CARRIER LANDING TERROR!

http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/navy_landing.html ^

[dila813]

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[lentulusgracchus]

Anyone else ever see the old footage of the Doolittle Raiders launching in their B-25s from the deck of the ~22,000 ton USS Hornet?

Yes -- and btw, I saw and picked up the whole Victory at Sea TV series from the 50's on DVD for $7 at a Borders bookstore Sunday.

Most of the CV's in WW II were 20-27,000 tons. The Lexington and Saratoga were the "big" carriers during the war.

[lentulusgracchus]

Lexington and Saratoga were the big carriers of World War II at 33,000 tons (per contemporary Jane's); they were converted battlecruisers good for 30 kts and had accommodation for 96 a/c peacetime, more like 104 during the war. Lex was lost at Coral Sea, Saratoga was mined and missed a lot of the war, eventually being expended as a target in Bikini Lagoon. There's some footage of her listing about 25^o and smoldering disconsolately after one of the tests. No way to treat a lady! But I guess the Nav had to know what one of those weapons could do to an anchored task force.

The Essex class were all about 6000 tons smaller, and the 45,000-ton Midway class didn't begin commissioning until the war was over.

[lentulusgracchus]

My father-in-law was a deck chief and has some crazy stories. Lot of his buddies perished in missed landings.

I went to Sonar School in Key West back in the 70's with some P-3 pilots who had "washed out" of the carrier air-wing track. They told us that numbers of their fellow flight-school students were already dead. Sample accident: F-4 on final suddenly loses a wing. Loses a wing!! He's right over the DD following the CVA to pick up downed pilots, so he gives up his ticket and rides the F-4 into the drink to avoid hitting the DD. RIP.

[tanknetter]

The next Doolittle reunion is mid-April at the USAF Museum in Dayton. They’re trying to have the largest gathering of B-25s since right after WWII ended, over 25 of them.

Also, the B-25 at the nimitz museum isn’t a B model. There’s only one of those in existence and it’s in pieces out at Aerotrader in Cali. Awaiting someone with $$$ to restore it, it’s only 3 S/Ns off Doolittles bird. All the other Doolittle-representative Mitchells out there are vizmodded back dates from later models. NMUSAF’s is either a D or an F-10, Pacific Museum in Pearl’s is a J.