War - Guantanamo

[BLUEHAWK]

Nope 62, he was a really LITTLE boy then... his name is Mercury, he has red hair (jus' like one in every generation of our clan :-) Today, I am saddened to report, he has yet to see the valor in service... I tried, by showing him (several times) the real McCoy.

Question for ya... I see those Navy planes whose wings fold up... what were the maintenance rigors for a mechanism such as that? I mean to ask, did they tend to be sensitive and break down a fair amount, or were those hinge turning flip up fall back twist sideways dealies pretty reliable?

[BLUEHAWK]

62 p.s.

Do you think a C123 Provider could land on a carrier if it had a tail hook?

We had a real reliable bird, very stout and gutsy, with a real short landing pattern when a fine pilot was aboard. Taking off would be another matter of course, we did tend to need some JATO for short lifts :-)

[SparrowHawk62]

Originally posted by BLUEHAWK
Question for ya... I see those Navy planes whose wings fold up... what were the maintenance rigors for a mechanism such as that? I mean to ask, did they tend to be sensitive and break down a fair amount, or were those hinge turning flip up fall back twist sideways dealies pretty reliable?

I never delt with the maintenace end of the birds, we had squadron pukes for that. But from all my time on deck, I don't recall to many fold and stow problems. Navy Birds were built fairly tough, wing fold was a major inovation and well thought out.
Some were wing tip folds (F4 A7), others were cross over folds (A6), tuck back folds E2.
Now the only time I did see a major SNAFU was when an Marine H-53 went Plam Tree on us. (Couldn't get the rotor blades to fold)
then the turbine went tit's up and the damned thing wouldn't start! Wound up they took the blades off manually with the help of the Air Craft Crane- Tilly. What a job, bird went to the basement untill spare parts arrived, then the reverse of the blade removal! For the rest of the cruise the Air Boss would not let one of those things shut down on deck!

[SparrowHawk62]

Originally posted by BLUEHAWK 62 p.s.
Do you think a C123 Provider could land on a carrier if it had a tail hook?
We had a real reliable bird, very stout and gutsy, with a real short landing pattern when a fine pilot was aboard. Taking off would be another matter of course, we did tend to need some JATO for short lifts :-)

As we use to say, you can land anything on a carrier, once!
Don't know about the 110 foot wing span, might be a tad bit tight.
Biggest thing I dealt with was the A-3 Skywarrior, she has a wing span of 72 and a half feet and they fold!
The C123 might not have the wings for carrier landings, they'd need some reinforcement. JATO launches might not be such a good thing either. Most jet blast is straight back, JATO is directed down at an angle, wouldn't do the non skid on the deck any good.
I wouldn't want to be standing on deck watching!

[BLUEHAWK]

Interesting... what got me thinking about it was the idea of a 123 bird being, say, out over ocean and in peril, sighting a carrier and asking to land... what would your skipper do?

[SparrowHawk62]

Originally posted by BLUEHAWK Interesting... what got me thinking about it was the idea of a 123 bird being, say, out over ocean and in peril, sighting a carrier and asking to land... what would your skipper do?

More then likely he'd have them attempt either a sea landing, a very risky operation or tell them all to bail out. Either way they'd be picked up by a helo.
There's no way they would be allowed to attempt a deck landing, to much danger to the ship and the crew.

[BLUEHAWK]

Probably so 62... at least that makes sense. Water landings, it would seem, depend on a lot of factors such as the center of gravity on a given aircraft, angle & speed of entry, etc etc etc.

I know we could shut our bird right down to stop in a fairly short length of space, but I've forgotten just HOW short, and never knew how LONG a carrier deck is likely to be.

In any case, the danger would be there in spades, and nobody could fly the thing off the deck (well, probably nobody) afterward either.

I've read some amazing tales of Navy helo pilots doing astounding things in extremely bizarre conditions.

If I COULD get out of the plane, getting thoroughly wet with one of your helos around would not be much of a worry.