Two-level secured parking with an area of 25,000 sq. m. Lighting, filling stations, compressed air, nitrogen - all the necessary infrastructure is available! 4 vertical lifts with a lifting capacity of 49 tons. There is a sprinkler and foam fire extinguishing system with a developed network of smoke detectors. Reliable security system - two Sea Sparrow anti-aircraft missile systems (eight-charge Mk-29 installation, effective firing range - 30 km), two RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missle melee anti-aircraft missile systems (21 ready-to-launch missiles, effective firing range - 9 km). Parking can be delivered in the shortest possible time to any area of the World Ocean. The cost of the elite property is $ 5 billion.
Something like this can be described the paranormal events of January 10, 2012. In the Pacific Ocean there was a US Navy strike aircraft carrier, the flight deck of which was jam-packed with passenger cars of various brands.
Are the gallant American sailors so lacking in pay that they have to bring in used cars from Japan to order? Or is it some kind of insidious design to stun and confuse the enemy? Perhaps Hollywood is filming the next episode of the movie "Transformers"?
Alas, everything turned out to be very commonplace. The multipurpose nuclear aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) was transferred from the main base (Naval Base San Diego, Calif.) To Puget Sound shipyard (Bremerton, Washington) for the first scheduled maintenance in her career and replacement of the reactor core. The procedure is lengthy and may take more than a year. All aircraft were removed from the Reagan, 2,480 air personnel went ashore in San Diego, and the aircraft carrier's crew (3,200 sailors) was forced to proceed with their ship to a new duty station.
Since the sailors will, in general, have nothing to do, the command of the Naval Forces allowed them to take their favorite toys with them (especially in Bremerton, families of sailors will arrive after a while). The Pentagon, of course, is rich, but flatly refused to pay third-party firms for the transportation of cars across the country. Indeed, why do we need hundreds of trailers, if such a "Barge" is available. The command of the Navy was thoughtful and waved his hand - "Drive!". Laughing sailors fastened with mooring chains to the decks of the ship hundreds of their pickups and sedans. The result was so spectacular that the Pentagon voluntarily provided the press with these, defaming the honor of the fleet, photographs. On the other hand, the command showed concern for people, finding a quick solution to an everyday problem.
Of course, something like that on the ships of the Russian Navy cannot be imagined in principle. It happened, of course, the evacuation of the population, the salvation of art treasures from the burning Sevastopol … but in peacetime to use ships for inappropriate purposes - to accommodate the property of personnel in such huge quantities … This is absolutely impossible. Restricted facility, secrecy - relatives and friends are not allowed to reach Severomorsk closer than 30 kilometers, not to mention taking their personal car aboard. But, in fairness, it should be noted that Russian military transport aircraft were regularly used to deliver families of military personnel to Tajikistan and back (I witnessed personally, IL-76 flights from Sheremetyevo airport, mid-90s). But that's a completely different story.
Monsters on deck
In the early 60s, the US Navy faced another problem: to ensure the efficient operation of aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft, a carrier-based military transport aircraft with a large payload and a spacious cargo compartment was required. At that time, the deck transport squadrons were using C-1 "Trader" aircraft with a payload of 3800 kg and seats for nine passengers. "Traders" quickly and reliably delivered urgent cargo and equipment from the shore, provided aircraft carriers with spare parts for aircraft, and performed emergency flights to evacuate wounded and sick sailors to the shore. But with the advent of the Forrestal and Kitty Hawk heavy aircraft carriers, and the even larger nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise with 90 aircraft on board, Traders' capabilities were exhausted. The bulky and heavy turbojet aircraft engines did not fit entirely into the small cargo hold of the C-1 and had to be disassembled. A 3800 kg payload seemed unacceptably small for the needs of a huge aircraft carrier.
At that moment, the command of the Navy came up with a fantastic idea to use a heavy four-engine C-130 Hercules aircraft as a vehicle. The aircraft of this type was well known in the navy - as early as 1957, two Hercules were being tested in the aviation of the Marine Corps: the possibility of their use as air refuellers for the ILC aircraft was investigated. Obviously, the tests were successful, tk. in 1959, the Navy ordered 46 base aircraft tankers under the designation KC-130. A fuel tank with a capacity of 13 620 liters was placed in the cargo compartment, from which fuel was supplied to two fueling units of the "hose-cone" system suspended under the wing. The air tanker could simultaneously serve two fighters, docking took place at speeds up to 570 km / h, this made it possible to refuel any type of aircraft in service with the Navy aviation. But this is the background, the real action will be further.
On October 8, 1963, one of the KS-130 tankers was transferred to the Marine Test Center at Patuxent River Air Base. The sailors were seriously planning to put the clumsy monster on the deck of the ship.
Landing simulations were carried out on the outline of an aircraft carrier drawn on the ground. During the preparatory flight tests, it was unexpectedly revealed that the landing characteristics of the Hercules were in some respects superior to those of conventional carrier-based aircraft. Moreover, the Hercules did not need to be equipped with a landing hook (a hook at the rear of the fuselage, standard for all deck vehicles) - it was enough to turn on the reverse of the propellers to stop the heavy aircraft at the edge of the steel strip. But there were also some difficulties - the pilots of carrier-based aviation had never piloted a heavy four-engine aircraft, it took them some time to gain confidence at the helm of the Hercules.
