F-35B/C and the Ski-Jump?

[whitewhale]

Thought I read where they opted for Mig-29K, vs SU-33's. I thought that odd, given the SU-33's much more robust range, payload etc.. Is it simply due to the fact the carrier can carry more Mig-29's vs. SU-33's?

Pricepoint? Or something else I'm missing??

A touch (or more) off topic but there probably aren't enough available 33's, they only built around 30 of them and the rumour mill suggests that 'hanger queens' doesn't quite cover the reliability, or lack there of...

A bit more on topic but I was chatting with an aerodynamicist friend (automotive not military world though!) who is also following the build of the CVF and he suggested to me that the profile of the ramp could increase the WOD by several percent providing the flow isn't disrupted by air deflecting off the islands. Would be a nice free perk if it happens.

[spazsinbad]

On previous page there is a story about repairing runways viewtopic.php?f=22&t=14082&p=286706&hilit=Hombresses#p286706 so here is some more....

Filling the gap: Airmen, Marines and Sailors practice fixing damaged airfields
26 May 2016 Senior Airman Omari Bernard, 18th Wing Public Affairs

KADENA AIR BASE, Japan (AFNS) -- Civil engineer Airmen, combat engineer Marines and Navy Seabees trained together May 18-19 during a joint airfield damage and repair contingency exercise held at Kadena Air Base....

...Although there may be differences between the training of the services, their objectives are the same -- fill craters and get the airfield operational again.

"The steps are a little bit different, but in essence the steps are the same," said Marine Staff Sgt. Justin Luk, an MWSS 172 combat engineer. "Assess the crater, make it flat and from there we fill it in."...

..."It was a good learning opportunity for some of our guys to get some experience on something they haven't done before," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Darcel Tinner, an NMCB 4 Seabee.

From Tinner's experience, repairing damaged airfields for the Navy involves more manual work than the use of heavy machinery.

"We'll fill holes by hand compared to us using machines," Tinner said. "If there's anything we'll take away from this, it's to use more machines."..."

Source: http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/t ... ields.aspx

Don’t Call it a Comeback
July 2015 Amy McCullough

"...Today, Silver Flag is part of the expanding PRTC at Andersen. Some 1,200 Air Force engineering and force support students are trained in 13 Air Force specialty codes on the campus each year on subjects from airfield damage repair to bare base electrical layout and reverse osmosis water purification.

Beginning in the second quarter of Fiscal 2016, USAF plans to reincorporate explosive ordnance disposal into Silver Flag training, said Mares. The training was part of the curriculum “until about 2000, but due to the high [operations] tempo for EOD airmen, they didn’t have the manpower to support all the deployments [to Afghanistan and Iraq] as well as the training,” Mares said in an April interview. Now that combat operations in Afghanistan have wound down and the US presence in the country is getting smaller, EOD can return to the curriculum.

The Air Force is in the “infancy” stages of instituting large-scale changes to the way it repairs runways after an attack. EOD will play a major role in this new methodology, said Mares.

Filling A Hole
“We are currently still teaching legacy airfield damage repair field methodology … based on Cold War technology and … threats … but there are some new and improved threats from adversaries in the region that have forced us to come up with a new methodology for recovering airfields,” he said. “We have always trained to the threat of fixing three 50-foot craters in four hours. Now, the new threat is going to be potentially 20 to 100 six-foot craters, so there are going to be many more pieces of damage, but of a smaller nature.”

There are more than 5,500 missiles pointed at US forces and allies in the region, said Maj. Justin Pendry, PAC­AF legislative liaison. In an effort to address the threat, Pacific Air Forces is positioning airfield damage repair kits at locations throughout its area of responsibility to enable remote bases to quickly get runways up and running in the event of an attack.

Because of its strategic location in the Pacific and its two runways, Andersen will get four of the kits. One for the 554th RED HORSE, two for the 36th Civil Engineering Squadron, and one for Silver Flag training, enabling instructors to introduce PACAF airmen to the new technology, said DeRosa.

The large kits are designed to provide everything crews need to fill a crater in the event of an attack, including heavy construction equipment such as rollers, dump trucks, and bulldozers, DeRosa said. “They are coming in piecemeal over the next several months,” he said of the equipment.

