight deck upwards?
You don't need to use a ski jump to get planes in the air if you use catapults, but there is literally no downside to using them. At all.
Ski jumps don't force limitations on the aircraft by themselves, the carriers that use ski jumps don't have catapults and that is why they have limitations. I mean, logically, tell me, why would a ramp force weight limitations if it actually incerases lift? The only think I can think of is load on the gear, but plane landing using arrestor wires has more load on the gear than one using a ramp anyway, and if that's a problem you can just have shallower ramp (the ones in my image are actually too steep tbh, but it's just visualization). And while they occupy the space which could be flattop, it's not worse in any way, it's actually an extension that again, gives you more lift.
The extra cost to angle the deck upwards is meager compared to catapult anyway, and why... well, extra lift is always nice, and might enable us to use heavier aircraft in future. And, considering we don't have blast shields on any proposal, it might enable us to launch jets without frying whole crew, because we might afford less throttle on the jet, since it would have lift to spare.
I mean, man, trust me, I checked for hours if there is any reason as to why US Navy doesn't use ski jumps, the only I found being: "we don't need it hurr durr Ameirca stronk ramps are low-tech russianpoor". And to quote after Wikipedia:
"U.S. Marine aviators who experimented with takeoffs from the Spanish aircraft carrier found the improvement to be "nothing short of amazing." The United States is the only country which operates STOVL aircraft from carriers without a ski-jump ramp."
I'll grant that it would probably be wider to make space for the takeoff catapult, but I kind of doubt it, since that space would already be there since the Tiger Star has an offset island. Even if the Pattern C was wider than the Z carrier, it would still be more cost effective, because unlike the Z carrier it doesn't have an entire second deck dedicated to a runway that can only launch planes when you don't need that much space to launch planes using a catapult. It's extremely wasteful.
That deck is there ANYWAY. It's the hangar. All you do is open it and give it a catapult with a bit of deck to launch the planes. You don't use whole length of the deck for launching the plane using a catapult, you use the tip. All the area behind the catapult on the lower deck is the goddamn hangar, and planes just roll onto the catapult after each other.
Also, angled deck makes the landing less safe, especially without optical landing system (that we don't have, and is basically required for angled deck carriers), because you're coming at the carrier at angle, so the carrier is moving away to your side.
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Topic: Intercontinental Arms Race: Finale (Read 603795 times)