On 18/09/2014 02:43, Bob Taylor wrote:
> Let's see - hook down and engaged but landing gear up. Let me guess- a
> controlled crash landing?
No, it's quite deliberate. Winkle Brown landing a Sea Vampire on a
rubber deck.
YouTube footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Lu6LEQ0zo
Here's an extract from Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_deck)
Flexible decks
An idea tested, but never put into service, was the "flexible" or
"rubber deck." In the early jet age it was seen that by eliminating the
landing gear for carrier borne aircraft the inflight performance and
range would be improved, since the space taken by the landing gear could
be used to hold additional fuel tanks instead. This led to the concept
of a deck that would absorb the energy of landing. With the introduction
of jet aircraft the risk of damaging propellers was no longer an issue,
though take off would require some sort of launching cradle. Tests were
carried out with a de Havilland Sea Vampire flown by test pilot Eric
"Winkle" Brown onto the rubber deck fitted to HMS Warrior, and
Supermarine designed its Type 508 for rubber deck landings. The flexible
deck idea was found to be technically feasible but was nevertheless
abandoned, as the weight of aircraft increased, and there were always
doubts about the ability of an average pilot to land in this way. The
Type 508 was subsequently developed into a conventional carrier
aircraft, the Supermarine Scimitar.
--
Peter
|
|
){kind=link}