Flight Deck Ops

Formerly, the FDO was known as the Air deck operations upgrade. Generally, the mod activates all elevators and allows simultaneous launch/recovery. Besides that, the mod changes many other things like taxi and landing paths, crew that appears by the catapults when a plane is about to launch, etc.

The FDO – CTD extension allows for the use of on-deck aircraft and restricts certain plane types on CV/CVN to using only 3 (US) or 2 (Soviet) cats. Other planes initially use 3/2 cats, but after the bow deck is cleared, they utilize all 4/3. The core logic of the FDO – CTD is the same as in the base FDO mod.

Some features have been incorporated into the base game patch 0.1.1.2. These are:

• Simultainous movment of elevators and hangar doors
• Initial waypoint for taking-off helos (rally point)
• New holding and landing patterns for planes
• Introduced holding and landing patterns for helos
• Increased landing intensity of planes and helos

Below are features that are still only in the FDO:

• Simultaneous launch/recovery.
• Take-off intensity is closer to reality. IRL on US carriers it’s 2 planes per circa 40 sec in daytime and 1 plane per circa 60 sec in nighttime. In the FDO it is averaged to 2 planes per circa 60 sec all the time.
• All elevators are utilized but not simultaneously. To see the whole launching cycle a few planes must be ordered to go at once.
• Better positions on elevators. Big planes (RA-5C, A-3B) take an angled position, the S-3A is positioned more in the middle.
• Hiding hangar railings.
• No taxi collisions. If a taxiway is blocked by a taking-off aircraft, the next aircraft will wait until the path is clear.
• Smart crew. Crew appears near the catapults when the plane is about to launch or near the STOL launching spot of the Harrier and Yak-38. For each type of the aircraft there is slightly different arrangement of the cat crew. 2 blue shirts appear near each elevator when it is in use.
• Sectional deflectors. The deflector’s segmentation was designed to adjust the deflector width to different aircraft types. In practice, the crew usually chooses the simplest variant – all up. The segmentation is mainly helpful during maintenance.
• No cat collisions. Simultainously 2 cats are used in pairs: 1-2; 1-3; 1-4. These limitations are introduced not only to achieve desired launching efficiency. Note, on US carriers runway catapults are slightly angled towards and very close to each other. It limits its simultaneous usage due to risk of planes ramming each other and risk of air flow disturbance caused by jet engine of previous plane. Waist cats endings are very or too close to port bow cat and deflector, so some planes can’t avoid wingtips collision or deflector ramming when it is in up position.
• Limitations on bow cats (1-2). Not every pair of planes is possible. Only the Forrestal class hasn’t got restrictions. The Nimitz and Orel classes are the most restrictive.
• Limitations on port elevator on the Forrestal class. During take-off, when waist cats are in use, it lifts only 1 plane up. Generally, runway elevator was designed to serve landing planes too but it turned out, it extends intervals between touchdowns. That’s why very often port elevator wasn’t used. In the FDO it is used.
• Different holding and landing patterns. Depending on vessel – nighttime/instrument or daytime/visual or mixed.
• Various time gap between touchdowns. 50 – 80 seconds depending on vessel.
• 2 elevators serve landing planes. Some types of planes use only 1 elevator (E2 or E4) and some use both.
• More typical positions of helo launching spots.
• 2 helos can land Simultaneously.
• Harriers/Yak-38s usage. Planes take-off in short or vertical manner depending on vessel. In the late 70’s AV-8A Harriers were embarked aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV-42), to prove the concept of integrating Harrier into catapult and barrier configured carrier’s air wing. It was successful but the concept wasn’t developed further because both USN and USMC considered it as contradictory to their interests – Navy feared of losing funds for catapults and Marine feared of losing funds for dedicated helicopter carriers.
• 4 DC teams instead of 3.

Adjusted from CV and CVN logic with:

• No simultaneous launch/recovery.
• Separated plane/heli ops.
• Simultaneous vertical landing of 2 planes.

Adjusted from Tarawa logic with:

• Limited Yak-38 flight deck ops. IRL, vertical take-offs generally were restricted to spots 3, 4, 5 due to problems with airflow and formations composed of 3 planes. Spots 1, 2, 6 were used very very rare.
• Utilization of 7 launch spots by helis.

Adjusted from Kiev logic with with:

• Cleand up take-off procedure. It doesn’t allow to lift helos up when all launching spots are occupied. Rear elevator is blocked when spots 3, 4 are busy. Elevators don’t work simultaneously to make launching ops more orderly.
• Yak-38 testbed. In the first half of the 70’s prototype and pre-production Yak-38 were tested on the Moskva class. These tests were not intended to introduce the Yak-38 into the Moskva class airgroup, but to prove the concept of operating VTOL planes at sea. Besides that, the Yak-38 was excluded from operationg on the Moskva class due to sensitivity of the cruisers’ decks to hot exhaust and elevators that were practically too small – there were only a few centimeters of margin. The landing spot for prototype and pre-production Yak-38s was in the middle of the flight deck and was secured by the special high-temperature resistant cover. For practical reasons, in the mod there is no cover. The pre-production version of Yak-38 is parked on the deck (starbord) and full heli ops are posible when it is there. Only 1 plane (pre-production variant) can be operated at a time and must be rebased to Moskva class. Practically VTOL feature on Moskva is only for Encyclopedia sandbox.

• Flight Deck Ops – cruisers, destroyers, frigates. Fully compatible. Load order doesn’t matter.
• Flight Deck Ops – Clear the deck. Fully compatible. Load below the FDO.