I think we may have discussed this before but cannot remember what the response was.....

Could the FA-18 have theoretically operated off of the Essex class carrier?

Also, why could the Ark Royal operate the F-4 while the Essex class could not?

I see no reason why a Hornet could not have operated off an Essex-class carrier. I'm not sure about the Phantom and the Ark Royal, except to note that the Royal Navy's Phantoms were substantially different than the US Navy's aircraft.

Also, could the Clemenceau class have operated the FA-18A/B?

Sorry for the derailing, but how were they different in a way that would effect their carrier operation? I had always figured they were pretty similar except for radars and the like.





-K

I don't know how or if it would affect their carrier operation, but British Phantoms used Rolls Royce engines instead of General Electric ones.

British navalised Phantoms used Spey turbofans - the same engines as in the Buccaneer, probably because there were fewer aircraft in the airgroup, and therefore had a greater need for standardisation. I also understand that whilst the Spey offered greater thrust than the J79, it didn't offer greater high speed performance due to the increased frontal area of the aircraft. A variant of that same engine powered the Corsair II.

It thought it had to be longer and that screwed up the 'waist' area-ruling on the fuselage or something similar?
Plus it was heavier.

Didn't the RN Phantoms also have the longer front oleo to give greater AoA on take-off?

Given the low speed performance of the hornet is considered quite good I would imagine it would be able to operate of of an Essex, but I'll leave the definitive answers to our aircraft techies...

It had some effect on carrier landing capability because the Spey engines had more bleed air available for the boundary layer control system, and some advantage on launch because the engines produced more thrust, at least at low speed at sea level. Otherwise the F-4K was based on the F-4J which incorporated an approach speed reduction of around 10kts compared to the F-4B (the a/c found marginal for the Essex class, a decision not revisited with the F-4J). The F-4K also featured a longer nose landing gear to increase angle of attack on launch.

Various versions of F-18 have approach speeds and maximum landing weights either more favorable than various F-4 versions or not, so it doesn't seem clear what the operating ability or restrictions would be on Essex class ships. It's not that the F-4 absolutely couldn't land on an Essex class, especially later F-4's.

Joe

When the Reagan administration was making noise about reactivating some of the Essex class carriers in the 80's the planned air group was to consist of refurbished A-4 Skyhawk's.

This makes me think the F/A-18 wouldn't have worked.

The F-4K Phantom worked on the small British carriers due to major modifications to increase attitude on launch (longer oleo), slower approach speed (new ailerons and flaps, increased bleed air for BLC from the Spey), more take-off power (Spey) and smaller dimensions to fit British carrier lifts (folding radar dome) as well as other improvements such as stronger landing gear and arrester hook. It seems unlikely a U.S. spec Phantom could have operated from a British carrier.

Good to see you posting here again FITZ.

Didn't the Ark Royal and her sisters have a stronger roof than the Essex class? This would allow for heavier landing weights.

From what I understand, at least part of Lexington's flight deck was wood still.
I think I could look that at least that up....

That was 1981. The Hornet was still a few years away from entering operational service and Lehman wasn't going to make the case to recommission a ship and then have to wait a while to have the "right" aircraft to put aboard. In any regard, I've read that Lehman broached the recommissioning of Bonnie Dick/Oriskany as a throw-away bargaining chip to get the money for the New Jersey recommissioning and advance items for Lincoln and Washington.

IIRC there was an offer to sell or lease the French F/A-18s (not sure if Cs or E/Fs) as an interim capability to fly off of Foch and CdG so they could replace the F-8s.

Lexington was able to handle both A-7s and A-6s. Intrepid was the quals ship for the F4H/F-4A. It's possible that the reason why Lex never handled Hornets was because of it's older JBDs. This was identified as a big problem whenever the RN cross-decked their Phantoms onto US CVs (Forrestal and Saratoga, iirc). The RN Phantom's higher launch AoA (double oleo nose gear) would cause damage to the US CV's JBDs and deck.

Yes. The landing area was steel-reinforced (steel plates, iirc).

I don't think weight was an issue. Recall that Essexes operated various versions of A-3 ...

--Garth

See: http://www.phantomf4k.org/index.cfm?fa=con...irectoryId=4154

The USN zaps of RN Phantoms (changing the Brit roundel to pre-WWII US "meatball" insignia, replacing "Royal Navy" with "Colonial Navy" on the spines) were much funnier than what the Brits did in return.

So the American-spec Phantoms could take-off and land with external loads (both being an RN requirment as they didn't want to dumb unused ordnance in the ocean) and could be struck below on Ark's lifts?

