Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Flight Deck shopping experience:
1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Flight Deck offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Flight Deck at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.
2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about
3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Flight Deck? Wrong! If the Flight Deck is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Flight Deck then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Flight Deck? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Flight Deck and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Flight Deck wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Flight Deck then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Flight Deck site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Flight Deck, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Flight Deck, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
This article refers to the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. For the flight deck of an aircraft, see Cockpit (aviation)
doing a high speed turn during her acceptance trials.The 'flight deck
of an aircraft carrier is the surface from which its aircraft take off and land, essentially a miniature airfield at sea. On smaller naval ships which do not have aviation as a primary mission, the landing area for helicopters and other VTOL aircraft is also referred to as the flight deck. The official United States Navy term for these vessels is "aviation capable ships".
Evolution
Early flight decks
The first flight decks were inclined wooden ramps built over the
forecastle of naval warships. Eugene Ely made the Naval aviation from USS Birmingham (CL-2) on 14 November 1910 and on
4 May 1912, Commander Charles Rumney Samson became the first man to take off from a ship which was underway when he flew his Short Brothers Shorts S27 off of HMS Hibernia (1905), which was steaming at . Because the take-off speed of early aircraft was so low, it was possible for an aircraft to make a very short take off when the launching ship was steaming into the wind. Later, removable "flying-off platforms" appeared on the gun turrets of
battleships and
battlecruisers, allowing aircraft to be flown off for scouting purposes, although there was no chance of recovery.
On 2 August
1917, while performing trials, RAF officer ranks Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning landed a Sopwith Pup successfully on board the flying-off platform of HMS Furious (1916), becoming the first person to land an aircraft on a moving ship. However, on his second attempt, a tyre burst as he attempted to land, causing the aircraft to go over the side, killing him; thus Dunning also has the dubious distinction of being the first person to die in an aircraft carrier landing accident. The landing arrangements on
Furious were highly unsatisfactory, however. In order to land, aircraft had to manoeuvre around the superstructure.
Furious was therefore returned to dockyard hands have a 300 foot (91 m) deck added aft for landing, on top of a new hangar. However, the central superstructure remained, and turbulence caused by this badly affected the landing deck.
Full length decks
The first aircraft carrier that began to show the configuration of the modern vessel was the converted liner
HMS Argus (1917), which had a large flat wooden deck added over the entire length of the hull, giving a combined landing and take-off deck unobstructed by superstructure turbulence. Because of her unobstructed flight deck,
Argus had no fixed conning superstructure and no funnel. Rather, exhaust gasses were trunked down the side of the ship and ejected under the fantail of the flight deck (which, despite arrangements to disperse the gasses, gave an unwelcome "lift" to aircraft immediately prior to landing). The lack of a command position and funnel was unsatisfactory, and
Argus was used to experiment with various ideas to remedy the solution. A photograph in 1917 shows her with a canvas mock-up of a starboard "island" superstructure and funnel. This was to starboard as the rotary engines of early aircraft caused a force to the left, meaning an aircraft naturally
yawed to port on take-off, therefore it was desirable that they turned away from the fixed superstructure. This became the typical aircraft carrier arrangement and was used in the next
United Kingdom carriers,
HMS Hermes (95) and
HMS Eagle (1918).
After World War I,
battlecruisers that otherwise would have had to have been discarded under the
Washington Naval Treaty - such as the British HMS Furious (1916) and
Glorious class aircraft carrier and the American USS Lexington (CV-2) and
USS Saratoga (CV-3) - were converted to carriers along the above lines. Being large and fast they were perfectly suited to this role; the heavy armouring and
scantlings and low speed of the converted battleship
Eagle served to be something of a handicap in practice. Because the military effectiveness of aircraft carriers was then unknown, early ships were typically equipped with cruiser-calibre guns to aid in their defence if surprised by enemy warships. These guns were generally removed during
World War II and substituted for anti-aircraft guns, as carrier doctrine developed the "task force" (later called "battle group") model, where the carrier's defence against surface ships would be a combination of escorting warships and its own aircraft.
In ships of this configuration, the hangar deck was the strength deck, and an integral part of the hull, and the hangar and wooden flight deck were considered to be part of the superstructure. Such ships were still being built into the late 40s, classic examples being the US Navy's
Essex class aircraft carrier and Ticonderoga class aircraft carrier class carriers. However, in 1936, the
Royal Navy began construction of the Illustrious class aircraft carrier. In these ships, the flight deck was now the strength deck, an integral part of the hull, and was heavily armoured to protect the ship and her air complement. Although the armoured carrier concept in this form remained something of a dead end, the flight deck as the strength deck was adopted for later construction. This was necessitated by the ever-increasing size of the ships, from the 13,000
Tonnage USS Langley (CV-1) in 1922 to over a hundred thousand tons in the latest
Nimitz class aircraft carrier carriers.
