In article , Bob McKellar
writes


Thomas W Ping wrote:

Are there aviation-related reasons why the starboard side is favored
for the island, or is it a purely naval issue? If the latter, did the
practice come about because the first pioneering carriers were
arbitrarily drawn up that way and the configuration simply stuck as a
matter of tradition, or were there more significant reasons for the
convention?

--
Thomas Winston Ping

A somewhat silly what-if:

Since the idea of using an angled deck is quite simple ( though brilliant,
even if it did come from them Brits ) what would have been different if it
had been used from the beginning?

A very sensible what-if, but at some time someone would have suggested
an observation tower of some sort, on an angled deck or straight.

Re. the angled deck (invented by a brilliant and modest Brit, who had an
excellent relationship with the USN dating from his wartime service in
Washington) it seems that when aircraft carriers were first conceived,
and aircraft speeds were very low, putting a straight runway on a ship
seemed simple and obvious. Only when aircraft speeds became much higher
did the problems of overrunning on landing manifest themselves. Even
then, with the naval aviation world seemingly fixated on the straight
deck, other schemes were considered first, including the rubber mat
landing strip, and even a two-storey concept with aircraft landing on
the top layer. When the angled deck was first suggested at an MoD
committee in London, the response was amusement and mild derision, but
to their credit the USN reacted at once to the idea and painted an
angled deck on a carrier within weeks.

As a beginning guess, I would say fewer crashes into islands, parked
aircraft etc.,

Agree that one...

and more losses to planes dribbling off the end of the
angle unable to regain flight.

Not necessarily - unable to regain flight in the old days seems to have
been mostly caused by late or over-cautious application of throttle.

Bob McKellar


Cheers,

Dave

--
Dave Eadsforth