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Hunter Suggests NATO Take Over JFK Flattop
Aviation Now ^ | 15 May 06 | Michael Bruno

Posted on 05/16/2006 2:41:32 PM PDT by LSUfan

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is suggesting NATO take over the USS John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier, which the U.S. Navy and the Bush administration want to retire early for budget reasons.

(Excerpt) Read more at aviationnow.com ...


TOPICS: Canada; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Germany; Government; News/Current Events; US: California; US: Florida; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: aircraftcarrier; congress; cv67; duncanhunter; housearmedservices; jfk; nato; navy; sandiego
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To: A.A. Cunningham

Actually when landing and lauching aircraft from a carrier, almost 100 additional feet is "a lot".


221 posted on 05/17/2006 7:01:44 AM PDT by Trinity5
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To: lentulusgracchus; Pukin Dog
That leathery crunching noise you hear is the pucker factor operating in all those carrier admirals and four-stripers whose commands are now "protected" by Phoenix-less, shorter-range F/A-18's.

The Phoenix System has been gone a long time. I'm not sure how effective it would have been against some of today's fighter-attack aircraft as it was designed to take-on (Backfire) bombers & the cruise missiles they carried. Perhaps Pukin can amplify, agree/disagree.

222 posted on 05/17/2006 7:17:45 AM PDT by Tallguy (When it's a bet between reality and delusion, bet on reality -- Mark Steyn)
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To: Non-Sequitur
They can't use a catapault. Cats are steam powered and the British carriers are gas turbine driven.

I don't know whether the British CVF's will have catapaults or not since the design is in flux. If they do, they won't be steam-driven as you have noted. They'll probably be electro-magnetic instead.

223 posted on 05/17/2006 7:21:11 AM PDT by Tallguy (When it's a bet between reality and delusion, bet on reality -- Mark Steyn)
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To: kabar

Once again, Harriers are not operating from the JFK.


224 posted on 05/17/2006 7:35:14 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
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To: Trinity5
The SU-27K is the carrier version of the SU-27. It has been modified with arresting hook, reinforced landing gear, etc. Not sure what else would need to be done.

Redesignated the Su-33. See discussion, photos here:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/row/su-30.htm

Notice that the discussion of the Su-30 MKI operated by India shows that a navalized, carrier version of the Su-30 specifically for India has been discussed.

Note that the normal operating radius of this family of aircraft is of the order of 1800 miles.

The wait for a better airplane with similar range and weapons reach, a true successor to the F-14D, had better not be too long. The AA-9 "Amos"/R-33/R-33E/R-37 "AWACS-killer" AAM carried by the Su-27 family and the MiG-31 has a range of 100 miles, almost as long as the AIM-54 Phoenix.

We are again getting into a situation like that the carrier admirals faced in 1942, in which they were outranged and outgunned by the Japanese carrier groups, which had the A6M Zero against our F4F's and F3A Brewster Buffaloes. At least we aren't outnumbered, too.

The F/A-18E/F "Super Hornet" is a worthy successor to the Brewster Buffalo, which helped win the Battle of Midway by tying up the Zero squadrons for oh, ten minutes or so with a brisk target practice and easy kills on their way to the Midway raid.

225 posted on 05/17/2006 7:36:40 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: Trinity5

Not in this case. The launch and recovery areas are nearly identical between both classes of boats.


226 posted on 05/17/2006 7:36:59 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
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To: lentulusgracchus

Normal range, not radius, is 1.8K. Radius would be 1/2 that.


227 posted on 05/17/2006 7:46:59 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
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To: A.A. Cunningham
Understood. The issue was, could they? The answer appears to be yes. The context of the discussion was turning the JFK over to NATO, which doesn't have carriers using catapults and arresting gear. Spain, Ialy, and the UK do have carriers with VTOL aircraft.

Perhaps Hunter was mistaken by using host in the past tense instead of could host. I have not researched the history of the JFK to see if VTOL aircraft ever landed or took off from the ship.

228 posted on 05/17/2006 7:50:20 AM PDT by kabar
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To: LSUfan
The idea that you can just hand a carrier over to a new user is just silly. First of all, no other NATO member land conventional aircraft on carriers right now (France is not a military member of NATO). None of their personnel would know how to work anything on the ship, from the arresting gear to the steam turbines to the electronics suite.

A Navy pilot enlightened me on what it is like to make a night landing on a carrier.

Put a postage stamp in the middle of a room, turn off the lights except for a night light in another room, run as fast as you can with your tongue sticking out, jump towards the stamp and try to lick it.

229 posted on 05/17/2006 7:56:22 AM PDT by N. Theknow (Kennedys - Can't drive, can't fly, can't ski, can't skipper a boat - But they know what's best.)
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To: A.A. Cunningham
Thanks for the distinction.

The comparable figure of radius for the Super Hornet is about 800 miles, compared to 630 miles radius for the F/A-18A-D -- and the gold standard of comparison is the F-14D's CAP radius of 1240 miles (footnote: when armed with AIM-7's vice -54's). The F-14A's is about 1000 miles.

Bottom line, Chinese PLAAF Su-30MKK's now enjoy an advantage over fleet CAP's in both radius and reach.

