I’ve seen the Pearl Harbor movie where they make a big deal of taking weight off the planes because the ship’s runway is just too short. Why can’t they just be longer? Or was just that because they lacked the time during ww2?
It seems like the problem still exists today and i just don’t get how a massive ship would be affected by a longer runway. Maybe make it telescoping like a firetruck’s ladder so it can be retracted during bad weather.
What’s the limiting factor here?
In: Engineering
The aircraft carrier would have to be *a lot* longer to support most planes loaded with max payload, which is why we use catapult launches today.
A Nimitz class aircraft carrier is just(?) 332 meters long, this seems like a good distance until you learn that the **minimum** takeoff distance for a fighter like the F18 (not even the super variant) is around 500 meters and that’s the minimum distance when not heavily loaded.
You’d have to make your aircraft carrier at least 50% longer to support unassisted takeoffs of heavier aircraft. This makes it significantly more expensive to build and operate, often slower and less maneuverable to boot.
Modern aircraft carriers all have either catapults to assist takeoff or a ski jump at the end up the runway to loft the plane up and give it a bit more time to pick up speed before it impacts the water.
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