I am planning to build a 1/144-scale A-4E Skyhawk, as it passes through an emergency barrier on the deck of a carrier. I understand that the barrier needs to be just over 4cm high (equating to 6 metres in real life), but wonder what the width would be. Photographs show that it extends beyond the outer runway lines, but again I am not sure how wide this would be.
Any suggestions?
Paul
The width should depend upon the class of carrier. While the “super carriers” of the Forrestal and later classes will be similar, the smaller decks of the older Essex and Midway classes will have a correspondingly narrower barrier.
Stkpusher
I don’t know whether this narrows it down, but the Skyhawk
I’m building will be from USS Oriskany in 1969.
Paul
Well wikipedia (Yes I know not a good source) says this:
The barricade webbing consists of upper and lower horizontal loading straps joined to each other at the ends. Five vertical engaging straps, spaced 20 feet apart, are connected to each upper and lower load strap. The barricade webbing is raised to a height of approximately 20 feet. The barricade webbing engages the wings of the landing aircraft, wherein energy is transmitted from the barricade webbing through the purchase cable to the arresting engine
Well 20ft x 5 is 100ft plus add the what looks to be around 5-10ft between the net and the stanchions so it could possibly be around between 110-120ft.
I may be (and probably are) completely wrong, so please someone with more info speak up if I am.
Panzer _ Modeller,
Many thanks, a very informative response.
That gives me good basis to work on.
Paul
Glad to help! I dont know if my measurements are right or not but yeah I think its enough to go off of.
[quote=“pbennett, post:3, topic:10238”] the Skyhawk
I’m building will be from USS Oriskany in 1969.
[/quote]
The Oriskany was an Essex class carrier, so the barrier will nor be as wide compared to a Forrestal or later class.
Compare her here with Coral Sea and Enterprise
The Gerald Ford has a beam of 256 ft while the (straight deck) Essex have a beam of 129 ft. So there was a difference of 127 ft in the beam. Im not sure of the angled flight decks beam but from scale images it looks very close to the straight deck at the rear.
Here is a size comparison I made.
The width of the landing area is 56Ft wide from outside to outside the white deck markings.The outside white line is 1ft. the inner white line is 3ft. the large white squares connecting the white lines are 10ft x 10ft. square. The center line is 3ft.
Below is what the Oriskany’s barricade would look like.