IIRC it was a consideration before the Rafale and again when they started experiencing lengthy delays in the 90's to simply buy F/A-18 A then C models as the carrier aircraft.

See my post above; the F-4K had basically the same improved lift device arrangements as the F-4J on which it was generally based. The engines provided more bleed air to the BLCS, but OTOH the plane was heavier, and some sources quote an actually higher approach speed than the F-4J, though ~10kts lower than the F-4B. So an F-4J wouldn't necessarily be less capable in landing aboard Ark Royal than an F-4K, and an F-4B obviously could do it too in some circumstances as the picture shows. They'd need the folding nose to operate from the ship permanently, and launch payload would be a question, but in a joint operation they could divert to Ark Royal then launch back off to recover on their own ship, as was demonstrated.

For an idea of launch limitations of the Ark Royal, the most thoroughly modernized Essex class ships were refitted with C-11 catapults, roughly equal to the BS6 type fitted to Ark Royal in the late 60's, rated to move a 70,000# a/c to 106kts and 100kts respectively (60k F-4 to 120kts in latter case). The C-13's on the large US carriers were rated 70,000# a/c to 136kts even in the early versions.

Joe

Yes, the French Navy toyed with the idea in the early 90s, when the Crouzés (F-8s) were falling apart, to lease a squadron or 2 of F/A-18s off the US Navy (the number 36 rings a bell, but don't trust it).

Dassault in the form of the French Government soon dashed the idea as it was a reduced the chances of Rafale M coming to fruition considerably.

If the USN had really wanted to get a more modern aircraft than the A-4 onto the Essex they could have approached Britain / France regarding the navalised Jaguar. The design work had been done, and it was only Dassault pushing for a French only aircraft that lead to the Super Etendard being developed. Performance was better than the A-4. The Agave radar available as an option for the Jaguar was the same as that used in the Super Etendard, which, while not being a great performer, was a better radar than that carried by the A-4.....

Two other factors I remember were that the blast plates were not water cooled and that the catapults were hydraulic

The SCB 27c conversions (some before their -125; some, like Lexington, at the same time as their -125) had steam catpults.

According to my source on Lexington, she could operate F-4s as-was but needed fully water-cooled JBDs for F-14s and F-18s. Only EA-6Bs were too heavy.

I can't put my hand on another source, but one of the reasons behind the F-18 program (at least in its earlier, F-17 phase) was to provide a capable but compact a/c for the Essexes. The ultimate planned AG mooted for Oriskany included the later birds. IIRC, this issue was covered in CQ, but I'd have to spend days looking it up again.

If you can find it, let me know?

The purchase almost became a reality in 1986, when Rafale was still expected to enter in service in 1991 or 1992. The idea was to lease a couple squadrons to close the gap between the retirement of the F-8 and Rafale M. Dassault and the French military-Industrial complex of the era (Matra, SNECMA, Thomson...) saw this move as a direct menace to Rafale and the French aeronautical industry and lobbied heavily agaisnt it, so in the end the French navy had to refubish the old Crusaders and use them far longer than anticipate due to Rafale delays. In any case, the Rafale M was the first operational model of the Rafale. Curously enough, the first eleven airframes have already been retired due to compatibility issues with current production Rafales! They are stored pending a decision on their future. The Navy would like to get them upgraded to current standards, which would be pretty expesive) to keep the planned 60 units Rafale M fleet. There`s a strong possibility they would be sold at a bargain price (basically for free) to Brazil if the FAB choose the Rafale as their FX-2 winner.

The Jaguar M as developed was not too suitable for shipboard use. The them current Adour turbofan lacked power and had a very slow acceleration, something rather problematical when trying to land into an aircraft carrier! In this case, Dassault wasn`t the problem as the Jaguar M was a dog. With later Adour engines as fitted to the Jaguar International (and later to RAF Jaguars) something may have been done, but the Super Etendard was a much more reliable option at the time. So far, it has been proved to be a good election.

Lets look at that a bit closer:

To quote Bill Gunston and Mike Spick:

"Compared with the Jaguar the Super Etendard has much lower performance and carries less than half the weapons load, but is almost 100 per cent French".

The Super Etendard dates from 1955, considerably older in design and concept than the Jaguar, the 'normal' take off weight of the Jaguar, with 7,600kg of thrust, was about 24,000lbs / 11,000kg. The thrust available to the Super Etendard was 5,100kg with a maximum loaded weight (still carrying less weaponry than a Jaguar) was 25,300lb / 11,500kg. Empty weight of the Jaguar was 15,430lb, an empty Super Etendard was 14,200lb, empty (which is theoretical but useful for this argument, the engine power of the Jaguar exceeded that of unity in comparison to its weight. Compared with Jaguar (even the early models) , the Super Etendard is under powered, with an out moded fuel hungry inefficient engine.

