U.S. Navy Debates STOVL JSF Futu

On May 3, 6:47 pm, John Halliwell wrote:
In article . com, guy
writes

Probably,
ISTR Sea Harriers off an Invincible operating more or less normally
when an accompaning US CVN was completely closed down due to the
weather

In the South Atlantic the Harriers were frequently operating way below
(then) USN minimum visibility.

What I find questionable is the reserve fuel issue, though. Doesn't
operating in the hover/slow environment just guzzle fuel? If your deck
takes a hard roll as you're touching down, won't a pilot want to hop
up and wait for the boat to stabilize before trying to set down again?
I wonder what the fuel consumption in that state is compared to a
typical bolter and go-around.

In rec.aviation.military Typhoon502 twisted the electrons to say:
What I find questionable is the reserve fuel issue, though. Doesn't
operating in the hover/slow environment just guzzle fuel?

"Sharkey" Ward's squadron (601) on HMS Invincible was told, by him, not
to land with more than 800lbs of fuel onboard. (By contrast, on HMS
Hermes they where landing with at least 2000lbs worth of fuel. Ward
claims his squadrons where thus getting at least 20 minutes more CAP time
per flight.)
--
These opinions might not even be mine ...
Let alone connected with my employer ...

In article , Alistair Gunn
writes
"Sharkey" Ward's squadron (601) on HMS Invincible was told, by him, not
to land with more than 800lbs of fuel onboard. (By contrast, on HMS
Hermes they where landing with at least 2000lbs worth of fuel. Ward
claims his squadrons where thus getting at least 20 minutes more CAP time
per flight.)

The less fuel you have, the less you need to maintain the hover...

--
John

In article .com,
Typhoon502 writes
What I find questionable is the reserve fuel issue, though. Doesn't
operating in the hover/slow environment just guzzle fuel? If your deck
takes a hard roll as you're touching down, won't a pilot want to hop
up and wait for the boat to stabilize before trying to set down again?
I wonder what the fuel consumption in that state is compared to a
typical bolter and go-around.

The hover does mean full throttle (but it is a relatively high bypass
turbofan engine), but it doesn't need to be held for long. As it's at
slow speed, you can have one landing, one ready to land, one formating
with the carrier etc all at the same time. With a big enough deck, you
could (maybe not routinely) land several at once.

Whenever I've seen a Harrier land vertically (deck or land), they seem
to hit quite hard, how this compares to the arrested controlled crash,
I'm not sure. The undercarriage is also quite stable (3 points, quite
wide laterally and 3 points for/aft).

--
John