"John Carrier" wrote in a broken top-post, which I
have corrected:

:
:"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
.. .
: Charles Talleyrand wrote:
:
: :On May 20, 12:23 am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
: : Charles Talleyrand wrote:
: :
: : id the change from F-14s to F-18s increase or decrease the total
: : :number of planes per ship? Overly simple math suggests that the
: : :amount of room needed to hold 22 F-14s could also hold 30 F-18s.
: : :
: : :If the number of planes did not increase, what happened to the extra
: : :space?
: : :
: : :-Curious
: : :-Charles Talleyrand
: : :
: : :
: : :F-18a Length: 17.10 m
: : :F-18a Wing Span: 9.3 m folded
: : :Area of bounding box: 159 sq m
: : :
: : :F-14 Length: 18.6 meters
: : :F-14 Wingspan: 11.4 meters swept
: : :Area of bounding box: 211 sq m
: :
: : You're looking at the wrong airplanes. The Navy only operates a
: : handful of F/A-18A+ aircraft. The remainder of the 'legacy' Hornets
: : are C/D aircraft. The F-14 aircraft were replaced by F/A-18E/F
: : aircraft, which are physically about the same size as an F-14. There
: : is no real 'extra space'.
: :
: : F-18E/F Length: 18.31 meters
: : F-18E/F Wing Span: 9.32 meters folded
: :
: :
: :I thought the F-14s were replaced by the F-18a, and the F-18e came
: :along much later. I'm willing to be corrected.
: :
:
: Consider yourself corrected.
:
: :
: :Using the F-18e data, the bounding box uses 171 sq meters, which is
: :still only 80% of the space needed by an F-14. Therefore one might
: :imagine though this simplistic analysis that 5 F-18s used as much
: :space as 4 F-14s.
: :
: :Suppose we were only concerned about wingspan, and did not care about
: :length. This might be a model of a flightline. We still might guess
: :that 5 F-18s fit into the space needed by 4 F-14s, since the F-18
: :folded wingspan is 80% that of the F-14s.
: :
: :So what happened to that extra space on the carrier?
: :
: :-Still Curious
: :-Charles Talleyrand
:
: Hint: They didn't used to be able to get all the airplanes in the
: hangar deck at the same time.
:
:
:All carrier aircraft have a calculated deck multiple that reflects the space
:the parked aircraft absorbs from the ships total. A cursory google didn't
:come up with the hard numbers but the F-18A-D is quite a bit less than an
:F-14, the E/F only slightly less.
:

Just what I said.

:
:In an era of miniscule procurement budgets and expensive aircraft, we've
:rarely stressed the ship's capacity for aircraft. As to what happened to
:the extra space, its still there for the aircraft handler to juggle aircraft
:spots, etc. For a look at what it was like in the Vietnam era, follow this
:link:
:
:http://navy-matters.beedall.com/images/oriskany.jpg
:

Sadly, though, we don't have enough squadrons to bring aircraft
numbers back up to 'wartime levels' if we wanted to.


--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney