F-111 bombers flying from carriers ?

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
thlink.net...

"The Raven" wrote in message
...

Presumably so as the F-111 was going to be used as a carrier aircraft.
Note
that F-111's have tail hooks. Australian air aircraft still have them
although the pilots aren't trained for it.


I'm sure Australian F-111 pilots are trained to use the tailhook, just as
their USAF counterparts were.

I'm reliabiliy informed they never use the hooks, too much stress on the
airframe. Of course, it would not surprise me if they are trained in their
use with one or two traps.

USAF tactical aircraft have been equipped
with tailhooks for quite some time. I imagine the F-111B tailhook was a
bit
more substantial than that on the F-111A/D/E/F/G though.

Probably.


To quote an un-named F-111 expert "Yes, you could land an (Australian)
F-111
on a carrier *ONCE* as the stresses would probably ground the aircraft
forever more". Of course, until it is done we'd never know..........


The scenario presented here doesn't include landing on the carrier, just
launching from it.

True. I thought it work mentioning in reference to carrier ops and tailhooks

--
The Raven
http://www.80scartoons.co.uk/batfinkquote.mp3
** President of the ozemail.* and uunet.* NG's
** since August 15th 2000.

"Dave Kearton" wrote in message
...


"The Raven" wrote in message
...
| "Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
| thlink.net...
|
| "The Raven" wrote in message
| ...
|
| I'm reliabiliy informed they never use the hooks, too much stress on the
| airframe. Of course, it would not surprise me if they are trained in
their
| use with one or two traps.
|
| USAF tactical aircraft have been equipped
| with tailhooks for quite some time. I imagine the F-111B tailhook was
a
| bit
| more substantial than that on the F-111A/D/E/F/G though.
|
| Probably.
|
| --
| The Raven
| http://www.80scartoons.co.uk/batfinkquote.mp3
| ** President of the ozemail.* and uunet.* NG's
| ** since August 15th 2000.



The Aussie pigs can and _do_ use the hooks on land. I have a couple
of pics of a 'C' model taking the wire at Amberley.

Fair enough.


--
The Raven
http://www.80scartoons.co.uk/batfinkquote.mp3
** President of the ozemail.* and uunet.* NG's
** since August 15th 2000.

Dave Kearton wrote:

"The Raven" wrote in message
...
| "Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
| thlink.net...
|
| "The Raven" wrote in message
| ...
|
| I'm reliabiliy informed they never use the hooks, too much stress on the
| airframe. Of course, it would not surprise me if they are trained in their
| use with one or two traps.
|
| USAF tactical aircraft have been equipped
| with tailhooks for quite some time. I imagine the F-111B tailhook was a
| bit
| more substantial than that on the F-111A/D/E/F/G though.
|
| Probably.
|
| --
| The Raven
| http://www.80scartoons.co.uk/batfinkquote.mp3
| ** President of the ozemail.* and uunet.* NG's
| ** since August 15th 2000.

The Aussie pigs can and _do_ use the hooks on land. I have a couple
of pics of a 'C' model taking the wire at Amberley.

Certainly. But the runout is far greater, which is to say the deceleration rate
is much less. That's why the tailhooks (and the aft fuselage structure) on
naval a/c are far more substantial -- the deceleration has to be much more
rapid.

On a runway there's always the emergency chain arrester gear as a last resort,
if you either lack or miss the approach end and midfield barriers. That's just
a wire stretched across the runway a few hundred feet from the departure end and
held up a few inches above the surface. It's attached to anchor chain (links
generally weigh 100-200 lb. each) at each end. The anchor chain is laid out
parallel to the runway along each side, running from where the wire attaches
towards the departure end of the runway. When the hook picks up the wire, it
starts to drag the anchor chain along with it, dragging more and more of the
chain as it proceeds down the runway, and thus applying an increasing hold-back
force on the a/c, until it stops. The only problem with that is that it takes
far more time to reposition the chain than it does to reset the MOREST gear, so
generally only a single a/c can use it in a substantial block of time. But it's
better than nothing, and a lot cheaper and easier to install than MOREST gear.
Argentina seems to have used a chain barrier at Port Stanley in the Falklands.
At least, photos taken of the airfield at ground level near one end clearly show
what appears to be anchor chain laid out along the side of the runway.

