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Carriers Heading Into The Wind: What Angle?

Poorwise

Poorwise

Wannabe
For all of this, let's assume a steady wind speed and direction.

Before angled flight decks, heading into the wind was simple. If the wind was from 285°, then the helmsman would turn to 285°. Right?

With an angled flight deck, does a carrier head directly into the wind, or does it head slightly to the right so that the wind is coming more directly down the landing area. (Usually offset by around ~11°, if I understand correctly.) This seems to make sense in some ways besides having the wind straight down the landing path. One benefit would be pushing the burble from the island out of the flight path.

On the flip side, increasing the leftward vector tends to make the apparent rightward sliding of the landing strip even worse.

So what happens in the real world? If a carrier with an 11° angled deck has a 10kt wind from 0°, does it simply use a 0° heading, or does it go to 11° or more? Does the speed of the wind relative to the carrier's speed change the angle?


I hope this isn't a stupid question...
 
RobLyman

RobLyman

- hawk Pilot
pilot
None
Not sure how it works for a carrier, but for the small boys, they use a wind hunting circle. The ship starts by picking a random speed and heading and observes the relative wind speed and direction from instruments on the bridge. They toss some chicken bones and crows feet on a plate, light some incense, and divine the true wind direction based on the direction a horn toad is facing. From the true wind speed and direction they select a number used to enter the family tree of their ancestors and stop at a random branch on the tree. They pray to the selected ancestor asking for inspiration. From this inspiration they derive a course and speed that will place the relative winds close, but just outside the wind envelopes published in the Ship Facilities Resume, or the Farmer's Almanac, which ever they happen to have available on the bridge. The ship starts on that heading, then slowly turns in 5 degree increments until passing through acceptable wind envelopes and arriving at the same relative winds they started with, but from the opposite side of the ship. This goes on until the helo is low on fuel. Any attempts by the helo det to assists with this process are met with punishment. See flogging, keel hauling, or other maritime torture.
 
Gatordev

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
Rob's post is correct, and I believe a lot of what he describes is written in the ship's standing orders.

Keep in mind, in your example, if the wind is from 360 and the ship heads 011, the relative wind won't be 011, it will be something else depending on how fast the carrier goes (creating it's own relative wind) and how fast the true wind is..

Also, relative wind is expressed in degrees off the bow and not from an earth-bound direction. Why, because the relative wind that people care about is expressed in an envelope and not a fixed degree. So the wind could be in the envelope with a 10 degree wind to starboard or a 30 degree wind to port (I'm making those numbers up just as an example).
 
HSMPBR

HSMPBR

Not a misfit toy
pilot
RobLyman said:
Any attempts by the helo det to assists with this process are met with punishment. See flogging, keel hauling, or other maritime torture.
Click to expand...
Identifying maritime traffic conflicts and suggesting a course of action to keep the ship safe while assisting in helo recovery is punishable by drumming-out.

Example:
Boat: “You have green deck.”
Aircrew: “Ok, thanks. Are we going to hit that tanker on your starboard bow in about 12 minutes?”
Boat: “Red deck.”
 
Poorwise

Poorwise

Wannabe
Gatordev said:
Rob's post is correct, and I believe a lot of what he describes is written in the ship's standing orders.

Keep in mind, in your example, if the wind is from 360 and the ship heads 011, the relative wind won't be 011, it will be something else depending on how fast the carrier goes (creating it's own relative wind) and how fast the true wind is..

Also, relative wind is expressed in degrees off the bow and not from an earth-bound direction. Why, because the relative wind that people care about is expressed in an envelope and not a fixed degree. So the wind could be in the envelope with a 10 degree wind to starboard or a 30 degree wind to port (I'm making those numbers up just as an example).
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply.

A possibility (which I think I alluded to in my post) would be to take the speed of the true wind and the speed of the wind that the carrier generates, then treat them as vectors. The number of degrees the carrier has to turn right from the wind's direction would be calculated so that the apparent direction of the wind is the parallel with the landing area's centerline.

High-school trig would give the solution. Is this close to how they do it?
 
Swanee

Swanee

Cereal Killer
pilot
None
Contributor
Poorwise said:
Thanks for the reply.

A possibility (which I think I alluded to in my post) would be to take the speed of the true wind and the speed of the wind that the carrier generates, then treat them as vectors. The number of degrees the carrier has to turn right from the wind's direction would be calculated so that the apparent direction of the wind is the parallel with the landing area's centerline.

High-school trig would give the solution. Is this close to how they do it?
Click to expand...

I have very limited experience flying around a boat, but I'm sure they care more about just kind of getting it into the window than anything else. Perfect is the enemy of good enough I suppose.

But since you're talking about vectors and centerlines and other voodoo- are we talking about an African or European boat?
 
GroundPounder

GroundPounder

Well-Known Member
Swanee said:
I have very limited experience flying around a boat, but I'm sure they care more about just kind of getting it into the window than anything else. Perfect is the enemy of good enough I suppose.

But since you're talking about vectors and centerlines and other voodoo- are we talking about an African or European boat?
Click to expand...

You’re confusing airspeed velocities, with clearances, Clarence.
 
Poorwise

Poorwise

Wannabe
Swanee said:
I have very limited experience flying around a boat, but I'm sure they care more about just kind of getting it into the window than anything else. Perfect is the enemy of good enough I suppose.

But since you're talking about vectors and centerlines and other voodoo- are we talking about an African or European boat?
Click to expand...
Greek. Didn't they develop trig?
 
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