Thursday, January 17, 2013

Aircraft Carrier in Siracusa

Here's a shot of an aircraft carrier passing by while we race in Siracusa. I only managed to get this one shot, then it was gone. You can probably see from the bow wake, that the carrier was in a hurry. Singlehanded racing in the Nacra 17 keeps you kinda busy; Too much fumbling with cameras and you're in the drink.
Carrier south of Tradewinds
Anyway, I thought I'd put it up here for completeness. I have a few subs and destroyers and stuff. This one is a new type of ship filed under warships. Some people seem to find those dreaded warships interesting. Me, I get the creeps everytime they sneek up on us. Especially that sub... Eeeewww! Creepy, - but the details in the builds are amazing.

Oh, - can anyone see what make it is? I'd say British. It's big but it's not huge like those American ones we all know from movies... The ingenious Brits have those planes that don't need an airstrip, so they could pretty much land on the foredeck of a Bavaria 45. Ok perhaps a 65er is needed.


  1. Oh Noez you found me.
    It's a new product that's undergoing sea Trails, I was doing the 'Publicity Gauntlet' where basically I start at the Blake Pirate Zone, head up to hollywood, sail out to Norway, head back via NYC and then up to Dex and around Ahabs Haunt.
    If No-one complains then it passes.
    Tomorrow I'll drag it out up north Corsica where the rivers are thin and the lag is thick, just to see how she stands up under those conditions.

    For the record it is a Bogue class Carrier, an American built class but mostly in use by The British, it's an escort Carrier meaning it's small and practical, not large, dominating and ego pleasing like those 'other' carriers you find in the Blake.
    Which arn't really carriers just Black Triangles with runways on them.

    1. Hey there Mal,
      You are telling me, it is both American, pocketsized and less ego pleasing? No wonder they don't use it in the US. What kind of planes does it carry? Is there such a thing as a virtual Harrier Jet? Is there a Bavaria 65 :-?

  2. Ha Ha, seems unlikly I know, but this was during WW2 at a time when Admirals had only just discovered the importance of aircraft in Naval Battles.
    Full Aircraft Carriers take a long time to build so the Escort Carrier was designed as a cheaper, easier to build alternative.

    I like them because it brings back the reason we Aviators like Carriers so much, it's challenging to land on.
    The stupid Box thing's people claim to be carriers
    that inhabit the blake sea have runways so big and wide it's more difficult to land at Hollywood than a Carrier.
    The Bouge Escort brings that sense of skill back, the runway is very narrow and quite short so one small mistake and you end up in the drink.
    The ship can also move and at it's lowest speed it takes advantage of new mesh physics so mostly anything physical sitting ontop of the ship will move with the ship.
    Meaning we can now attempt the trickiest of manoeuvres, landing a plane from behind a carrier while it is moving forward.
    I've yet to try it.

    The Bourge carried 24 planes, on US ships this was 12 'F4F Wildcat' Fighters and 9 'Avenger' torpedo bombers.
    On British ships these were replaced by Carrier versions of the Spitfire known as 'Seafire' and Swordfish Torpedo Bombers.

  3. Yes, it is big fun to try to do good landings on a carrier. A freebie of mine had a helipad, and I liked to land well scripted Helis on it, while a friend was navigating that motor ship. Longer time ago, I have put together quickly a small rancid river boat carrier something. It was nice to practice landings on it with my Piper Cub bush plane.


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