Quote:
Originally Posted by braindead
After WW2 Royal Navy gave thought to of using ´´flexible flight deck´´ on carriers .to test this 3 DH Vampire F.3 were converted with reinforced bellies. Does anybody have any idea how that would looked like  ? And any pictures of those modified F.3-s ? |
The idea (which should have been throttled at birth) was that as the undercarriage weighed typically 5% of an aircrafts weight and was not needed in flight, it could be dispensed with. To that end the u/c was removed and the Vampire landed by its hook engaging the arrester wire and then sinking to the modified deck which had canvas over inflated rubber tubes. It was tried at the RAE Farnborough dummy deck and mercifully not on a ship, but was found wanting. A great way to graunch flying machines. A teensy-weensy problem that seems not to have occurred to the brainbox who came up with this howler was in moving the aircraft on the deck. It was bloody hard to do in daylight with strategically positiond cranes at the RAE. Imagine doing it at night in dirty weather on a small carrier!
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