A Century of Carrier Aviation: The Evolution of Ships and Shipborne Aircraft by David Hobbs

Author:David Hobbs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / Naval
ISBN: 9781783469314
Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
Published: 2009-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

Things happened quickly as the aircraft closed with the ship. The pilot had to make sure that he kept between the ship’s bow and stern waves, avoiding the suction effect between them that would tend to pull the aircraft in towards the hull. One of the crew, usually the TAG, climbed out of the hatch, up pegs on the interplane struts fitted for the purpose, on to the top of the upper mainplane, where he attached a safety line to hold himself securely in place while the aircraft bucked in the swell. The ‘hooker-on’ position on top of the upper wing was the principal reason for having the propeller at the rear of the nacelle. Had it been situated at the front he would have had to climb aloft within inches of it. Also, being aft of the engine nacelle gave the propellers some protection from damage by spray. Due to the camber of the upper wing the rear-mounted propeller was lower than a front-mounted one would have been, making the height of the ‘quick-release’ coupling less critical. The observer stood up on the right-hand side of the cockpit with a boat-hook ready to grab the ‘grass’8 towing rope streamed aft from the boom. It was made fast well forward on the recovering ship so that the ensuing bight of rope took out any tendency to jerk the aircraft harshly once it was attached,9 a technique widely used for launching and recovering sea boats. As soon as the towing rope was clipped to a link on the Walrus’s nose, the aircraft’s engine was shut down and it was pulled forward so that the quick-release coupling came within grabbing distance of the ‘hooker-on’. Once it was caught, he could pull down on the coupling against the tension in the slipping clutch on the tricing winch to connect it to the aircraft sling fitted to the upper mainplane. When the coupling was secured the action of the tricing winch kept the cable from jerking as the aircraft rode the waves. At this point the ‘hooker-on’ removed a safety pin from the quick-release coupling so that, if things went wrong, he could release the aircraft back on to the water. Once the Thomas Grab was safely mated and the aircraft was being hoisted he reinserted the pin. When ordered by the directing officer, the crane operator lowered the upper part of the grab and pulled hard up on the tricing winch control, pulling the top of the unmated lower portion upwards to lock into the upper portion, attaching the crane cable to the coupling. Once this happened the crane operator hoisted the aircraft on the main cable using the main winch control, and the pilot pulled a small lever in the cockpit to release the towing rope. The ’hooker-on’ unclipped the steadying lines and passed them to the other crew members, who helped keep the aircraft nose-to-crane as it was hoisted over the deck. As the aircraft was moved over the deck, tackles

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.