Double ended Seagoing paddle aircraft carriers

[Old Wombat]

Actually, Great Eastern was a quite capable sea-going ship but she was, actually, scrapped in 1890.

However, a similar ship with better boilers & engines, capable of 20+ knots, might have been a good contender.

[rickshaw]

Actually, Great Eastern was a quite capable sea-going ship but she was, actually, scrapped in 1890.

However, a similar ship with better boilers & engines, capable of 20+ knots, might have been a good contender.

The Great Eastern was scrapped, because it seems the only problem with her design was that she was literally too big.  She could not be operated economically.  She was ahead of her time.  She'd have made an excellent basis for an aircraft carrier though, because of her size.

However, I've yet to see any real advantage for a double-ended aircraft carrier.  If it was operating in a canal or a narrow lake perhaps but the open ocean?   While that shouldn't exclude it from whiffery, it does make it less likely in real life.

The other suggestion, with large beam engines on either side of the flight deck in twin islands would run into the problems the RN found when they first experimented with such designs in the wind tunnel for the conversion of IIRC Furious.  It creates a wind-tunnel effect which makes operation of aircraft (particularly those low speed ones of the period) difficult.  Which is why the single-sided island was adopted - it created predictable airflows without any channel effect.  Again, that shouldn't exclude it from whiffery but it would mean that it wouldn't be a successful design, as such.

Paddle wheels are less efficient inherently than screws as the RN found, which is why they switched to screw propulsion.  There were though, numerous ocean going paddle powered ships.  Another problem with paddle wheels is that they are, inherently more vulnerable to damage, particularly from torpedos.  If you lose one wheel, then your speed is significantly reduced to what you can achieve when using the rudder to counter the asymmetrical thrust of the other side.

How about a catamaran design with the paddle-wheels in the centre?  It would overcome many of the problems and provide many advantages, including a much larger flight deck.

[Old Wombat]

Paddle wheels are less efficient inherently than screws as the RN found, which is why they switched to screw propulsion.  There were though, numerous ocean going paddle powered ships.  Another problem with paddle wheels is that they are, inherently more vulnerable to damage, particularly from torpedos.  If you lose one wheel, then your speed is significantly reduced to what you can achieve when using the rudder to counter the asymmetrical thrust of the other side.

How about a catamaran design with the paddle-wheels in the centre?  It would overcome many of the problems and provide many advantages, including a much larger flight deck.

Neat idea, Brian!

But which would look cooler, though?





Guy

[jcf]

Fulton tried the catamaran with central wheel on the Demologos , the first steam warship, in the early 19th century.
As he, and most of the others who tried various centrally mounted paddle arrangements found, it didn't work very well and
was even less efficient than side wheels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_floating_battery_Demologos

The Guttenberg project has a free version of Howard Chappelle's National Museum paper, I cherish the paper copy I've had since the '70s.
http://www.casmg.org/News/Fultons%20Steam%20Battery.pdf

Brian, I'm very aware of the real world issues with twin islands, thus the use of the term Steam-Punk, a genre where
the impractical and implausible reign supreme and where success is measured in terms of "I say Bertie, isn't that just Wizard."   

[rickshaw]

Brian, I'm very aware of the real world issues with twin islands, thus the use of the term Steam-Punk, a genre where
the impractical and implausible reign supreme and where success is measured in terms of "I say Bertie, isn't that just Wizard."   

In my defence, I did say that shouldn't be a reason to exclude it from whiffery...   

[Old Wombat]

Great Eastern was also the first ship (& only) with a double-skin hull, 60 years before the Titanic saw the beginning of the process making them compulsory!

Thus she was, also, considerably better able to withstand battle damage.