Скачать или смотреть Why Pilots Landed on the Angled Deck And Survived

What if the deadliest threat to a carrier pilot was not enemy fire but the geometry of the ship itself? This video tells the story of how a single design flaw turned carrier landings into a life or death bottleneck and how a tiny tilt solved it forever.

Summary
A straight flight deck was a one way street. Miss one arresting wire and the deck could lock up with dozens of armed, fueled aircraft blocking launches and recoveries. Pilots ran out of fuel and were forced to ditch in the ocean. Midway and the Philippine Sea showed how lethal this deck cycle problem could be.
Early improvised trials in the Royal Navy proved that landing on an offset lane could work. Physicist Dennis Campbell and test pilot Eric Brown showed that a few degrees of angle let a plane clear the central deck space while launches continued.
The idea lay dormant until jets arrived. Heavier faster aircraft made missed wires almost certain death. US Navy Commander Walter Boon rediscovered the British trials and pushed a bold test aboard USS Midway in 1951 using a painted eight degree landing line.
Boon deliberately missed the wires and throttled up. Instead of plowing into parked planes the jet sped along the angled lane and flew off the port side. The demonstration cut recovery time dramatically and transformed the concept from clever trick into operational necessity.
Retrofitting carriers required extensive structural surgery sponsons island relocations and new arresting and catapult gear. The conversions and new builds like USS Antietam and USS Forrestal proved the payoff. Sortie generation and pilot survival improved sharply and carrier operations were forever changed.
The angled deck became the global standard and helped carriers remain viable strategic platforms through the jet age and into the Cold War. A tiny geometric shift bought space time and second chances for pilots and crews.