No Ski jump for marine Harriers

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Final Historian RE:No Ski jump for marine Harriers 5/27/2003 12:20:07 PM

Adding the sky jump would have cut down the deck size, meaning less room for storage on the flight deck, or it would have meant making the ship bigger, making it more expensive and that much a larger target.

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brit_view RE:No Ski jump for marine Harriers 12/21/2003 1:27:13 PM

But a Ski jump increases the efficiancy of deck space as the harrier needs a lot less runway to take-off, helping helicotper ops.Also the space under any ramp must be surly used for something. Wasp-class I think would benifit from a ski jump and improve NATO intercompatability with other navys.

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Crusader RE:No Ski jump for marine Harriers 12/22/2003 6:36:00 AM

>>But a Ski jump increases the efficiancy of deck space as the harrier needs a lot less runway to take-off, helping helicotper ops.Also the space under any ramp must be surly used for something. Wasp-class I think would benifit from a ski jump and improve NATO intercompatability with other navys. << I would suspect that if the Navy operated Harriers, the Wasps would have ski jumps. But with the USMC being the step-child, the Navy is not going to spend money on something that Navy aircraft cannot use.

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Slade RE:No Ski jump for marine Harriers 12/22/2003 9:16:51 AM

As I recall the savings in takeoff run and additional payload are compared to vertical takeoff. If the Harrier is rolling forward on a flat deck the advantages of a ski jump are much less. And the LHA/LHD's have the room to make this work.

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Slade RE:No Ski jump for marine Harriers -oops 12/22/2003 10:05:20 AM

oops, there isn't a savings in takoff run in a rolling take off vs. vertical. Also the USN traditionally parks a higher percentage of it's aircraft on deck vs. the RN that means taking up space with a ski jump where you can't park or have a helo/vert landing spot affects aircraft complement more than it would in the RN.

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shawn RE:No Ski jump for marine Harriers -oops 12/26/2003 1:17:18 AM

I've heard from numerous articles that the Wasp Class has no need for a ski jump because they are much bigger ships than the Invincible Class, 40,000 tons vs 20,000 tons, with a deck size of 249mx34m vs 170x13m. This means that they have the width for plenty of parking space while maintaining a longer run up area, so ski jumps are not necessary. Only US supercarriers, the De Gualle and the Admiral Kuznetsov are larger than the Wasps, and they are all conventional carriers.

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gf0012-aus RE:No Ski jump for marine Harriers -oops 12/26/2003 1:24:33 AM

One of the proposals for the refit of the "Missouri's" in the 1980's was as a hybrid carrier. That design clearly shows a ski jump.

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Crusader RE:No Ski jump for marine Harriers -oops 12/26/2003 6:37:03 AM

>>One of the proposals for the refit of the "Missouri's" in the 1980's was as a hybrid carrier. That design clearly shows a ski jump.<< Here is one of the ideas... link

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gf0012-aus No Ski jump for marine Harriers - Crusader 12/26/2003 6:53:15 AM

Actually, thats not the one, but it does show one of the helo/vstol proposals. The one I have seen shows a ski ramp similar in size to that of the Ark Royal mod.

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Mark F RE:No Ski jump for marine Harriers - Crusader 12/27/2003 3:56:03 PM

Your still talking about a much shorter take-off run on a hybrid battleship conversion vs a Wasp or Tarawa. And yes it is true on the Amphibs that a ski-jump is not only not necessary for Harrier operations due to the long T/O run available, but it would cut into helicopter operations, which are more important to the ships purpose.

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