tighe@hydra.convex.com (Mike Tighe) (01/12/91)
From: tighe@hydra.convex.com (Mike Tighe) From: ron@hpfcso.fc.hp.com (Ron Miller) > I'm amazed to see how many variations there are on "why do carriers have > angled decks" in this forum. Some are correct, and some are focusing on > secondary benefits. > The simple answer is to allow a "touch-and-go" if the hook doesn't catch > the wire instead of a "touch-and-crash-into-the-barrier-or-other-airplanes" > of the old straight deck designs. > If he'd been landing on a straight deck ship, I might have been a > fatherless child upon the first pass :-( What an angled flight deck can do, that a straight one cannot (safely), is allow for the simultaneous launching and recovering of aircraft. >From your message, it appears you do not think that a "touch-and-go" was possible before the angled flight deck. It was. I doubt you would have been "fatherless" if your father had been required to land on a straight flight deck, since your father's landing attempt[s] would not be attempted until the forward deck was clear. However, this would prevent the launching of aircraft, and by angling the flight deck, this problem was solved. Mike PS: During Carrier Quals, F-14 did perform full-length "touch-and-go" on angled flight decks.