F4U Takeoff problem

[Plane-Eater]

Originally Posted by horseback

Before the jet operations of the late forties-early fifties, catapult takeoffs were fairly rare (and I don't think that the escort carriers even had catapults). 'Cat' shots are kind of stressful on the old airframe, especially the sorts we had back in the day, so Air Group Commanders were not eager to add any additional risks to their pilots and aircraft. Jarring stuff loose is a lot less critical when you land, but banging and shaking your aircraft around on takeoff was rightly considered just asking for trouble.

cheers

horseback

Not entirely. CVEs absolutely had deck catapults, same as the fleet carriers; deck catapult usage was much higher on the CVEs because of their lower top speed. With a max gross weight TBM, a short deck with planes spotted over half of it, and limited speed into the wind, the CVE TBMs lived and died off the cats.

Fleet carrier usage was low early in the war (less than 75 total for 41 and 42 according to Carrier Airpower by Freidman), but was up towards 40% of all launches by the end of the war, especially as naval air assets increasingly began focusing on ground support with heavier ordnance loads.

The lighter F4Fs, SBDs, and even the F6Fs could reliably launch without them, but catapults were used frequently to carrier launch P-40s, P-47s, and even P-51s during major coastal assaults - I've seen footage of both Warhawks and Thunderbolts being cat-launched during Operation Torch in the Med.

I know for a fact that once F4Us began operating regularly off the fleet carriers later in the war and were commonly carrying 2+ tons of bombs plus a belly tank, cat shots were often used for the first planes spotted on the deck until enough room was clear for the rest to make running launches. Same for TBFs topped off with fuel, HVARs, and a full bomb bay.

EDIT: here's a Navy article from 1995 that mentions CVLs and CVEs relying heavily on deck catapults, and how Army fighters were commonly used off them for resupply deliveries: http://www.history.navy.mil/download/ww2-36.pdf
Also - this page confirms what I suspected, all Casablanca CVEs (which were a huge portion of all produced US / RN CVEs) had a deck catapult: http://www.ww2pacific.com/notecve.html

http://www.navsource.org/archives/03/009.htm indicates the Bogue class had a deck catapult as well; I'm not sure if they were standard or not, but the lead ship (CVE-9) had one, so I suspect they all did as it was carried on to the Casablanca class.

[horseback]

First, thanks for the head's up on the availibity of catapults on the CVEs; I had read Tillman's book on the Wildcat and he specifically mentioned that the first CVEs, which were converted merchantmen (in the case of the RN's first escort carrier, I believe that it was a converted German Merchant ship), and there was little mention of cats after that. I have also just finished the memoirs of an Avenger pilot, and cannot for the life of me recall him mentioning that they ever used catapults, which means that it was so common that it never occurred to him to bring it up, or that it was so rare...

However, I think cat shots were used for special cases; most flight ops were CAPs and recon patrols where takeoffs would not be made from a crowded flight deck. Even for big raids, the SBDs and Turkeys would take off first, because they were slower and had more endurance than the fighters, which more often than not were there to protect the bombers and torpeckers, so their load was just drop tanks and bullets most of the time. They didn't need the cats unless they were grossly overloaded or at the front of a very crowded deck, as in the late war scenario where they finally figured out that fighter-bombers were just as effective as Helldivers and had the added advantage of not having a whiny rear gunner weighing them down.

Having said all that, I still believe that the part about Air Bosses not wanting their planes shot off the deck with a catapult is valid; do you remember in the movie The Bridges Over Toko-Ri where the carrier uses the props from the Corsairs and Skyraiders parked on the flight deck to help maneuver the ship into port? The CAG was beside himself over the wear and tear on his planes' engines (James Michener, who wrote the original book, took that from personal observation) and complains bitterly to the Captain of the ship, whose primary concern is getting into his docking space more quickly, not whether one of the aircraft's engines was going to wear out that much sooner and cr@p out on some young man over the Korean hinterlands.

cheers

horseback