PACAF will standardize the kits across the region, though it is scaling the kit sizes based on need. As for Andersen, “the expectation is [that an adversary] would send more missiles our way to take out more of the runway and we’d have more runway to repair,” DeRosa said.

The actual method for filling the holes is changing. Instead of using compacted dirt and then topping it with a folded fiberglass mat, the Air Force is moving to a process called flowable fill—“more of a very thick slurry” used to fill the crater, said DeRosa. “It’s quicker because you pretty much just pump it into a hole, skim it off, and let it set.”

Flowable fill is a semi-permanent repair designed to sustain thousands of aircraft passes, said Maj. Robert Liu, expeditionary programs chief at the Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC) at Tyndall AFB, Fla.

There are three lines of runway repair: repair, mitigation, and assessment. The kits are intended for repair only, though AFCEC is researching ways to improve the other two lines.

The goal is to take the human factor out as much as possible. For example, the center has already started testing a three-kilowatt Zeuss III laser and robotic arm, to be mounted on mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, said Liu.

Dubbed the Recovery of Air base Denied by Ordnance, or RADBO, system, the laser is meant to neutralize unexploded ordnance and improve UXO removal capability...."

Source: http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArch ... 202015/Don’t-Call-it--a-Comeback.aspx

[popcorn]

Interesting stuff Spaz...

[KamenRiderBlade]

Cluster bombs still have a perfectly good use =D

Runway Disabler

[popcorn]

From the linked article.

...The goal is to take the human factor out as much as possible. For example, the center has already started testing a three-kilowatt Zeuss III laser and robotic arm, to be mounted on mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, said Liu.

Dubbed the Recovery of Air base Denied by Ordnance, or RADBO, system, the laser is meant to neutralize unexploded ordnance and improve UXO removal capability...."

[35_aoa]

Cluster bombs still have a perfectly good use =D

Runway Disabler

Until 2018, at least for the US military…...

[zerion]

Cluster bombs still have a perfectly good use =D

Runway Disabler

TLAM-D

[spazsinbad]

On previous page this thread is the Indian Navy TEJAS saga beginning - it is ongoing with some worries about GOA testing.

Landing Tejas Jet On An Aircraft Carrier: Small Team Fights Big Deadline
11 Jun 2019 Vishnu Som

"In December, the Defence Ministry is likely to take a call on whether to shut down or continue investing in the project to develop an aircraft carrier-based variant of the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft Tejas.…

...The government, which has already committed Rs. 3,500 crore to develop the fighter, needs a straight answer. Will the prototypes of the Tejas-N (Naval), now being tested, eventually result in a multi-role carrier-borne fighter good enough to hold its own against emerging threats in the Indian Ocean region? And can advanced variants of the prototypes, called the LCA-N Mk-2, be developed, manufactured and deployed within a finite period of five to seven years?

Left with no choice but to speed up their development programme, a small core team of pilots, engineers and design-team members from the Indian Navy, the Aeronautical Design Agency (ADA) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is fighting against time to clear key development goals - the biggest one, at the moment, is to ensure that the 10.5-tonne fighter, flying at a speed of just under 260 kmph (140 knots), can approach a shore-based replica of the deck of an aircraft carrier, descend rapidly, land, snare an arresting wire on the runway with a hook mounted in its fuselage and come to a violent halt in just 130 metres. That's what it takes to make an 'arrested landing' on the deck of an aircraft carrier, a feat achieved by a handful of fighter jets developed in the US, Russia, the UK, France and, more recently, China.

Achieving this successfully, over and over again at the Shore Based Test Facility in Goa, will validate one of the most important design features on the LCA-N - its ability to handle the incredible stresses of making an 'arrested landing' on the deck of an aircraft carrier. It is only once the shore tests are successful that naval test pilots leading the development effort on the LCA-N prototypes can graduate to the next step - making an actual landing on India's only operational aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya.

