How do carrier-based planes find the ship after a mission ?

As an armchair admiral, I've always wondered how A/C in WWII knew how
to find the carrier after being away for a couple hours on a mission.
I assume the pilots were told, roughly, where the carrier plans to be,
but sh*t happens. I always assume the carrier doesn't broadcast any
radio signals.

How do they do it, today ?




--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m
----

Al Dykes wrote:
As an armchair admiral, I've always wondered how A/C in WWII knew how
to find the carrier after being away for a couple hours on a mission.
I assume the pilots were told, roughly, where the carrier plans to be,
but sh*t happens. I always assume the carrier doesn't broadcast any
radio signals.

How do they do it, today ?

Couple of methods
1. Follow the trail of non-classifed floating trash behind ship
2. Follow your nose to that double cheeseburger with fried egg on top
waiting for you in dirty shirt
3. Look for Russians, follow them
4. Don't find it, and go to beach. Break something, and spend weekend
drinking beer in exotic foreign port.

I'm not a WWII guy, but my guess is that they commonly used DR (Dead
Reckoning) as a primary method of figuring out approx. where to be.
Regards,

As for today - electronics. Mostly covered.
Regards,

On 28 Oct 2004 09:51:43 -0400, (Al Dykes) wrote:


As an armchair admiral, I've always wondered how A/C in WWII knew how
to find the carrier after being away for a couple hours on a mission.
I assume the pilots were told, roughly, where the carrier plans to be,
but sh*t happens. I always assume the carrier doesn't broadcast any
radio signals.

How do they do it, today ?

with a sextant and a compass they know ware the ship was and it's heading so
it was not hard to comput the heading to intersect ths ships heading......
"Al Dykes" wrote in message
...

As an armchair admiral, I've always wondered how A/C in WWII knew how
to find the carrier after being away for a couple hours on a mission.
I assume the pilots were told, roughly, where the carrier plans to be,
but sh*t happens. I always assume the carrier doesn't broadcast any
radio signals.

How do they do it, today ?




--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m
----

"etagg" wrote in message
...
with a sextant and a compass they know ware the ship was and it's heading
so
it was not hard to comput the heading to intersect ths ships heading......


Well if the ship steered a constant heading and there
were no cross winds or currents and the pilot kept a
running plot that might be true.

However ships that steer straight lines at constant speed
in wartime tend to collect torpedoes, winds doth
blow and pilots tend to have other things on their
mind from time to time so it wasnt quite that
simple.

I believe the normal procedure was to have a pre-arranged
rendezvous point but it could be a little dicey. I recall
one of the FAA pilots at Okinawa who found the
BPF by climbing to max height and spotting smoke on
the horizon. That wouldnt have worked so well in the
Atlantic in winter

Keith

with a sextant and a compass they know ware the ship was and it's heading
so it was not hard to comput the heading to intersect ths ships heading......

Carrier-based pilots did not use sextants. They used a "plotting
board" and returned to the boat by dead reckoning.

If you look at WW II documentaries, you will see the carrier pilots
running to their planes carrying a flat object that looks sort of like
a notebook. That's a plotting board. It slides into a slot under the
instrument panel, and could be pulled out like a drawer when in use,
or pushed back in.

Well if the ship steered a constant heading and there
were no cross winds or currents

Not required. Pilots could easilys account for changes in the boat's
course, and for cross winds, provided both were known before takeoff.

If you know how to draw a simple wind triangle, try doing this for
yourself. Not as easy as with a plotting board, but it can be done.

vince norris

How do they do it, today ?

Same as they've always done it: springs and mirrors, with some Kentucky
windage thrown in. In a ziplip / EMCON environment, a good sense of
situational awareness, decent DR skills or just following the other guy will
usually do.

If you're especially unlucky or inept, no need to worry. The ship (or more
specifically, the ship's BARCAP) will find YOU.

--
Mike Kanze

"Do witches run spell-checkers?"

- Old word processing joke


"Al Dykes" wrote in message
...

As an armchair admiral, I've always wondered how A/C in WWII knew how
to find the carrier after being away for a couple hours on a mission.
I assume the pilots were told, roughly, where the carrier plans to be,
but sh*t happens. I always assume the carrier doesn't broadcast any
radio signals.

How do they do it, today ?




--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m
----

Anybody remember YE/YG beacons?

"Mike Kanze" wrote in message
...
How do they do it, today ?

Same as they've always done it: springs and mirrors, with some Kentucky
windage thrown in. In a ziplip / EMCON environment, a good sense of
situational awareness, decent DR skills or just following the other guy
will
usually do.

If you're especially unlucky or inept, no need to worry. The ship (or
more
specifically, the ship's BARCAP) will find YOU.

--
Mike Kanze

"Do witches run spell-checkers?"

- Old word processing joke


"Al Dykes" wrote in message
...

As an armchair admiral, I've always wondered how A/C in WWII knew how
to find the carrier after being away for a couple hours on a mission.
I assume the pilots were told, roughly, where the carrier plans to be,
but sh*t happens. I always assume the carrier doesn't broadcast any
radio signals.

How do they do it, today ?




--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m
----

Harriet and John wrote:

Anybody remember YE/YG beacons?

I know YG was the backup to YE, smaller and less powerful I believe, but I
don't know if it otherwise operated the same.

Guy

"Mike Kanze" wrote in message
...
How do they do it, today ?


Probably using GPS.