Armoured decks
When aircraft carriers supplanted battleships as the primary fleet capital ship, there were two schools of thought on the question of armour protection being included into the flight deck. The addition of armour to the flight deck offered aircraft below some protection against aerial bombs. However the extra space required did not allow the carriers to hang aircraft above, thus reducing the maximum number of airplanes carried.
Landing on flight decks
classLanding arrangements were originally primitive, with aircraft simply being "caught" by a team of deck-hands who would run out from the wings of the flight deck and grab a part of the aircraft to slow it down. This dangerous procedure was only possible with early aircraft of low weight and landing speed. Arrangements of nets served to catch the aircraft should the latter fail, although this was likely to cause structural damage. Landing larger and faster aircraft on a flight deck was made possible through the use of arresting cables installed on the flight deck and a tailhook installed on the aircraft. Early carriers had a very large number of
arrestor cables or "wires". Current U.S. Navy carriers have three or four steel cables stretched across the deck at 20-foot (6 m) intervals which bring a plane, traveling at 150 miles per hour (240 kilometres per hour), to a complete stop in about 320 feet (98 m). The cables are set to stop each aircraft at the same place on the deck, regardless of the size or weight of the plane. During World War II, large net barriers would be erected across the flight deck in order that aircraft could be parked on the forward part of the deck and recovered on the after part. This allowed increased complements, but resulted in lengthened turn-around times as aircraft were shuffled around the carrier to allow take-off or landing operations.
Aircraft are given extra speed to
assisted take off by Aircraft catapult.
Modern innovations
===Angled flight deck=== classA British innovation was the
angled flight deck (or simply, the "angle"), in which the aft part of the deck is widened and a separate runway positioned at an angle. It was tested on the American aircraft carrier
USS Antietam (CV-36), and subsequently adapted as the SCB-125 upgrade for the Essex class aircraft carrier and SCB-110/110A for the Midway class aircraft carrier. The design of the Forrestal class aircraft carrier was modified immediately upon the success of the
Antietam configuration, with
Forrestal and
Saratoga modified while under construction to incorporate the angled deck. This increases the safety of landings by allowing a plane that "bolts", or misses the arresting gear, to become airborne again without concern for aircraft parked forward. (The radio call describing this aborted landing is "bolter, bolter"). The angled deck also allows the ship to conduct concurrent launch and recovery operations. The development of the angle provides several advantages, as they improved flight operations, allowed a larger island to be mounted (improving both ship-handling and flight control), drastically simplified aircraft recovery and deck movement (aircraft now launched from the bow and re-embarked on the angle, leaving a large open area amidships for arming and fuelling), damage control and a host of other functional improvements. Because of its utility in flight operations, the angled deck is now a defining feature of STOBAR and
CATOBAR equipped aircraft carriers. carrier
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69)
Ski-jump
showing prominent ski jump.Another British innovation is the
ski-jump, which came about as means of improving take off for the VSTOL
BAe Sea Harrier "jump jet" on the small Invincible class aircraft carriers. The ski jump is a ramp which is curved upwards at its forward end. This converts the short run up available into vertical motion and reduces the fuel used at take off compared to a vertical take off.
Flexible decks
An idea tested but never taken to completion was the "flexible deck". In the early jet age it was seen that by eliminating the landing gear for carrier borne aircraft the inflight performance would be improved. This led to the concept of a deck that would absorb the energy of landing, the risk of damaging propellers no longer being an issue though take off would require some sort of launching cradle. http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/scimitar/history.html Thunder and Lightnings - Scimitar] 21 May 2007
References
See also
This article refers to the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. For the flight deck of an aircraft, see Cockpit (aviation)
doing a high speed turn during her acceptance trials.The 'flight deck
of an aircraft carrier is the surface from which its aircraft take off and land, essentially a miniature airfield at sea. On smaller naval ships which do not have aviation as a primary mission, the landing area for helicopters and other VTOL aircraft is also referred to as the flight deck. The official United States Navy term for these vessels is "aviation capable ships".