Key members of the LCA-N development team whom NDTV has spoken to say they have flown 60 sorties in approximately the last one month at the Goa test facility and are ready to commence the key landing trials once monsoon is over. To eventually make an approach onto the deck of INS Vikramaditya, LCA-N engineers and pilots need to be confident that the fighter can slam down onto the deck of a carrier at a 'sink rate' (rate of descent) of approximately 7.5 metres per second (1,500 feet per minute) without being damaged. Though they may not test the fighter to this limit immediately, they need to successfully prove that they can land with a sink rate of 5.6 metres per second to be qualified for carrier trials. At the moment, the jet has been tested with a sink rate of 5.1 metres per second. Engineers and pilots in the project are certain that they are on track to meet their landing certification target.

Assuming, the LCA-N is qualified to make an approach onto the deck of the INS Vikramaditya, there are still two key hurdles that need to be overcome. Test pilots operating the fighter will need to experience, first hand, the impact of displaced air over the deck of the aircraft carrier moments before it touches down. For a safe arrested landing, the LCA-N will need to hold a near-constant air speed of between 240-260 kmph (130-140 knots) as it makes its final approach, something which can easily be impacted by variable wind conditions over the deck of the ship. To experience these conditions, test pilots will perform several touch-and- goes on the deck of the Vikramaditya, where they land on the ship but immediately take off without coming to a full stop. A full-fledged arrested landing on the aircraft carrier will only happen once test pilots are certain of the stability of the fighter in making its landing approach and their ability to hold a constant speed as they come in to land.

There is another, major technical concern which could impact the development of the LCA-N. The arrestor gear on INS Vikramaditya, the mechanical system used to rapidly slow down an aircraft as it lands, has key design differences from the gear installed at the Shore Based Test Facility where the LCA-N is now being tested. Key members of the LCA-N project team are hopeful that this does not impact the project but they will not be certain until they actually land on the ship.…"

Photo: "Light Combat Aircraft-Navy landing at the Shore Based Test Facility in Goa, a replica of the deck of the Navy's aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya" https://c.ndtvimg.com/2019-06/o10p5o1_l ... une_19.jpg

Source: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/landing ... ne-2051358

[Corsair1963]

It would be crazy for India to pursue the development of the N-LCA any further. As it would be obsolete by time it "ever" reached service. Plus, I hardly see a need for the type in the first place. Especially, since the Indian Navy already operates the Mig-29K. While, looking to purchase an additional 57 Western Naval Fighters.

[Corsair1963]

Oh, and the small size of the N-LCA hardly makes it ideal for Carrier Operations. (i.e. poor Range/Payload)

[Corsair1963]

Does anybody know of a source. That states Ski Jumps are less stressful on Naval Aircraft than Catapults???

[steve2267]

Does anybody know of a source. That states Ski Jumps are less stressful on Naval Aircraft than Catapults???

Zero to 165mph in two seconds...

vs

Zero to flying speed in 5-6 seconds?

For real?

[steve2267]

QS also has a post around here in the past coupla months about all the additional structure (i.e. weight) required in an aircraft, not just in the nose strut, but in the keel from the nose back into the rest of the aircraft fuselage. Only going to need all that extra metal to handle the additional stresses. Does that meet your needs?

[spazsinbad]

It would be crazy for India to pursue the development of the N-LCA any further. As it would be obsolete by time it "ever" reached service. Plus, I hardly see a need for the type in the first place. Especially, since the Indian Navy already operates the Mig-29K. While, looking to purchase an additional 57 Western Naval Fighters.

LCA N is going to be the Indian Navy training aircraft perhaps. Another thread says the Indian Navy require a twin engine aircraft yet to be finalised / developed: viewtopic.php?f=58&t=53865&p=434397&hilit=Tejas#p434397 This thread has posts about such twin-engine deck-based fighter (TEDBF) matters.

Another aspect of ski jump capable aircraft is the undercarriage. Initially the Harrier undercart was not ideal. Also EMALS was developed TO BE LESS STRESSFUL on catapult aircraft than GODDAMN STEAM!

[Corsair1963]

I've said for sometime now. That India should develop the LCA into an "advanced trainer" for the Indian Air Force and/or Navy. If, she must pursue the type...(i.e. for political reasons)

Yet, honestly I don't even see the funding for that!