But lets look at time lines, when we consider the date of first flight of the Super Etendard - 11 November 1974, and date of service - June 1978 - in comparison with the Jaguar first flew in 1968, giving plenty of time for development of the Jaguar for carrier use even before the Super Etendard flew for the first time.

In terms of engine power, if the USN was willing to fly the T-2 on and off carriers, with even lower thrust to weight than the Super Etendard, your argument about the Jaguar being too sluggish for carrier use does not stand up. Even the A4 Skyhawk was a better carrier aircraft than the Super Etendard.

France has a history post WW2 of entering into joint defence projects, but pulling out when it becomes evident that the French entry isn't goint to win. The Leopard / AMX-30 process being one example, the Aeritalia G91 being another. The only reason why the Super Etendard was developed was due to the influence that Dassault had on the French government.

Doesn't that say something about how the Rafale likely really compares to the FA-18?

Not really, the Royale wanted the Rafale, but thought it was not going to get it until the Crouzés had fell out of the air (since the M version was to follow the land version) and the Admirals wanted something that could afford some capability until then. Realistically, the only choice was the F/A-18, unless they bought Harriers.

My understanding is the Spey offered better acceleration, but lower top speed than the origina J79 Phantoms.

As to which is more important, it's a matter of opinion. But most resources I've read were critical of adapting the Spey for the Phantom.

- John

There were also plenty of A-7s in reserve, which DID operate off the Essexs for a period of time in the 1970s. Many of which proved to be excellent SEAD aircraff during the Gulf War.

They almost certainly would have, given their pretty good low speed performance. More likely is there were FAR more Skyhawks to spare. Douglas built nearly 3,000 of the damn things, and a good portion were sitting around David-Motham doing nothing. Along with a pretty decent number of ex-USN Phantoms (plus a fair number still in USN and USMC service). The F/A-18 was just beginning to come online at this point in time.

As to the weight...

The A-4F had a loaded weight of approx 18,000 lbs.
The A-7E was approx 30,000 lbs.
The F/A-18A was approx 37,000 lbs.
The F-4S was approx 41,000 lbs.

But even taking that all that into account, they somehow managed to operate the 70,000 lb. EKA-3 Skywarrior off the Essex-class as a dedicated tanker during Vietnam. Thus, I'd take the "Phantom was too heavy" argument with a grain of salt. The Brits had no similar compunctions with operating them off Ark Royal. Like Joe pointed out, the "J" model Phantoms had significant aerodynamic improvements. The USN models still in service in the early 1980s were the N (a rebuilt J with smokeless engines), and the S (a rebuilt J with smokeless engines and better leading edge slats).

The real question is did the USN have any F/A-18s to spare in the early 80s that weren't already on supercarriers? Almost certainly not. The F-8 was also gone in fighter mold by this point. I'm not sure I would send a carrier out without a least some fighter cover. Be it an F-4 or an F/A-18 (an F-14s were earmarked to replace the F-4s on forward deployed carriers, and it's even heavier than the Phantom). By default, you'd almost have to rely on the F-4 in order to stand up an Essex carrier wing if the shit hits the fan.



I believe tests conducted revealed the opposite, but not with *quite* the same safety or performance margins.

- John

No. It says a lot about the stupidity of a government that has a controlling interest in Dassault, and therefore let their Navy continue to use the horrendously obsolete Crusader. Even a lease deal would have better than the way they handled this.

On paper at least, the Rafale is a better carrier based plane than the F/A-18 Alphas and Charlies, but unfortunately not too many nations have carriers, and that negates one of its major marketing points when compared against other land-based fighters. Thus, it's been an uphill battle for Dassault to secure orders. The old "standby" of the French willing to sell arms to every idiot in the third-world doesn't really work anymore. The market has diversified considerably since the end of the Cold War.

- John

Why bother?

First of all, the Essex recommissioning was political posturing, and the only reason why it *might* have been done was as a wartime expedient. There were a crapload of A-4s that could be brought out of mothballs. Plus, a sizeable number of A-7s in USN reserve squadrons.

Secondly, you can do similar upgrades to the A-4s. Such as the F404 engines that went into the Super Skyhawks (Singapore), or the APG-66 radar set (early F-16s) that went into the Argentine Fightinghakws. That would be a lot easier than buying and supporting a new aircraft type.