On a windy October day, the KC-130 headed for the open sea, where the aircraft carrier Forrestal was waiting for it 400 miles from Boston. All planes were removed from the flight deck. The ship turned against the wind, and the Hercules began to descend. Immediately after touching the deck with the wheels of the main landing gear, the pilots gave the gas and went into the go-around. In a few days, they made 29 such touches. Finally, on October 22, 1963, the pilots turned on the reverse of the propellers just before touching the deck with their wheels - and the first real landing on the deck took place!
The pointless experiments ended in a week. The KC-130 made 21 landings on the ship and the same number of successful take-offs from its deck without the help of any ramps, catapults or starting powder boosters (which is not surprising - "Hercules" had excellent aerobatic qualities and high thrust-to-weight ratio). Gradually, the flight weight of the aircraft was increased to 54.4 tons.
For comparison: one of the heaviest carrier-based aircraft - the F-14 Tomcat two-seat jet interceptor had a takeoff weight of 33 tons. The deck bomber A-3 Skywarrior weighed about the same (31 tons), the legendary Vigilant had an even lower take-off weight - 28 tons. The takeoff weight of a modern carrier-based fighter-bomber F / A-18 "Super Hornet" usually does not exceed 22 tons (according to calculations, it can go up to 30).
As sane experts predicted, regular operation of such a bulky aircraft from the deck of a ship was impossible. "Hercules" had few chances to take off in calm weather, and preparation for receiving the C-130 on the deck limited the aircraft carrier's combat effectiveness - it was required to remove all aircraft in the hangar, and the landed transport aircraft blocked the approach to the catapults and interfered with landing operations.
As a result, the command of the US Navy adopted a compromise option - for the delivery of bulky cargo from coastal bases and integrated supply ships to an aircraft carrier, it is rational to use a helicopter - unlike Hercules, heavy SH-3 Sea King or CH-53 Sea Stellen are placed in the below-deck hangar and can carry any non-standard and bulky cargo on an external sling. For the rapid delivery of urgent cargo to the aircraft carrier, a new C-2 Greyhound vehicle was created - a modification of the E-2 Hawkeye long-range radar detection aircraft, with the equipment removed and the radar antenna. The carrying capacity of the Greyhound is 4.5 tons of cargo or 28 passengers. The flight range is 2,400 kilometers. When parked, the wing planes swivel back and fold along the fuselage, making the Greyhound a very compact carrier-based aircraft.
Operation Sandy
The Pacific theater of operations has shown that the main striking power of the US armed forces is the navy. The sailors prided themselves on their greatness until the New Sun flashed over Hiroshima. Nuclear weapons shook the prestige of the US Navy - the shells of 406-mm guns of battleships and hundreds of carrier-based torpedo bombers were as weak as worms before the power of Strategic Aviation. None of the carrier-based aircraft in the 1940s could match the capabilities of the B-29 Superfortress land-based bomber, moreover, none of the US Navy carrier-based aircraft could even raise a nuclear bomb! What a disgrace…
In an effort to somehow rectify the situation, the American admirals decided to equip the aircraft carriers with completely inadequate weapons - the V-2 ballistic missiles captured in the Third Reich. And this was a serious trump card: in the 40s, the US Navy possessed a complete monopoly in the World Ocean - it would not have been difficult for an aircraft carrier group to break through to the coast of any state (according to statistics, 90% of the world's population live no further than 500 km from the coastline of seas and oceans), where the V-2 will be launched from the deck of the aircraft carrier, which cannot be intercepted at all. Serious combat system. Of course, in practice, many problems arose: the pitching made it difficult to refuel the rocket, there were great difficulties with the stabilization of the V-2 on the launch pad.
On September 6, 1947, the V-2 was launched from the midway aircraft carrier in full swing in the Bermuda Triangle. The rocket took off at an acute angle to the horizon, nearly demolished the superstructure, flew 9 kilometers and safely fell apart into three parts, which tumbled into the sea.
The idea of converting aircraft carriers into "heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers" (the reader probably took the hint) pursued the American naval department until the early 60s. 10 modernized aircraft carriers of the "Essex" class ("Oriskani" class) were in all seriousness armed with Regulus 1 cruise missiles with special combat units. For the launch, steam catapults were used - the rocket was placed on a three-wheeled cart, accelerated like an ordinary plane and … thrown from the deck towards the enemy with a whistle. The military was especially pleased with the fact that the rocket could receive accurate target designation from the AWACS aircraft of the carrier-based wing over the entire flight path. But, with the advent of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, all these perversions turned out to be useless - for the past 50 years, the Americans have denied the presence of nuclear weapons on the decks of their aircraft carriers, and the aircraft carriers themselves are regularly used in local wars and to control sea communications. In the long absence of the Third World War, aircraft carriers proved to be an extremely effective tool in numerous conflicts of the Cold War: unlike submarine strategic missile carriers, the results of their work are intended for the living, and not for a handful of three-legged mutants who survived after a global nuclear war.
