Aircraft Carriers

bd popeye said:

The Makin Island may be a Wasp class LHD but it is certianaly unique. It has no steam plant..No boilers in other words...check it out. I think LHD-8 is a one class ship because it is so unique...

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USS MAKIN ISLAND (LHD 8) is currently under construction by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems in Pascagoula, Mississippi. MAKIN ISLAND will be the last LHD built in the WASP Class but will be the only one powered by LM 2500+ Gas Turbine Engines and Electric Drive. Additionally, MAKIN ISLAND is the only LHD to feature an all electric design -- no steam is used onboard MAKIN ISLAND. As the final member of the WASP Class LHD's, MAKIN ISLAND is transforming the U.S. Navy Amphibious Forces and setting the stage for the under-development successor to the Wasp Class, the LHA (R) Class of Amphibious Landing Ship.

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Yes...ljust ike CVN-77, although it is a Nimitz class carrier, is also a transformational vessel to the CVN-21 class and CVN-78, the Makin Island, although it is the last Wasp Class, it is a transformational vessel to the .

Here's a pic, and it's a thumbnail! (I fixed the other larger pictures on this thread too). Click on it for a larger image.

The steam plant of the Tarawa class and Wasp class is one of the reasons the ships would be unattractive to foreign buyers (That's if the US would even consider selling them instead of sinking them!). A couple of years ago some uninformed types in the British media were stating that a party of RN officers had inspected a Tarawa class ship with a view to purchasing two of them instead of building the CVFs. I believe the purpose of the inspection was to gather data on the operation of LHA/LHD type ships as one is being designed in Britain (originally to complement HMS Ocean, but now it seems she will be her replacement around 2018). Buying the two LHAs would have been a false economy as they would be over twenty five years old by the time they entered service and would require a major SLEP refit (costing a small fortune) and as mentioned earlier, their steam turbine plant would make them relativley manpower intensive (ie more expensive to run) than the CVFs.
The Royal Navy phased out it's last steam powered warship (he LPD HMS Fearless) four years ago and currently all frontline warship classes (carriers, destroyers and frigates) are gas turbine powered for 28-30 knots, while amphibious ships and auxilliaries are diesel powered for 18-20 knots. The Tarawa's steam plant was designed to give them a speed in the 20+ knot range and so would be unsuitable for fleet ops as well as being a drain on resources (eg requiring a seperate training program for engineers). The Makin Island and the new LHA(R) class are long overdue developments and will be much welcomed by the fleet when they enter service. The older vessels should still be offered to other friendly nations instead of being sunk, as the limitations I have described above would be less important to some navies and would give them an instant promotion to the first division of Navies (eg Canada, Australia, Japan, even Germany!) but I don't think they would be right for the RN, especially as an alternative to the CVFs.

Obi Wan sez;

The steam plant of the Tarawa class and Wasp class is one of the reasons the ships would be unattractive to foreign buyers (That's if the US would even consider selling them instead of sinking them!). A couple of years ago some uninformed types in the British media were stating that a party of RN officers had inspected a Tarawa class ship with a view to purchasing two of them instead of building the CVFs. I believe the purpose of the inspection was to gather data on the operation of LHA/LHD type ships as one is being designed in Britain (originally to complement HMS Ocean, but now it seems she will be her replacement around 2018). Buying the two LHAs would have been a false economy as they would be over twenty five years old by the time they entered service and would require a major SLEP refit (costing a small fortune) and as mentioned earlier, their steam turbine plant would make them relativley manpower intensive (ie more expensive to run) than the CVFs.

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I agree!..Not to mention the cost of the fuel for these leviathan. I'm guessing a SLEP(Service Life Extension)Progarm refit on a Tarawa class would cost about $1 billion USD. How the USN keeps those steam plants going is a testament to those sailors maintaing those power plants.

What is SLEP?
The Service Life Extension Program (abbreviated SLEP), is a program developed in the 1980s to extend the useful designed service life of the US Navy's aircraft carriers. The concept subsequently expanded to all of the US Navy's life-extension programs for ships, aircraft, and combat systems. SLEP was designed to extend the service life of a CVN 20 years.