Bottom line, we're asking Naval and Marine aviators to stand up to people driving better airplanes armed with rangier missiles. The AIM-120 AMRAAM has a range of about 50 miles; its MRAAM competitors carried by the Su-27 "Flanker" family, the R-27/AA-10 "Alamo" and the R-77/AA-12 "Adder" (sometimes called the "AMRAAMski"), have ranges from 42 out to 78 miles depending on the variant, and they're backed up by the aforementioned LRAAM.

230 posted on 05/17/2006 8:28:58 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: A.A. Cunningham

Are you sure? Considering the area of the flight deck of a US carrier is well over twice of the Russian. Or is that only because of our multiple launch points?


231 posted on 05/17/2006 8:32:21 AM PDT by Trinity5
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To: lentulusgracchus

I wonder just how accurate the range figures are for US-made A2A missiles. The data never seems to update as new revisions come online. Frankly I think it's like the top speed figures on many US aircraft -- they just give you a nominal figure.


232 posted on 05/17/2006 9:03:12 AM PDT by Tallguy (When it's a bet between reality and delusion, bet on reality -- Mark Steyn)
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To: kabar
The issue was, could they?

No, the issue was your earlier claim:

"We are flying Harriers off the JFK now. Probably part of a Marine Aircraft Wing."

Which is incorrect. Whether or not Harriers could be successfully operated from a CV or CVN was answered in '76-'77 when VMA-231 deployed aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of CVW-19 for a Med cruise.

233 posted on 05/17/2006 10:39:42 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
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To: A.A. Cunningham

I was refering to Hunter's statement that the JFK hosted VTOL aircraft. If that is incorrect, so be it. The point is that NATO can use the JFK platform with its existing VTOL aircraft. That is the issue.


234 posted on 05/17/2006 11:01:35 AM PDT by kabar
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To: Trinity5

Yes. The embarked airwings on those boats are about half the size, ~ forty aircraft, as opposed to the 80 on a Nimitz class boat.


235 posted on 05/17/2006 11:03:57 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
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To: Non-Sequitur
As a what? Dockside barracks? She's 40 years old and worn out. She never had a SLEP upgrade. Manning her with airwing would take about 5000 men and women. In order to staff the air wing the UK would have to triple the size of their Fleet Air Arm. The NATO countries have no need for a carrier this size and would be nuts to fall for this. If we don't want or need her then decommission her and park her next to the America.

Not flaming or anything just curious you do know where the AMERICA is parked now don't you? It sure ain't at Philly. The Kitty Hawk is the oldest KH Class between KH, CONSTELLATION, and AMERICA the JFK the newest and her own class. ENTERPRISE is between the Connie and AMERICA in age. Someone screwed up on the early 90's rotations and AMERICA missed her SLEP.

None of the rumors about her were true. Not the converted nuke, not the thin hull, none of it. She was built as solid as the Kitty Hawk itself. Heck even the ENTERPRISE took a much rougher beating {Major Fire} than the AMERICA or KENNEDY. The JFK is another matter and could have possibly been a nuke on paper and changed as she was the only Kennedy class carrier.

I can give you more info on the AMERICA in private if you want. I can say this much the Navy was bent on sinking her as quickly as possible and no reasonable or logical answers were ever given as to why either. Plenty of persons tried to obtain them too.

236 posted on 05/17/2006 11:15:38 AM PDT by cva66snipe (If it was wrong for Clinton why do some support it for Bush? Party over nation destroys the nation.)
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To: Doe Eyes

Only reason Argentina would need exploding bombs would be
for Malvinas redux, and I don't believe they are ready
to "Falk" with those islands again..


237 posted on 05/17/2006 11:16:04 AM PDT by rahbert
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To: cva66snipe
Not flaming or anything just curious you do know where the AMERICA is parked now don't you?

Yeah, a couple hundred miles off the east coast, a few thousand feet down.

The Kitty Hawk is the oldest KH Class between KH, CONSTELLATION, and AMERICA the JFK the newest and her own class.

True, but the Kitty Hawk went through a full three year SLEP overhaul while the Kennedy did not. She's been used and abused for the last 10 years or more. Maintenance funding has been hard to come by because she's always supposed to have been decommissioned in a year or so. If as an earlier post reported, the Kennedy is too decrepit to support fixed wing aircraft then there is no reason to keep her around, and nobody else in their right mind who would want her.

I can give you more info on the AMERICA in private if you want.

That's OK. I'm ex Navy myself.

238 posted on 05/17/2006 11:35:13 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: Non-Sequitur

It's a shame those those two ships could have seen service into early 2010's if kept up right. If she's that bad she needs to go then. Nobody needs decapitated by a steam leak or worse. I'm real surprised Teddy hasn't called for museum hold though. I'm gonna look around and see if they sank the ORISKANY this morning.


239 posted on 05/17/2006 11:45:36 AM PDT by cva66snipe (If it was wrong for Clinton why do some support it for Bush? Party over nation destroys the nation.)
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To: cva66snipe

ORISKANY's sank .


240 posted on 05/17/2006 11:56:30 AM PDT by cva66snipe (If it was wrong for Clinton why do some support it for Bush? Party over nation destroys the nation.)
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