Evolution
Early flight decks
The first flight decks were inclined wooden ramps built over the forecastle of naval warships. Eugene Ely made the Naval aviation from
USS Birmingham (CL-2) on 14 November
1910 and on 4 May
1912, Commander Charles Rumney Samson became the first man to take off from a ship which was underway when he flew his Short Brothers
Shorts S27 off of HMS Hibernia (1905), which was steaming at . Because the take-off speed of early aircraft was so low, it was possible for an aircraft to make a very short take off when the launching ship was steaming into the wind. Later, removable "flying-off platforms" appeared on the gun turrets of
battleships and
battlecruisers, allowing aircraft to be flown off for scouting purposes, although there was no chance of recovery.
On
2 August 1917, while performing trials, RAF officer ranks
Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning landed a Sopwith Pup successfully on board the flying-off platform of HMS Furious (1916), becoming the first person to land an aircraft on a moving ship. However, on his second attempt, a tyre burst as he attempted to land, causing the aircraft to go over the side, killing him; thus Dunning also has the dubious distinction of being the first person to die in an aircraft carrier landing accident. The landing arrangements on
Furious were highly unsatisfactory, however. In order to land, aircraft had to manoeuvre around the superstructure.
Furious was therefore returned to dockyard hands have a 300 foot (91 m) deck added aft for landing, on top of a new hangar. However, the central superstructure remained, and turbulence caused by this badly affected the landing deck.
Full length decks
The first aircraft carrier that began to show the configuration of the modern vessel was the converted liner HMS Argus (1917), which had a large flat wooden deck added over the entire length of the hull, giving a combined landing and take-off deck unobstructed by superstructure turbulence. Because of her unobstructed flight deck,
Argus had no fixed conning superstructure and no funnel. Rather, exhaust gasses were trunked down the side of the ship and ejected under the fantail of the flight deck (which, despite arrangements to disperse the gasses, gave an unwelcome "lift" to aircraft immediately prior to landing). The lack of a command position and funnel was unsatisfactory, and
Argus was used to experiment with various ideas to remedy the solution. A photograph in 1917 shows her with a canvas mock-up of a starboard "
island" superstructure and funnel. This was to starboard as the rotary engines of early aircraft caused a force to the left, meaning an aircraft naturally
yawed to port on take-off, therefore it was desirable that they turned away from the fixed superstructure. This became the typical aircraft carrier arrangement and was used in the next United Kingdom carriers,
HMS Hermes (95) and
HMS Eagle (1918).
After
World War I,
battlecruisers that otherwise would have had to have been discarded under the
Washington Naval Treaty - such as the British HMS Furious (1916) and Glorious class aircraft carrier and the American
USS Lexington (CV-2) and USS Saratoga (CV-3) - were converted to carriers along the above lines. Being large and fast they were perfectly suited to this role; the heavy armouring and
scantlings and low speed of the converted battleship
Eagle served to be something of a handicap in practice. Because the military effectiveness of aircraft carriers was then unknown, early ships were typically equipped with cruiser-calibre guns to aid in their defence if surprised by enemy warships. These guns were generally removed during World War II and substituted for
anti-aircraft guns, as carrier doctrine developed the "task force" (later called "battle group") model, where the carrier's defence against surface ships would be a combination of escorting warships and its own aircraft.
In ships of this configuration, the hangar deck was the strength deck, and an integral part of the hull, and the hangar and wooden flight deck were considered to be part of the superstructure. Such ships were still being built into the late 40s, classic examples being the US Navy's Essex class aircraft carrier and
Ticonderoga class aircraft carrier class carriers. However, in 1936, the
Royal Navy began construction of the
Illustrious class aircraft carrier. In these ships, the flight deck was now the strength deck, an integral part of the hull, and was heavily armoured to protect the ship and her air complement. Although the armoured carrier concept in this form remained something of a dead end, the flight deck as the strength deck was adopted for later construction. This was necessitated by the ever-increasing size of the ships, from the 13,000 Tonnage USS Langley (CV-1) in 1922 to over a hundred thousand tons in the latest Nimitz class aircraft carrier carriers.
Armoured decks
When aircraft carriers supplanted battleships as the primary fleet capital ship, there were two schools of thought on the question of armour protection being included into the flight deck. The addition of armour to the flight deck offered aircraft below some protection against aerial bombs. However the extra space required did not allow the carriers to hang aircraft above, thus reducing the maximum number of airplanes carried.