Thirdly, the bomb load of an A-4F is only slightly less than that of a Jaguar. The A-7 could carrier twice as much as either.

You'd gain considerably speed with the Jaguar, but if you want speed in a USN aircraft certified as a bomb truck, it's called a Phantom. Plus, it might be possible to put an afterburning Spey in the A-7 (the airframe is based off the supersonic F-8, and the the Allison TF-41 engine was a non-afterburning Spey).

- John

Okay, I'd go along with all of that. The only real advantage of the Jaguar in my scenario over the A-4 and A-7 was the potential of a better air to air radar than that fitted to either. I agree that such a radar was not as good as that of the F-4. I didn't realise that Argentinian A-4s had an AA radar.

Yes, let us look at this more carefully.


In your comparison of thrust-to-weight ratios, you are being disingenuous.

First, because the thrust you give for the Jaguar (7,600kg) is for Adour Mk 106, which were only refitted to Jaguar sometime after 2000, even though you are replying to Gorka L. Martinez-Mezo, who said: "The Jaguar M as developed was not too suitable for shipboard use." (bold added by Hojutsuka)

In my comparison below I use Adour Mk 102 (7,305lbs), which was fitted to production versions of the Jaguar A, because I have no thrust or weight figures for Jaguar M (the carrier compatible version), which flew with the prototype Adour engines with even less thrust than the Mk 102.

Second, in calculating the T/W ratio, you are using 'normal' takeoff weight for the Jaguar while using maximum takeoff weight for the Super Etendard. If we use maximum takeoff weights for both aircraft, we have 14,610lbs thrust (Adour Mk 102) and 34,600lbs MTOW for the Jaguar A and 11,000lbs thrust and 25,300lbs MTOW for the Super Etendard, giving T/W ratios of 0.422 for the Jaguar A and 0.434 for the Super Etendard. So the Super Etendard actually is a bit better than the Jaguar A.


You seem to think that thrust-to-weight ratio is the determining factor in whether an aircraft is suitable for carrier operation or not. If this were true, the F-104G Starfighter with loaded weight of 20,640lbs and thrust of 15,600lbs would be better for carrier operations than the Jaguar with loaded weight of 24,250lbs (11,000kg) and thrust of 14,610lbs, because the F-104G has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 0.755 while the Jaguar A has a T/W ratio of only 0.602! If you use MTOW, the T/W ratios are 0.537 for the F-104G and 0.422 for the Jaguar A. Of course, no one would want to land a F-104 onto a carrier...

When operating an aircraft from a carrier, the most difficult operation is landing back onto the ship. So landing characteristics tend to be important in determining carrier suitability. What is desirable is as low a landing speed as possible, combined with good controllability throughout the approach and actual landing.

What correlates with low landing speed and good low speed handling is not thrust-to-weight ratio but low wing loading. Jaguar A has a wing area of 258ft² for MTOW of 34,600lbs, compared to Super Etendard's 312ft² for MTOW of 25,300lbs, which explains why the French Navy went for the Super Etendard rather than Jaguar M.


It's true that the French have tended to put their industry ahead of honest collaboration in many cases. But the Jaguar is not an example of this. Both the British and the French bought trainer (Jaguar B and Jaguar E) and strike (Jaguar S and Jaguar A) versions of the joint aircraft. The only version that was not bought was the Jaguar M, which ironically was the only purely French version.

Hojutsuka

I didn't define thrust to weight ratio as being the only factor as to the suitability of carrier use, Gorka L. Martinez-Mezo, raised that issue when he described the Jaguar A as sluggish. If it is wing loading, by your definition, then lets take a look at some figures. The Super Etendard has a wing loading, using your figures, of 81lbs per square foot of wing area. The Jaguar comes in at 134lbs/sq foot. The FA-18, at maximum weight, the figure is 141lbs/sq foot, higher than that of the Jaguar.

Of course these figures alone don't refect the real situation. The MTOW of the FA-18 would very rarely be approached. The 'normal' take off weight of the Jaguar, with fuel and some external stores being 24,150lbs, giving a wing loading of 92lbs / square foot. Landing would be closer (at say 18,000lbs - that is empty plus reserve fuel and pilot etc) to about 70lbs sq/ft. Add to this the outboard leading edge slats and full span double slotted slats on the trailing edge, this means that the Jaguar has an outstanding short field performance. One source gives the landing approach speed of a Jaguar at 90kts and a field length requirement of 2000ft.