Guy

"The Raven" wrote in message
...

I'm reliabiliy informed they never use the hooks, too much stress on the
airframe. Of course, it would not surprise me if they are trained in their
use with one or two traps.


Reliably informed by whom? The hooks are for emergency use.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
thlink.net...

"The Raven" wrote in message
...

I'm reliabiliy informed they never use the hooks, too much stress on the
airframe. Of course, it would not surprise me if they are trained in
their
use with one or two traps.


Reliably informed by whom?

You can't expect much of an answer beyond, someone who works with them.

The hooks are for emergency use.

Of course in an emergency situation you'd use them if you could.

--
The Raven
http://www.80scartoons.co.uk/batfinkquote.mp3
** President of the ozemail.* and uunet.* NG's
** since August 15th 2000.

"The Raven" wrote in message
...

You can't expect much of an answer beyond, someone who works with them.


I worked with them, your source doesn't sound very reliable.

Here is a url or two for everyone wrt F-111B

http://www.mozeyoninn.com/Ginter/NAVAL/NF41.htm

http://f-111.net/t_no_B.htm

Mark


"John A. Weeks III" wrote in message
...
In article , Mike
wrote:

Remember the famous World War 2 raid when those B-24 bombers were
placed on the USS Hornet and sent to bomb Japan ?

...the "30 seconds over Tokyo" raid.

I just got done reading that in 1965 the United States landed C-130
Herculees planes on a US aircraft carrier.

So that got me thinking. I'm not a Navy man or Air Force man, so this
question may sound crazy to some of you, but please at least address
it.

Let's talk hypothetically here. What if, at some point late in the
cold war the United States decided to stage a " Doolittle " type raid
on some country by having a small number of F-111 bombers take off
from a giant Nimitz class carrier. Could it have been done ?

Why bother when the F-111 could be ariel refueled?

Remember the 1986 raid on Libya ? Our F-111 bombers had to fly about
4,000 miles from their bases in Great Britain.

Thanks to French faggots that wouldn't give us permission to
overfly their precious country. Next time, we should just bomb Paris
and get it over with. Perhaps they would have been more cooprative
if we would have let the Nazis stay there for a few more years.

Or would the F-111 have been too big ? I'm not talking about storing
the planes below the carrier deck, or about having them return to the
carrier and land on it.

The F-111 was supposed to have a Navy version that was carrier ready,
but it never got off the drawing board. It was just too heavy to be
workable. The F-14 ended up doing the job.

The F-111 and C-130 are different kinds of planes. The C-130 is
a prop plane, and it has enough horsepower to do a short field
take-off. It can even be fitted with RATO bottles to help decrease
the take-off distance. The F-111, however, needs to get up to speed
in order to take off, and it takes great deal longer amount of
runway to do so as compared with the C-130. A carrier just wouldn't
be long enough.

But would it have been possible to have a special mission and have
F-111's take off from a carrier ?

Again, it just wouldn't be worth the effort. The only scheme that
I can see is that you would modify a number of F-111's with a beefed
up nose gear, and cat launch it with a near zero fuel load. That
might be light enough to get off of the deck. Once you get airborne,
then you would have to hit a tanker right away. But if you have to
tank anyway, why bother with the carrier?

-john-

--
================================================== ==================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ==================

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
thlink.net...

"The Raven" wrote in message
...

You can't expect much of an answer beyond, someone who works with them.


I worked with them, your source doesn't sound very reliable.

Hmmm, he also works with them on a daily basis. Perhaps I misinterpretted
his response to my question.

The Raven

"The Raven" wrote in message
...

Hmmm, he also works with them on a daily basis. Perhaps I misinterpretted
his response to my question.


That seems more likely.

"Mary Shafer" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 27 Jul 2003 13:44:48 +1000, "The Raven"
wrote:

Presumably so as the F-111 was going to be used as a carrier aircraft.
Note
that F-111's have tail hooks. Australian air aircraft still have them
although the pilots aren't trained for it.

All USAF fighters have tail hooks. They can't be used to land on
carriers, though (although the F-4 and A-7 hooks might have been).

Thinking about it, a Tornado and the new Typhoon have tailhooks but I
wouldn't expect to see one doing a carrier landing!

Nick