Several four-engine aircraft have flown from carriers. Two such quadruple-engined planes intended from the outset for carrier operation were developed by the Royal Navy during World War II: the Airspeed AS 39 and General Aircraft Limited’s GAL 38. They were produced in response to a British Air Ministry specification of 28 October 1937, based on an Admiralty requirement for a carrier-based aircraft to shadow or maintain contact with an enemy fleet at night.1 The specification called for the plane to fly at 44 mph at 1,500 feet for not less than six hours! Total mission endurance was to be 11 hours.
Five companies responded to the proposal, and Airspeed and GAL were awarded contracts to each produce two prototypes. The first to fly was the GAL 38, a high-wing monoplane, constructed almost entirely of wood, with a fixed tricycle landing gear; the wings folded for carrier stowage. Four low-horsepower (130-hp) engines were mounted on the wings. The crew consisted of a pilot, observer, and radio operator. The prototype GAL 38 first flew on 13 May 1940.
The AS 39 prototype—called the Fleet Shadower—was similar, but with a tail-wheel arrangement and a twin-tail configuration rather than the single tail fin of the GAL 38. Both aircraft used the same engines. The AS 39 first flew on 17 October 1940.
Flight trials of both aircraft were disappointing. Neither made carrier landings, and changing aircraft requirements resulted in no further procurement of either design beyond one prototype from each firm. The appearance and mission of these aircraft made them among the most bizarre carrier aircraft ever built.
A KC-130F, a four-engine turboprop, conducted a series of evaluation flights from the USS Forrestal (CVA-59) in 1963.2 The Lockheed Hercules made 44 approaches to the carrier on 30 October 1963, with 16 resulting in touch-and-go landings. The remainder were intentional wave-offs, made to determine the aircraft’s responsiveness during a carrier approach. A week later, again piloted by Lieutenant James H. Flatley III, the KC-130F made three touch-and-go and four full-stop landings aboard the ship. The maximum aircraft weight during this phase of the tests was 92,000 pounds. No arresting gear was employed and the aircraft rollout was as little as 270 feet. Flatley accomplished this by reversing the engines just before touchdown and applying the brakes as soon as the plane touched the deck. After each of the four full-stop landings, the KC-130F took off with deck runs as short as 330 feet.
The final series of tests on board the Forrestal was held on 21–22 November 1963, when the KC-130F made 7 touch-and-go and 17 full-stop landings. In these tests gross aircraft weight reached a maximum of 120,000 pounds. Coupled with the aircraft’s 132½-foot wingspan and 92-foot length, the Hercules was the largest aircraft ever flown from a carrier.3
Although the demonstration flights went extremely well, “Herk” operations from a large carrier were not practical. First, Flatley was one of the Navy’s top pilots. Second, the flights were undertaken in daylight with relatively calm seas. Third, after landing, the aircraft—too large for the elevators—tied up a large portion of the flight deck. And if the aircraft had suffered a mechanical problem and could not launch, that deck space would be lost until spare parts (and possibly mechanics) could be flown out to the ship. The question of operating C-130s from ships was again raised in 2004–5 as the U.S. Navy developed the concept of “sea basing” with large maritime-prepositioning ships. Then, too, it was found impractical.
The first American-built vertical/short takeoff and landing (VSTOL) aircraft to operate from a carrier was the Hiller-Ryan XC-142A, a tactical transport powered by four turboprop engines.4 It had a tilt-wing that could rotate up to 100 degrees from the horizontal position to deflect its slipstream, thus achieving vertical flight. In May 1966 an XC-142A made 50 takeoffs and landings aboard the carrier Bennington (CVS-20): 44 were short-run landings and 6 were in the vertical mode. The most dramatic maneuver was the aircraft making a vertical takeoff, hovering above the flight deck for a few moments, then changing wing angle and speeding away in forward conventional flight. With a gross weight of about 30,000 pounds, the XC-142A had a speed range from 35 mph backwards to 400 mph in forward flight. The XC-142 also flew trials from a Navy LSD amphibious ship.
One other four-engine aircraft would fly from a U.S. carrier: the quiet short-haul research aircraft (QSRA), a short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft being evaluated by NASA and the Army. The QSRA was a de Havilland of Canada Buffalo that had been extensively rebuilt with four turbofan engines, an upper-wing blowing system, and T-tail configuration. The aircraft had an empty weight of 36,800 pounds and maximum takeoff weight of 50,000 pounds.
On 10 July 1980, off the coast of San Diego, the QSRA flew trials from the large carrier Kitty Hawk (CVA-63). Flown by a team of one Navy and two NASA pilots, the QSRA made 37 touch-and-go landings and 16 full-stop landings and takeoffs. Again, the aircraft’s slow landing speed—75 mph—alleviated the need for arresting gear.
While none of these four-engine/no-hook trials led to a practical carrier operational concept, such events were important to demonstrate the flexibility of carriers—and in the future could result in a practical concept.
1. The Air Ministry specification S.23/37 used the terms “Night Shadower” and “Fleet Shadower” for the two aircraft.
2. The Hercules has been in continuous production from 1954 to the present for military and civilian use. The basic military transport version can carry 90 combat troops.
3. Flatley became the first U.S. carrier aviator to achieve 1,000 arrested landings. He retired as a rear admiral in 1987.
4. The C-142 was derived from the Hiller X-18, a combination twin-turboprop/single-turbojet VSTOL transport that first flew in 1959. Five prototype XC-142 aircraft were produced. That aircraft was to carry 32 combat troops or 8,000 pounds of cargo.
The First Multi-Engine Carrier Ops
A large number of twin-engine aircraft have operated from aircraft carriers. In the 1930s, a twin-engine Potez 56E light transport operated on board the French carrier Béarn, that aircraft being the French Navy’s adaption of a six-passenger commercial aircraft fitted with an arresting hook. The U.S. Navy flew extensive trials with a twin-engine Lockheed XJO-3 transport on board the carrier Lexington (CV-2).
In early 1942, two North American B-25 Mitchell bombers flew takeoff trials from the carrier Hornet (CV-8) followed by 16 of the twin-engine bombers launching from the Hornet to strike Japan on 18 April. In 1944 a Marine PBJ variant of the Mitchell flew takeoff and landing trials from the carrier Shangri-La (CV-38), and the Grumman F7F Tigercat, a twin-engine, carrier fighter entered service with the Navy and Marine Corps. And during the Cold War, twin-piston-engine Lockheed P2V Neptunes took off from carriers, the first on 27 April 1945. They were followed by a series of two-engine piston and turbojet aircraft—and one three-engine aircraft, the North American AJ Savage, which had two piston engines and one turbojet engine.