It should be remembered that if the Super Etendard is carrying out any major attack mission it needs to be flown at near maximim weight at take off, and even then only gives a radius of about 400 miles, in comparison with the Jaguar, with no external fuel, and carrying bombs, to around 530 miles. The French machine, whilst capable of carrying bombs, rarely does, instead its usual attack weapon being the Exocet missile. This really demonstrates that the Super Etendard is a one trick pony, rather than a general purpose machine like the Jaguar. The Jaguar, of course, was also capable of carrying the Exocet, well, actually two of them, out to a longer range, than the Super Etendard could carry one.



By the way, your figure of 312 sq feet for the Super Etendard's wing is a little high, two sources I have give the wing area at 305sq/ft.

Kiwi A4's also had APG-66's. Didn't know about the argie's having similar.

All right, I think I see where you went off on the wrong track, and I will try to explain it to you.

First, just to make sure we are discussing the same aircraft, Gorka L. Martinez-Mezo was talking about Jaguar M (Marine, or "navy" version), not Jaguar A (Appui, or French version of strike fighter). I used Jaguar A to calculate T/W ratio because I could not find weight and thrust information for Jaguar M, as I explained in my earlier post (#34).

Now, what Gorka L. Martinez-Mezo said in his post #25 was:

"The Jaguar M as developed was not too suitable for shipboard use. The them current Adour turbofan lacked power and had a very slow acceleration, something rather problematical when trying to land into an aircraft carrier!"

First, he is talking about the prototype Jaguar M (there were no production examples) powered with the then current (prototype) Adours. Second, he is talking about it being a problem in carrier landings.

Now, when you are landing, you do not want maximum power from your engines (that would be too much unless you have decided to abandon the landing and go around again), but you do want to be able to adjust the power to keep you on the glide path. So slow acceleration is a big problem. If you are too low, you can push the throttle for more power, but if the engine takes a long time to spool up and give you more thrust, you could end up in the water before the thrust increases enough.

Another problem with the earlier Adours was that the afterburner ("reheat" in British terminology) was all-or-nothing. That is, the Adour went up to maximum dry thrust (probably about 4,500lbs for the prototype engines), then the afterburner lit up with a big "boom!" and the thrust went up to over 6,000lbs. So you could not get the engine to provide a thrust between maximum reheat and full afterburner (say between 4,500lb and 6,000lbs roughly). This was a major problem in carrier landings where if you were doing a single engine approach, maximum dry would likely be too little and full reheat too much.

To be fair, the second problem was solved by development of PTR (part throttle reheat) which became available for Adour Mk 102 (see link and there is a graph here) and later models of Adour had more thrust overall as well. But this was in the future, and as Gorka L. Martinez-Mezo says, the prototype Jaguar M with the early Adours did not prove very suitable for carrier operations.

So possibly if money and effort had been put into developing Jaguar M, it might have ended up a better carrier aircraft than the Super Etendard. We will never know since its development was canceled, but history of aviation is littered with "quick and easy" developments that turned out to be neither quick nor easy, especially when it comes to adapting an originally land-based design for carrier operations.

Hojutsuka

There was six years between the first flight of the Jaguar (1968) and the first flight of the Super Etendart (1974), (which was actually a modified Etendard anyway). If (as you obliquely remarked) that time, effort and stubborness on the part of Dassault -Breguet had been spent on 'curing the ills' of the Jaguar, instead of bringing a 1950s aircraft up to something that approached a 1970s requirement, then the Jaguar would have been flying off French carriers by around 1971 or 1972. Perhaps if Rolls Royce had been given the opportunity to fix the problem with the afterburning, because it isn't as if they hadn't done similar work on the Spey Phantom first flying in 1966. Of course, that would have meant France conceeding that the British could do something that they couldn't.

Related note, the June 2009 issue of Aviation News has a picture of an Ark Royal/USN crossdecking op on p.36.

Present are two A-6 Intruders carrying tanks on the inner hardpoints and MERs on the outer (whether there is something on the centerline can't be determined) and two F-4s (VF-33 and VF-102 with the -33 Phantom wearing "USS Independence" on its spine). Phantoms are carrying the twin-arm 'winder launcher on the inner wing pylons, empty outer wing pylons and the -33 bird has a centerline tank (as with the Intruders, the angle of the shot prohibits seeing anything on the centerline).

Also present are three Phantom FG.1s (with the rectangular ecm/rwr housing on the top of the fin, and carrying tanks on the outer wing pylons), three Buccs and an AEW Gannet.

--Garth

The A-4AR Fightinghawk, which is a modified USMC A-4M has a radar. The old A-4 Skyhawks used in the Falklands War did not have radar. Different airplanes, same country.