Landing on flight decks
classLanding arrangements were originally primitive, with aircraft simply being "caught" by a team of deck-hands who would run out from the wings of the flight deck and grab a part of the aircraft to slow it down. This dangerous procedure was only possible with early aircraft of low weight and landing speed. Arrangements of nets served to catch the aircraft should the latter fail, although this was likely to cause structural damage. Landing larger and faster aircraft on a flight deck was made possible through the use of arresting cables installed on the flight deck and a
tailhook installed on the aircraft. Early carriers had a very large number of arrestor cables or "wires". Current U.S. Navy carriers have three or four steel cables stretched across the deck at 20-foot (6 m) intervals which bring a plane, traveling at 150 miles per hour (240 kilometres per hour), to a complete stop in about 320 feet (98 m). The cables are set to stop each aircraft at the same place on the deck, regardless of the size or weight of the plane. During World War II, large net barriers would be erected across the flight deck in order that aircraft could be parked on the forward part of the deck and recovered on the after part. This allowed increased complements, but resulted in lengthened turn-around times as aircraft were shuffled around the carrier to allow take-off or landing operations.
Aircraft are given extra speed to assisted take off by
Aircraft catapult.
Modern innovations
===Angled flight deck=== classA British innovation was the
angled flight deck (or simply, the "angle"), in which the aft part of the deck is widened and a separate runway positioned at an angle. It was tested on the American aircraft carrier USS Antietam (CV-36), and subsequently adapted as the SCB-125 upgrade for the
Essex class aircraft carrier and SCB-110/110A for the
Midway class aircraft carrier. The design of the Forrestal class aircraft carrier was modified immediately upon the success of the
Antietam configuration, with
Forrestal and
Saratoga modified while under construction to incorporate the angled deck. This increases the safety of landings by allowing a plane that "bolts", or misses the arresting gear, to become airborne again without concern for aircraft parked forward. (The radio call describing this aborted landing is "bolter, bolter"). The angled deck also allows the ship to conduct concurrent launch and recovery operations. The development of the angle provides several advantages, as they improved flight operations, allowed a larger island to be mounted (improving both ship-handling and flight control), drastically simplified aircraft recovery and deck movement (aircraft now launched from the bow and re-embarked on the angle, leaving a large open area amidships for arming and fuelling), damage control and a host of other functional improvements. Because of its utility in flight operations, the angled deck is now a defining feature of
STOBAR and CATOBAR equipped aircraft carriers. carrier
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69)
Ski-jump
showing prominent ski jump.Another British innovation is the
ski-jump, which came about as means of improving take off for the
VSTOL BAe Sea Harrier "jump jet" on the small Invincible class aircraft carriers. The ski jump is a ramp which is curved upwards at its forward end. This converts the short run up available into vertical motion and reduces the fuel used at take off compared to a vertical take off.
Flexible decks
An idea tested but never taken to completion was the "flexible deck". In the early jet age it was seen that by eliminating the landing gear for carrier borne aircraft the inflight performance would be improved. This led to the concept of a deck that would absorb the energy of landing, the risk of damaging propellers no longer being an issue though take off would require some sort of launching cradle. http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/scimitar/history.html Thunder and Lightnings - Scimitar] 21 May 2007
References
See also
Flight Deck Resources
2007 Flight Deck Resources. All rights reserved.
Flight Deck
In 1973 the Airfix Model company of England purchased a copyright licensed from Schaper Manufacturing Co. Minneappolis Minnesota, to produce a revolutionary new type of toy for ...
Flight deck - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is the surface from which its aircraft take off and land, essentially a miniature airfield at sea. On smaller naval ships which do not have ...
Flight Deck | Jack Speak
You may think that the flight deck is just a place for the helo to land and take off. That is obviously its main role but it also has another purpose. It’s where matelots ...
firstclass-simulations.com FLIGHT DECK 5
Flight Deck 5 delivers the thrills and excitement of taking off and landing on a working flight deck: the nerve wracking adrenalin rush of authentic deck operations with AI traffic ...
Flight Deck
Completely serviceable: Canberra : Captains Barge : Chinese laundry gets a new roof: Chris Bill : Chris Bill & Scouse: Chris Bill goes on a jolly: Come back. Lynx gets lifted
Flight Deck Solutions :: Index
Forum Topics Posts Last Post ; FlightDeck Solutions : FDS/Builders Discussion Come here to discuss FDS related issues and your project. Moderators bwr014, Curtis: 2323: 15087: Mon ...
Chelmer Cycles - FLIGHT DECK SC-6502
Chelmer Cycles is the only bike shop you need to visit in Chelmsford, for Cannondale and Kona mountain, road and Urban bikes as well as first class servicing, parts and repairs.
Flight Deck Solutions
PRO-M Knob Production in Full Swing FDS is glad to report that our knob production is back to our own internal devices and running smoothly. "Months of supplier issues forced us to ...
Flight Deck Resources
Flight Deck Resources current press releases and company news. Flight Deck Resources is a leading provider of Electronic Flight Bag ( EFB ) hardware and software for air transport ...