SLEP was performed on CV-59, 60, 62, 63 & 64. None of which is still in comission any longer. SLEP for CV-67 was cancelled when half way complete The Philadelphia Shipyard was closed in a BRAC descision. CV-66 was never scheduled for SLEP to my knowledge.

I believe it's because Yak-38 just wasn't that capable. Yakolev had to develop a vstol fighter, so they came out with the Forger. I read that it only has a maximum range of 370 km.

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You mean Yak-36? I think that was only a demostrator. By the way, what happen to the Yak-41? Lack of funding?

As for the Indian carrier aircraft. I guess the Indians will use the Harrier as a backup while they are still training and refining the naval LCA? Afterall, the naval LCA is India's 1st naval aircraft, meaning lots of input and training must be used. The Indians have carrier experience but not for such an aircraft, so I think the ship will be ready first.

I have a doubt about mixing the 2 aircraft though, since the Harrier uses weapons of the West, but the 29K and LCA both use Russian missiles. Wouldn't that kill logistics on the ship?

Also, what is the problem/disadvantage of having a dual hull carrier? A weak center? Seems like a great thing as it gives a lot of capabilities.

You mean Yak-36? I think that was only a demostrator. By the way, what happen to the Yak-41? Lack of funding?

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Yak-36 was the first VSTOL jet eneterd limited production. It was rather ugly and different aircraft than it's follower, the Yak-38. Yak-36 flew from the flightdeck of Moskva and according to some reports about 15 where build.

Now Yak-38 was first labeled Yak-36 in the eastern military press and this caused confusion among the western intelligense community. Yak-38, Forger according to NATO is completely different with it's VSTOL method than the previous Yak-36. The Forger uses one R-27V-300 turbojet (non-afterburner version of the Floggers engine) cruise engine and two RD-36 lift engines. This arragment is somewhat hazardious and it efficiently unables almoust all sort of external load to be carrierd.
Yak-36 in the otherhand had different engine arragment as it used two R-27 to serve as a cruise and lift engines, bit like in Harrier but only wiht twinengines. From my limited aviation knowlidge the arragment in Yak-36 seems to be far more economical and practical and would have given better operational capabilities.

Now to awnser the question why soviets selected such a illfated and completely unpractical plane?? The biggest reason was that it was availble. During the days of the Kiev class development, soviets where still recovering from the Khrutsevs "revolution in military affairs" policy that effwetly cut down all soviet "big fleet" programs. VSTOL aircrafts was toughted somewhat of "god's gift" to the soviets (as to UK as well as they where running down their conventional carrier force at the same time) who now saw a change to get aircraft in seas in few years. Normaly soviet warplanes goes trough extensive trialperiods and no plane with similar weakness as Yak-38 would have ever entered to IA-PVO or FAs service. So the biggest reason why Yak-38 flow onboard in soviet ships in the first place was purely political coped with the VSTOL hype which toughted that this "revolutionary" innovation would eventually replace conventional aircrafts completely.

Unfortunately the Yak-38 effects to the whole soviet carrier aviation was ironically the opposite that you might think. The poor operational results didn't cause the soviets to whitdraw it as soon as possiple and give away of VSTOL development and go for coventional jets. In fact the effect was quite the opposite and soviets just went for new VSTOL design which eventually led to the Yak-41. As good plane is may be, it's existence was the biggest single reason why soviets didn't field convetional carriers with ctabults. During the 70's there where several proposals for "supercarriers" but they where all effectly dismissed on behalf of more Kievs and ultimately with the "super VSTOL carrier" Admiral Kuznetsov.

But some one asked what happened to the Yak-41?? Well pretty much the same what happened to all soviet weapon programs after 1991....

