HMS Tin Can- Submarine Aircraft Carrier- McColm Class

[McColm]

    I know throughout history there have been submarines used to carry and launch aircraft. The early examples had hangers built to store the aircraft in on the upper deck and had to surface launch & recover the aircraft.
I'm going for the internal launch from a ramp or VTOL. Does VTOL work underwater? not sure..
Type of aircraft would be a 'Harrier' or a Jaguar or Hawk. Both would need an arrester hook, folding wings, folding nose and tail.
The aircraft would sit on a hydraulic ramp with a heat shield at the rear of its engine exhaust , when the doors of the sub are opened the aircraft lights the blue touch paper and blasts off using RATO or JATO pack into the unknown. Might need a long range fuel tank, attached to the belly of the aircraft or comformal tanks to reach its target. After the mission is over the aircraft returns to the RV point. VTOL would be ideal, conventional landing with piano wires stretched across to pick up the arrester hook. A turntable device to turn the aircraft around for the next mission and before the folding of the wings, tail and nose. (no submarine is that wide to turn a harrier around inside.) Unless two are joined together and an outer coating welded over them.
There are subs that can launch drones for attack or recon missions, but nothing on the scale I'm thinking.

[pyro-manic]

Need to be a BIG sub then. Look at the Boeing AN-1 design for something that was actually considered.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,3979.0.html

[McColm]

Thanks,
It was very usefull.

[Cobra]

Very Cool! has a kind of ' Thunderbirds' feel to it! Hope to see more! Dan

[lenny100]

or use skyhook like this

[McColm]

Hi Mav,
Wasn't that a proposal BAe tried to flog with the Harrier to the Royal Navy?

[Jschmus]

Supposedly, Douglas' Skyhawk originated from an in-house design for a submarine-launched jet fighter.  That's why the basic Scooter is so tiny.

[McColm]

The shyhook would replace the turntable. Landing would still be tricky unless VTOL or some sort of V hull added for landing the water.
Unless it was a one-way trip.

[Captain Canada]

Neat stuff. Always intrigued by a/c carrying subs. Keep 'er going, eh ?!

[Mossie]

Your small pic shows a version of the Lockheed Martin Cormorant.  It's designed to launch from the missile tubes of a SSBN, namely the Ohio Class.  There have been quite a few versions of it, I've got a couple of pics here but there's plenty more variants on t'interweb.

[Hobbes]

Hi Mav,
Wasn't that a proposal BAe tried to flog with the Harrier to the Royal Navy?

Yes. Although the picture Lenny posted shows a BAe P.1214 or 1216 instead of a Harrier.


btw, VTOL (and jet engines in general) doesn't work under water. Missiles can be launched underwater; they're ejected from the launch tube using compressed air. I think rocket engines can be started under water.

[lenny100]

when icbm are launched underwater they are actualy encased in a buble of nitrogen gas whch blows them to the surface and they pop out of the water "dry", then as they start to fall back the rockets are ignited

[McColm]

So in theory an aircraft let's say the RA-5C, could have a rocket inserted in the space of the internal rear fuel tank or in the case of the A-5A instead of a nuclear weapon and be launched under water like an Polaris missile?
I know the Russian Typhoon Class is big bugger, even got its own paddling pool. and the US Navy Typhoon class is big, well larger than the Royal Navy's' submarine(s).
Even to build a 1/144 scale this is going to be big. Never built a submarine kit before, best get some practise in. Any ideas to which kit I start off with and can use for my conversion?

[Mossie]

There's problems with launching from depth.  The aircraft wouldn't be able to withstand the pressures.  You can seal the aircraft internally & pressurise it with nitrogen, but that still leaves the problem of the squishy bits in the front end (crew).  You could maybe fit them with pressure suits, but even today it's very tricky to get someone down to depth in a suit.  You could rise to a shallow depth for launch I guess.  Then the aircraft has to splash down & you'll need to recover it somehow.  All this activity makes it more likely for the enemy to detect your presence, which kind of negates the reason for using a sub.

The engineering issues are difficult, but this is whiff world.

[lenny100]

in thery its yes to that launch but to have a hatch the size to launch a maned aircraft underwater gives very little diveing depth because of the strenth of the hull at that piont, the hatches if the trident are as big as they come and still have a decent dive depth, the ussr typhon was not considerd a true ssbn, but as a mobile icbm platform which went under the ice and the huged underneath surfaceing in up to three meters of ice to fire.