why is STOBAR used so little

I did not mean to imply that cats are easy to design, merely that they are not a major technological leap. The French did not actually ‘need’ to use American cats, it simply made more sense to – reinventing the wheel is generally unsatisfying, and very expensive.

As for the Russians, frankly, I do not know whether they could develop cats themselves, but they have not really tried very hard.

That’s a bit difficult to believe seeing how they were designed with an angled deck and arresting gear. What’s a VTOL aircraft going to do with those?

Kuznetsov was orginally indented to have a catabult and normal CATOBAR lauching system for conventional aircrafts. Thus the angled flight deck and general “conventional aircraft carrier” apperance. Political decisions on behalf of the V/STOL made after the intial design beeing aproved coused the catabults being phassed out and substituted with Ski-jump for the Yak-41.

“True” Soviet carriers were always intended to operate fixed-wing CTOL aircraft, some of the earlier projects being MiG-23 derivatives. FREESTYLE was intended to be part of the airwing, not the entire thing.

You mean the project 1160 and 1153. True, but then again Kuznetsov was a substitute as the “true” carriers weren’t approved. The whole history of soviets carrier development is somewhat misty and confuzing, I will try to dig in to it more deeply when my studies are over…

But what comes to the Yak-41, It was orginally mented to be the sole combat aircraft (after the decision to drop the catabult), but after the revelation that Su-27 and MiG-29 were able to take-off from the ski-jump, conventional palnes were again to adopted to the airgroup. Adding the required arrestor wires weren’t hard, as the intial and orginal plan included them.

I agree that steam catabults are complicated systems, but that wasen’t the reason why soviets didn’t have them. It was more of political solution and oversized believs to Yak-41 performance that finaly decided that kuznetsov and Varyag was not going to have catabults.

“True” Soviet carriers were always intended to operate fixed-wing CTOL aircraft, some of the earlier projects being MiG-23 derivatives. FREESTYLE was intended to be part of the airwing, not the entire thing.

And the only reason the USSR didn’t field a CATOBAR carrier was one of economics; Ul’yanovsk would have had a CATOBAR system but it was cancelled due to a lack of money when it was around 30% complete.

I agree that steam catabults are complicated systems, but that wasen’t the reason why soviets didn’t have them. It was more of political solution and oversized believs to Yak-41 performance that finaly decided that kuznetsov and Varyag was not going to have catabults.

That’s a bit difficult to believe seeing how they were designed with an angled deck and arresting gear. What’s a VTOL aircraft going to do with those? :rolleyes:

–The Russkies could not master it, could not steal the technology, gave up, and settled on the stobar stuff.

I agree that steam catabults are complicated systems, but that wasen’t the reason why soviets didn’t have them. It was more of political solution and oversized believs to Yak-41 performance that finaly decided that kuznetsov and Varyag was not going to have catabults.

PAYLOAD, PAYLOAD, PAYLOAD.

Have you ever seen a pic of a naval Flanker, loaded, taking off with the stobar? Why not? ‘Cause it can’t be done. Immagine loading a Super Hornet and taking off using stobar. It would go off the deck and………….gulp!! Right to the bottom. Same for the Flanker.

But all those guys who said that a catapult is a simple system are talking nonsense. The steam cat is probably one of the most complex pieces of machinery in a CV.

How complicated?

–The Russkies could not master it, could not steal the technology, gave up, and settled on the stobar stuff.

–The French equipped CdG with two cats they purchased from the US. France quickly realized that attempting to design, test, and produce to cats was utterly, ridicously, expensive. So they bought them from us.

The guys above have already pretty much summed up the the situation with STOBAR.

STOBAR still has all of the requirements of CTOL aircraft operation (angled deck, arresting gear, heavier airframes for deck landing stresses, etc.) without providing the greatest advantage of CTOL operations….assisted launch allowing much greater take-off weights for the same aircraft.

There’s really no reason to go to the trouble of adopting all of the above without adding the obvious advantages of the catapult.

it will carry maybe two LGBs and the rest of the stores will be fuel and AAMs and jamming pods

We’re talking payload here, not weaponload. Either way, it’s pure weight and without a catapult launch no aircraft can clear the deck carrying more total load than it could without it.

One big advantage of a catapult is you can adjust the power accordingly to the weight of the A/C.

It also adds complication… you give a lightly loaded F-18 the setting used for the AEW Hawkeye and you are going to have a Hornet with no nose undercarriage.

One big advantage of a catapult is you can adjust the power accordingly to the weight of the A/C. An F/A-18C is going to need less cat power than an F/A-18E or F-14D. An F/A-18E with AMRAAMS and Sidewinders is going to need less cat power than an F/A-18E loaded with 4 x 2000lb LGB’s or JDAMS. This gives more flexibility than using engine thrust alone. Esp when operatong in hot and humid conditions.