Spot on Golly, the soviest had a culture of matching western development even if they didn't actually match up in reality. The Kievs had a large missile armament because their aircraft couldn't do the job (air defence, anti shipping), but the soviets wanted to be able to say "you have carriers, and so do we," even though the Kievs were just large missile cruisers with a flight deck and hangar grafted on as opposed to true carriers in terms of their design philosophy.
Similarly the Yak-38 was rushed into service purely for show as they had nothing else suitable for operation from their decks. It's performance was so poor that pilots apparently would feign illness to avoid flying it. Actual combat radius was reported to be just sixty miles! So the aircraft were kept in service just for the benefit of NATO photographers and the Kievs would put on a 'show' whenever they sailed near to western ships. When the USSR collapsed there was no longer any need to maintain the expensive pretense and the first three ships were quickly withdrawn in the face of a radiply shrinking defence budget along with the Yak-38s. The fourth ship Admiral Gorshkov was retained in service as a helicopter carrier for a few years due to her improved missile and radar fit, but was withdrawn when a costly refit became necessary. The Kievs remained in service for so long because the Yak-41 was on the cards to replace the Yak-38, and this aircraft would have actually been a potent Naval strike fighter, but timing wasn't on the Soviet Navy's side.
On the Indian Navy front, I believe the Sea Harrier will be around for quite a while yet joining the air groups of the new carriers as they enter service albiet in small numbers for fleet defence, while the MIGs and the LCAs will be used for long range strike. The upgrade currently being carried out on the FRS-51s will keep them serviceable for a couple more decades and as to mixing western and Russian weapons, well that's something the Indians have been doing for years! They're not too worried about the origin of the weapon systems they use, so long as they can do the job at the right price, and a 'mix and match' policy has served them well for a long time.

Sumdud sez;

I have a doubt about mixing the 2 aircraft though, since the Harrier uses weapons of the West, but the 29K and LCA both use Russian missiles. Wouldn't that kill logistics on the ship?

Also, what is the problem/disadvantage of having a dual hull carrier? A weak center? Seems like a great thing as it gives a lot of capabilities.

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On your first statement mixing the weapons won't effect logistics at all as long as the ships magazines have the capacity for storage.

I'm not 100% for sure but I think a dual hull design would limit how much stores,weapons and fuel a ship could carry. Even a smaller carrier needs a lot of on board logistics to operate.

In defense of the Yak-38/Yak-36MP, it was developed in 1960s in the same era as the first generation Harriers. While the Yak-38 development died out, the Harrier development continued. It'd be an unfair comparison to match the Yak-38M to the latest Harriers in capability.

adeptitus said:

In defense of the Yak-38/Yak-36MP, it was developed in 1960s in the same era as the first generation Harriers. While the Yak-38 development died out, the Harrier development continued. It'd be an unfair comparison to match the Yak-38M to the latest Harriers in capability.

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I agree. Since the little I know about the Yak-38 is that it was just a stop gap measure...Both aircraft are dinosaurs now. Although I see the Sea Harrier operating for at least for some navy for the next 10 years or so. IN Italy or Spain.

Did you guys know that in 1981 the USN deployed the USS Nassau(LHA-4) with an all Harrier air wing. The speical deployment lasted 82 days to the Mediterrian.



"On 8 April 1981, VMA-231 flew aboard USS NASSAU as half of MAG 32 (Forward), the first all AV-8A Carrier Air Wing. During the 82-day deployment to the Mediterranean, the squadron participated in NATO combined exercise DAILY DOUBLE and two encounter exercises against USS
FORRESTAL Battle Group."

I was on the USS America at this time. The Nassau left Norfolk about 10 days before we did in April 1981. I have never, ever found any pictures of this deployment.

Oh no ..I hope we have not run out of subjects in this thread! No way..Well ..Big Daddy Popeye will fix that..

CV's for sale !!
As I mentioned in a previous post the USN has 5 CV's in an inactive status. In reality they are not in good condition..However let us imangine for a moment that two of the ships are in good shape. CV-59 & CV-64.The USN has re-fit them with updated (propulsion) power plants and has removed the two foward(Bow) catapults so a ski ramp could be installed by the buyer..The cost ..$1.5 billion dollars...With no air wing. Any buyers out there????? Also for sale 1 LHA ship with a new operating plant. Cost $750 million.

If you were any nation and could afford one or both of these ships how would you outfit the ship's air wing? Any carrier borne aircraft now in production are avaliable including the F-35B. However if you chose US aircraft you may only purchase 30 F-35B's and only 2 E-2's. In addition you cannot purchase E/A-6B Prowlers or E/A-18G Growlers. What are you going to do?

Note Your air wing should not exceed 80 aircraft total. Be somewhat serious guys but don't get carried away...Ok!