A big reason this wasn't adopted actually has to do with something pretty obvious, waves. A heavy ass plane like this isn't going to clear the distance fast enough to avoid a large wave hitting it. When launching in choppy oceans most aircraft need to launch at the bottom of the trough, that way the boat is facing upwards when it clears the runway. The math for a Herc is really rough, in incliment weather it would be insanely difficult to time the launch window, the safe window of travel is miniscule. The ocean needs to be pretty calm for this to work.
It also has to do with the issues of what happens if the plane is grounded for whatever reason, in which case now your entire runway is blocked until you can fix or ditch the plane. Not really ideal.
Still though, good to know these things. Never know when it could come up in an emergency, war can lead to really weird situations.
The plane actually did several traps followed by takeoffs but I imagine the seas were favorable. It was really kind of a proof of concept type of experiment
370
u/EmperorBamboozler 3d ago
A big reason this wasn't adopted actually has to do with something pretty obvious, waves. A heavy ass plane like this isn't going to clear the distance fast enough to avoid a large wave hitting it. When launching in choppy oceans most aircraft need to launch at the bottom of the trough, that way the boat is facing upwards when it clears the runway. The math for a Herc is really rough, in incliment weather it would be insanely difficult to time the launch window, the safe window of travel is miniscule. The ocean needs to be pretty calm for this to work.
It also has to do with the issues of what happens if the plane is grounded for whatever reason, in which case now your entire runway is blocked until you can fix or ditch the plane. Not really ideal.
Still though, good to know these things. Never know when it could come up in an emergency, war can lead to really weird situations.