Maybe is a crazy idea, but well, why a F18 or a Rafales cant be launch with a sky jump ?

I means on the Kuznetzov, the SU27 are stopped with a brake system (i don’y know really how, maybe a cable ?) and when the reactors have full power, the brake give up and the planes go.

maybe it can be applicable one a Rafale or a F18, put the brak one the crosse normally made for stop the plane when he back on the aircraft carrier ?

The Indian have made some test for launch a Hawkeye by sky jump

Actually, the catapult has been around for a few hundred years, being proposed by Leonardo Da Vinci for the launching of gliders, and was used from the first powered planes. During the ’30s and ’40s, the fighters were prop driven, and could launch under their own power, but as soon as jets came around, cats were needed again. Basically, there is no advantage to not using cats – STOBAR limits you severely in weapons and fuel load, for no real benefit (the Russians had actually looked into using cats on their planned nuclear powered carriers, but the end of the cold war saw an end to that).

Modern aircraft could do STOBAR, but there is very little point, since the increased structural strength is needed for landing, not launching!

Modern fighters have a thrust to weight ratio that would allow STOBAR operations.
Modern fighterbombers are not that much heavier… a Mig-29K is not going to carry 5.5 tons of LGBs on an attack mission… it will carry maybe two LGBs and the rest of the stores will be fuel and AAMs and jamming pods. It may not even have all its weapons pylons loaded for a real oeprational mission. The days of carpet bombing have been over for some time now.

If the west had no history of fixed wing CTO operations is is very unlikely they would develop a catapault system either… it was developed when all carrier aircraft were underpowered and could not operate from even quite large carriers without assistance.

Currently the only aircraft you’d put to sea on a carrier that would justify a catapault system would be an AEW or AWACs type aircraft. Again it is a little hard to justify designing a catapault system simply to launch AEW aircraft when other options are appearing on the horizon like AEW airships or UAVs.

thanks i thought it was the other way around the cats being complecated and the aresstor gear was simple.
wasn’t carriers in WWII STOBAR?
so isn’t india making a bad choise with their Keiv class and their ADS ships as they are both STOBAR

the Admiral Gorshkov was not designed for catapults and you cant put in a cat just like that. the MiG-29Ks came with the Gorshkov… they use STOBAR and are going to be embarked on the ADS as well so ADS has to be STOBAR.

the only CATOBAR fighters really available today are the Super Hornet and Rafale, and whether India can handle a fleet of either fighter as well as a brand-new CATOBAR carrier to carry them must be considered.

thanks i thought it was the other way around the cats being complecated and the aresstor gear was simple.
wasn’t carriers in WWII STOBAR?
so isn’t india making a bad choise with their Keiv class and their ADS ships as they are both STOBAR

As Sferrin says, lots of reasons, but one of the biggest is that the arrestor gear is the complex bit, the catapult is relatively straight forward. The result is that there is no decent reason to go for STOBAR – you need a much bigger ship than for CATOBAR operations.

I can think of several. First can you imagine trying STOBAR with a Demon or a Cutlass? They’d probably roll off the end of the ramp straight into the water. Meaning until relatively recently you haven’t had the power-to-weight to make it practical. Secondly you can carry a heavier load if you use catapults and if you’re going to go through the hassle of having arresting gear and an angled deck you may as well go the little extra and maximize your potential by using catapults. STOBAR is the worst of both worlds. You have the low payload of using no catapults but at the same time you don’t have VTOL so you have to shoulder the burden of arresting gear and and angled deck too.

Becouse it’s a forced solution, or more likely a unexpected change to have convetional planes onboard Soviet carriers.

Back when Soviets were planning followers to Kiev class, there were a bit struggle between different schools about the aviation assets onboard the new ship. The dominant school was lobbying V/STOL aircrafts and many high ranking soviet decicionmakers had far too optimistic and oversized image about V/STOL planes capapilityes. That side eventually won the catabult/convetional aircraft- side and Kuznetsov was launched without steamcatabults. It was fitted however a ski-jump so that the new Yak-41 (which was to form the bulk of it’s fixedwing aviation) could take-off with more efficient warload.
The big size of the carrier made some genious think, could a high-thrust conventional jet take-off from the ski-jump? It can if the thrust-to-weight ratio is better than 1 and the newest soviet fighters, MiG-29 and Su-27 had the required thrust. So it opened a change to field a squardon of Flankers onboard alongside with the Freestyle.

Why no one else use it? It’s becouse the STOBAR arragment is able to launch only very high-performance fighters with limited load, not ideal for Powerprotection work. It limits the operational use of it’s aircroup to close-range airdefence leaving no change for air-to-ground operations.