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To land on a carrier, an aircraft must be strong enough to withstand sudden deceleration by the tail hook catching the arresting wire. I think it also requires strengthening the undercarriage to survive a harder "plop" on landing.

So I would like to know, how much extra weight is added due to both of these things?

I'm interested in the WW2-era piston props. The modern jet fighters are much heaver, so I'd rather save that for a later question.

Ideally, the greatest example would be a piston-prop from this era made in two versions: land and naval. Then we could just compare loaded weights. But I can't think of any. Don't think I've ever heard of that. All of the carrier-based aircraft from WW2 that I know of, were purpose built for carriers and never had a land version. Hopefully someone knows where to find airframe specs for these aircraft and has the engineering know-how to say how much steel would be unnecessary for a land version.

DrZ214
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  • Related: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/30061/why-was-the-p-51-mustang-not-adopted-by-the-u-s-navy – jean Jul 16 '18 at 20:19

1 Answers1

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The British adopted the Spitfire and Hurricane for carrier use. Using the Spitfire as an example, here's data from Wikipedia.

Spitfire Mk.VB is 5065lbs clean.

Seafire Mk.III is 6204lbs clean.

They're not exactly equivalent otherwise, but close enough. So the Seafire is roughly 1140lbs heavier than the land based equivalent, or over 20%.

Of course this will vary wildly for different variants compared, but it's a ballpark figure

jwenting
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  • @ironduke97 OP asked specifically about WW2 prop aircraft, last I checked the F-4 doesn't match either criteria :) – jwenting Jul 09 '18 at 06:13
  • oh my bad, I wasn't paying attention. – ironduke97 Jul 09 '18 at 06:37
  • Well well well, the Spitfire was adapted for carriers? Was that ever used in the Pacific Theater against the Japanese? And wow, 22% heavier... That is, huge. I hope someone else can find a corroborating example because this is just, huge. – DrZ214 Jul 09 '18 at 07:13
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    @DrZ214 Wikipedia says they were used in the Pacific theater from 1944, so yes. and not just in WW2, but the Korean war as well – jwenting Jul 09 '18 at 07:40
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    Also take into account that the extra weight is caused by the double-hinged folding wings and the more powerful engine. It's not only because of airframe strengthening. – MadMarky Jul 09 '18 at 13:53
  • @MadMarky Yeah I was wondering about that kinda stuff too. How much does a tailhook weight? How much does the folding wings component weight? And really, are there different (heavier) materials used to resist saltwater corrosion? But I was afraid of being too broad so I was planning to ask those separately. – DrZ214 Jul 09 '18 at 21:49
  • @jwenting I found a conflicting source for the empty weight, because wikipedia is not being self-consistent again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Spitfire_variants:_specifications,_performance_and_armament That page shows many variants and their weights. The Seafire Mk.III empty weight on that page is much less than the main wiki page for the Seafire. Interestingly, the Mk.XV is much closer to 6204 lbs. I would guess the main page accidentally took the numbers from the wrong variant. However, both pages have sources so it's impossible to know which one is wrong (or both). – DrZ214 Jul 09 '18 at 23:17
  • Anyway, if you do the new math, the Seafire Mk.III empty weight is 7.6% more than the Spitfire Mk.VB. Maybe a structural engineer can comment on how more believable, or not, this is to the original figure of 22%. – DrZ214 Jul 09 '18 at 23:19