Can this really happen?

clayfenderstrat

clayfenderstrat

Well-Known Member
When I did my short field landings in a 152 and later in a 172, my instructor told me that I stopped the plane in a shorter distance than an aircraft carrier. I know that without arresting gear, it would be difficult to land on a carrier, but in a small Cessna, would it be possible with a short field procedure?
 
give a cessna 152 a 5 knot head wind heck yeah it could land on an aircraft carrier, But i dont know about take off. Now if the aircraft carrier was moving at 10 or 15 knots through the water then yeah you could do both no problem
 
Absolutely. Don’t forget the forward motion of the ship and the wind across the deck. You could put it in with very little distance. The big challenge is the vertical movement of the ship.
 
A carrier runway is around 1000 feet. You could put MANY aircraft down on that with the proper technique, skill and luck.

Cessna 152....you could drop a DC3 on that runway.
 
USMC-SSGT said:
A carrier runway is around 1000 feet. You could put MANY aircraft down on that with the proper technique, skill and luck.

Cessna 152....you could drop a DC3 on that runway.
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Luck? Hell, you can stop the sled in 1000' with a full load any day, some days (if you've got about 5kts or so) you can stop it in about 500', but its hard on the brakes.

-Pat
 
I'm no ace at short field landings, and I can get a 172 down and stopped in less than 700'. Heck, the book says less than 600' at sea level in most conditions. If the carrier deck is 1000' like another poster said, then heck yes you could do it. As for takeoff, the other day I was with a student and we were off in about 500' using the book's short field technique. We had a headwind of 15G21 and were pretty light, maybe 2200 lbs all up.
 
A CVN can usually do 25-30 knots through the water, add 5 knots of wind and you've got a 35 knot wind over the deck. The "field elevation" is about 60 ft MSL. The landing zone is about 1000 ft long.

Plug all that into your performance charts, and see if you could do it. I'd be willing to try it in a 208.

Go rent the movie "Pearl Harbor" (fast foward through the bulk of the movie) and watch the take off of the Zeros before the attack, and the B-25s for the Doolittle raid. Those were both done off the Carl Vinson.
 
USMCmech said:
Plug all that into your performance charts, and see if you could do it. I'd be willing to try it in a 208.
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Absolutely. I stopped our 'van by taxiway C on 32 at MOB this morning. That's 1,000', not using reverse and without too much braking. I've got a friend who stopped it one time at B on 32 at MOB. That's less than 500'; I can't bring myself to do it being a little hard on the brakes and nailing the reverse and all (I'm sure he had a headwind too).

When it's super light, it's nice to know it will stop on a postage stamp. Bring on the carriers!
 
There is a video of a test of the Jetstream 31 prototype landing on an aircraft carrier.

It had a hook....but it's airliner-ish (right Zap? airliner-ish a good description?) that landed on a an aircraft carrier
 
You could actually test yourself on this at Cecil Field in Jacksonville, FL. When I was training out of CRG, we'd head over there and try to stop it on the carrier deck markings on the runway.
 
oh yeah short fields are a blast, I can definitely see landing a 152 in shorter distance than an aircraft carrier.
 
Heck, if the carrier is going 30 knots into a 10 knot wind, you can probably fly your approach slow enough in a 152 that the carrier will outrun you. D'oh!
 
I've seen pictures of Cessnas landing on aircraft carriers during the evacuation of Saigon in '73. Heck, if you're desperate enough you can do just about anything.
 
clayfenderstrat said:
When I did my short field landings in a 152 and later in a 172, my instructor told me that I stopped the plane in a shorter distance than an aircraft carrier. I know that without arresting gear, it would be difficult to land on a carrier, but in a small Cessna, would it be possible with a short field procedure?
Click to expand...

At the speeds a 152 is flying, you'll also have to keep in mind that the carrier/runway is moving away from you as well. How fast depends on what the true winds are - the carrier will steam as fast as it needs to to get about 30-35kts of relative wind over the deck, e.g. if it already has 20kts of wind from nature, it will steam 10kts-15kts into the wind to get the difference (or 50kts AWAY from the wind to get 30kts of wind over deck.)

So if your airspeed indicator is indicating 50kts for a normal approach in your 152, then your ground speed is 30kts (from the 20kts of "real" wind), and the carrier is moving 10-15kts away from you, so your real "ground speed" closure to the carrier is about 15-20kts.

The carrier may be 1000ft long, but the actual angled deck is about 700ft. or 3 runway stripes. So I'm pretty sure you can get a 152 down and stopped in 3 runway tripes. As someone said you can use the carrier deck pattern that's painted on some runways, but that "carrier deck" isn't moving.
 
a C-130 landed and took off from a carrier so I hope a 152 or 172 could do it too.

[YT]BjNyQvhsQE8&feature=related[/YT]
 
Velocipede said:
I've seen pictures of Cessnas landing on aircraft carriers during the evacuation of Saigon in '73. Heck, if you're desperate enough you can do just about anything.
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It was the VNAF Major that landed on the Midway in '75 in an O-1 Birddog with 5 family members onboard (in a 2-place tandem cockpit).
 
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