Waiting for the pilot are a series of arresting wires, placed across the deck. The pilot’s job is to crash into a moving, pitching, rolling ~100’ by 100’ square at roughly 130 knots. A system of stabilized lights and lenses create visual aiming system (the ‘ball’) to aid the pilot, who is flying one of the toughest routine flight profiles in the world at this point. The aircraft enters a landing pattern that places the aircraft approaching the stern of the carrier at an angle, on a very precise and narrow flight path. Landing is kinda similar, but far harder. At the end of the run, the piston and shuttle slam to a stop and the aircraft goes flying off into the wild blue yonder.įlightdeck crew, please correct any over-simplifications and errors…? When all is in readness, the launching trigger is pressed, steam floods the piston, and when enough force is achieved, the restraining bolt breaks, the piston, shuttle, and attached aircraft shoot down the deck.
The exact weight and type of the aircraft are fed into the launching system, allowing the correct amount of launching force to be calculated and set. The aircraft and shuttle are held in place by a restraining bolt of specifically callibrated breaking strain. In the case of aircraft that don’t have the proper equipment, a ‘bridle’ is used instead (the ramps at the end of the catapult are there to stop the bridles after they release the aircraft and the suttle stops: The bridle whips over and slaps onto the ramp). Obviously, this isn’t precisely steam-tight (you always see some escaped steam after a cat shot), but it’s close enough.Īn aircraft is taxied into place and connected to the shuttle by a bar that projects to the front of the aircraft’s nose gear. The connection between the shuttle and the piston is sealed by a pair of heavy rubber gaskets that flap closed before and after the connecting arm. The shuttle (the part that pulls the aircraft down the deck) is attached to a piston, and runs along a precisely-laid track built into the flightdeck. The catapults have their own steam system, making them independant of any other steam loads on board the carrier. This simplified explanation brought to you by your friendly retired PN1, USN who served aboard two aircraft carriers, the USS CARL VINSON (mighty fine ship!) and the USS INDEPENDENCE (dang, that ship was old!). Kind of hard to walk away after you take off! The landing gear is, IMHO, appropriately called that because it’s more important, again IMHO, to walk away from the aircraft after you land, thus landing gear.
The nosegear of the aircraft is positioned on the slide and the catapult pushes the slide at high speed towards the bow of the carrier. The pressurized steam powers the catapult. On occasion, you can watch the maintenance on different parts of the catapult: The piston, the slide, the rubber that runs along the length of both sides of the catapult, and even the long “bowling lane” as I called it in which is under the groove. The slide rides on top of the catapult track and extends through the groove so the piston can move the slide the length of the track. There is a groove through the length of the catapult’s track on the flight deck.
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