HMS Tin Can- Submarine Aircraft Carrier- McColm Class

[Hobbes]

You'd have to have a pretty big rocket: you need it to propel the aircraft until the jet engines are started. You can only begin to start those once you breach the surface and open the engine intake covers, it's easily 30 seconds before the engines are up to speed. This also makes the launch risky.

[McColm]

Well lets say that we are at periscope depth, the aircraft and pilot are in a sealed water tight compartment.
Would a catapult be viable instead of a rocket?
Couldn't the engines and rocket be fired up at the same time?
Unless the aircraft has some kind of V/STOL or land on water, recovery is going to be difficult. Has an aircraft ever landed on a submarine before?
Could have a towed device for landings and the Skyhook to hoist the aircraft on board.
I wonder if they ever did this in Thunderbirds? I know that the palm trees used to bend and the swimming pool move for take offs on Tracey Island, never saw them land there and why did those actors have strings attatched to them? (-not only but also). Cook & Moore...

I'd have to build my own version.

[lenny100]

you know your right the only time i remember a landing is when thunderbird two was shot up by the world navy and crash on the runway in flames

[rickshaw]

You'd have to have a pretty big rocket: you need it to propel the aircraft until the jet engines are started. You can only begin to start those once you breach the surface and open the engine intake covers, it's easily 30 seconds before the engines are up to speed. This also makes the launch risky.

Never stopped Skydiver! 

[Weaver]

You CAN fire rockets underwater: the US SUBROC weapon fired it's rocket from inside the torpedo tube, and the sub-launched Exocet does the same thing, shedding it's casing once in the air.

That ultra-fast Russian sub-to-sub rocket (Shkval?) uses a small forward-facing rocket to create a bubble of gas around it, thus reducing friction and allowing high speed: I wonder if something similar could be applied to a manned aircraft?

As Lenny said, any openings in a sub hull limit it's strength to the detriment of diving depth. One option might be to tow a folded aircraft in it's own pressure cylinder in the way that Germany proposed to do with V2s in WWII. Doesn't help you maintain and recover it, however.


The bottom line in practical terms is that all a submarine aircraft carrier gets you is ONE covert launch with a small number of small aircraft. Whether that's worthwhile or not depends on how important the target is and what other options are available, but it will be so expensive that it's hard to see an argument for not turning the aircraft into one-way cruise missiles and not having to bother about recovering them. Of course, this doesn't stop you from concocting a whiff scenario in which SSCVNs are neccessary, it just informs it.

[McColm]

So,
Its either a hanger, with a catapult launch system or a towed landing/take -off platform if this concept was for realtime?

[lenny100]

its a hanger with  the cat , a tow is nose and that's the submariners worse nightmare, tell you why, in my days in the royal navy i was a passive sonar operator on board a surface warship operating about 200 miles from the coast of Spain, we got a distant contact and because we were board of tracking the Russian victor class submarine which was on a steady course returning north, we did a full contact report, and found it was the qe2 which had a damaged propeller blade. we reported this up to the command, who knew the captain of the qe2 so they contacted the ship as we were having problems getting a steady range. the reply we received was astonishing, she was 200 miles of the coast of new york!!
noise kills

[McColm]

Thanks for that.
Hanger with a cat.
Got to rearrange the upper deck.

[Mossie]

Wow Lenny, a quick look at the map puts that at roughly 2000 miles....

[philp]

Looks like a lot of serious discussion.

I would just go with an upgrade on the original air-launched idea.  Go with a couple of Harriers or similar aircraft.  Have the sub with a hanger, flight deck and ski launch that raises in place for take offs.  Sub surfaces, hanger opens, Harriers run down the deck and launch, hanger closes, sub submerges.  Harriers make low level attack on target and return.  Sub surfaces, aircraft make vertical landings and are towed into hanger.  Submerge and move to next position for next attack.  If deployed at night, only have to worry about surface radar for a short time.
Simples

[McColm]

Well my previous ideas went down like a lead balloon, I mean come on its not as if anyone is likely to build an aircraft that flies backwards in mid-flight or lands upright/tail-sitting. These are ideas way beyond the laws of physics but yet get the Whiffs in a twist and yet if I buy two Airfix kits of the BAe Nimrod and cut one to make it shorter and use the spare parts to make the other longer, no one butts an eyelid.
Ideally you would want a rocket to land upright as in Thunderbirds, as it takes up too room laying down.

[Cobra]

McColm, have you thought about going 'Jonny Quest' with your Idea? in one Episode, 'Arctic Splashdown' the Bad Guys,had a Fighter with Folding Wings that was Launched ZELL from the Bow of the Sub! check it out on Youtube & let me know what you think,OK? Dan!

[McColm]

I'll have to check that out.
And here are a few examples that I've found.
Megga sub.

[McColm]

And another,
Supersize ramp launch US Navy proposal.

[McColm]

And another,