Flight Ops on Carriers: Green Light go - Red Light stop

[hacksaw1]

This may have been suggested before.

On US carriers there was a flag or light visible on the bridge to let all on the flight deck know that flight ops were in progress, or had ceased.

I thought that a Green and Red light could be added to the carrier bridge that would be visible from the spawn point on deck and aft of the carrier during landing to let the pilot know whether the carrier is steaming straight or whether it is turning.

Carrier steaming straight = Green Light, flight ops permitted
Carrier turning = Red Light (to mean take off-land at your own discretion)

This would warn pilots trying to take off that the carrier was turning. Otherwise it is hard to see from the plane that the carrier is turning.

Best Regards.

Cement

[hitech]

I like the idea. Btw I normaly just look back at the wake.

HiTech

[Saxman]

How about an LSO on the fantail to assist with carrier landings? Like maybe a .approach or .landing command, and you get a guy on the fantail guiding you in with paddles. I thought that was a sweet feature of Aces of the Pacific, and the only time I ever remember seeing that in a PTO CFS.

With reduced visual resolution/acuity over real life it'd be hard to see him on the CV itself, but maybe pop it up in a corner of the screen as an overlay like the .target command (that's how AotP did it).

Vets probably wouldn't make much use of it, but I'm sure newer and less experienced pilots could find it useful learning to land on a CV.

[Pooface]

well, we can see when the carrier is turning, but what happens to me sometimes is seeing the waypoints, and seeing that the carrier is about to turn, but i try to land it. on final, it starts turning, and it gets hard to stick with.

so maybe, it should go red when the carrier is about to turn, judging on the waypoint distance. so say the CV is 500 yrds from it's waypoint, the light comes on to warn pilotsd that it will turn shortly.

then i think it'd be a really cool idea

[Krusty]

A light might be hard to see, especially depending on the visibility of the plane you're in.

How about a "woot-woot, woot-woot" type of horn, like the air raid syren, audiblie from the flight deck?

[Widewing]

What I would like to see is a catapult option. All US fleet carriers had catapults for launching aircraft when the deck was full, or when there was insufficient wind over the deck.

I don't what this, but they also had bow arresting gear, enabling aircraft to land over the bow (bow towards the stern). To do so, the ship and to steam in reverse.



My regards,

Widewing

[hacksaw1]

HiTech,

I haven't been able see the CV wake after I spawn on deck, so I try to watch the destroyers, but they don't seem to give me a clear indication of maneuvers. Also, when on final in a hog you can't hardly see the deck, much less the wake, so if the Task Force captain initiates a turn while you're on final, it's sometimes hard to judge. That was my take on the flight ops lights. To help keep you from crashing on TO, and give you the opportunity to go around if you have a bunch of kills to land.

Actually, like Saxman, I've thought an LSO down on the corner of the screen would be fun, but I think it would be a lot of coding, and as Sax mentioned, probably wouldn't be used much by vets.

Best Regards,

Cement

[Krusty]

Actually, the carriers did not have a catapult system. They moved the planes to the back of the deck 1 at a time, getting them in place, then they rolled off the front half of the deck. The "catapult" was simply steaming full power into the wind.

[Saxman]

American carriers early catapults at LEAST as early as 1942 (the first USMC Wildcats delivered to Guadalcanal were catapulted from a light carrier, the Independence, I think). The F4F and F4U certainly had hardpoints for catapult launch (not so sure about the F6F, SBD, TBD, SB2C or TBM). I'm pretty sure I've seen either photographs or written information showing catapults on the Essex-class carriers during the war. Certainly the light and escort carriers used them.

It may be the older Yorktown and Lexington-classes you're thinking of without them.

[Loddar]

Yes, good idea, tell all enemy buffers that we turn our carrier. Best tell them
which new hdg we turn it too.

Good idea but not in rumblecrap MA

[mussie]

I like the idea. Btw I normaly just look back at the wake.

HiTech

What the.....?



Who The Hell Are You And What Did You Do With HTC







J/K

Nice Idea hacksaw, Clean, Simple, Effective  

[USHilDvl]

I like it.  Simple and effective.

[hubsonfire]

Originally posted by Loddar
Yes, good idea, tell all enemy buffers that we turn our carrier. Best tell them
which new hdg we turn it too.

Good idea but not in rumblecrap MA

The wake already indicates that the fleet is turning, and which direction. Any bombers close enough to see a light on the stern of the carrier aren't going to miss anyway.

Constructive criticism helps develop ideas. Whines don't.

[Lusche]

Regarding to catapults, I found this:

"In drawing up the preliminary design for USS Essex (CV-9), particular attention was directed at the size of both her flight and hangar decks. (...) Most of the first-line carriers of the pre-war years were equipped with flush deck catapults, but owing to the speed and size of these ships very little catapulting was done—except for experimental purposes.
With the advent of war, airplane weights began to go up as armor and armament got heavier; crew size aboard the planes also increased. By the war’s end in 1945, catapult launchings would become more common under these circumstances with some carrier commanding officers reporting that as much as 40 per cent of launchings were effected by the ships’ catapults."

Taken from this wikipedia article about the Essex class carriers.

[Krusty]

Indeed, I must have been thinking of the early ones.