Modelling > Sea

Undercarriageless fighters and flexible decks

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GTX_Admin:
An idea experimented with by the British.  The die being to remove the undercarriage from the fighter in order to save weight.  Here is some information on one such concept - the Supermarine Type 543:






Might make an interesting entry into the Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda GB

Maybe also other derivatives...say a EE Lightning using this technique?

Alvis 3.1:
Eric Brown was a proponent of the idea, he thought you could have an inflatable airfield that say, Marines could set up quickly and then you'd not be tied down to conventional airfields.
Of course, there's that niggling problem of what to do if your inflate-a-date erm, airfield springs a leak and you have to divert..to a regular airfield! Now what, Chumly? No gear! Oh dear! Time to eject and lose a perfectly good aircraft.  :o

Interesting concept, just not really a survivable one in the real world. Kind of like making roads out of rubber, and tyres out of asphalt! ;D


Alvis 3.1

Weaver:
More of a Couldna Wouldna Shouldna for all the blindingly obvious reasons but it would make an interesting model, particularly if you could put it in a diorama with a section of the flexible deck to make the point that it's not just a regular aircraft with it's gear up.

The Sea Hawk was considered for this BTW (good shape) and the Scimitar pretty much owed it's existence to it, since it evolved, via the Types 508 and 525, from the Type 505 which was designed for the rubber deck from the start. It probably wouldn't have worked with the Lightning because it needed the wings to be pretty near the bottom of the fuselage so that the plane didn't tip over too far when it stopped

Kerick:
What would you do when the ship came to port for overhaul and all the aircraft had to be flown of to land bases? Even with an inflatable strip taxing to the ramp would be interesting.

finsrin:

Looks like they started with the F-90 and went to modifying it.

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