Best of two worlds...

Willy

Willy

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Staff member
The Seafire, a Spitfire with a tail hook! I've been flying a lot of carrier ops the past few days and decided that the SBD had gotten too easy to land on a deck, so I switched to the Aeroplane Heaven Seafire for a change of pace. After some ugly landings, I think I've gotten the idea on how land this one with the nose hiding the flight deck.

View attachment 87707
 
Although he never did a deck landing, my father said that the only way to land a Spit was to do a curved approach so the nose did not obstruct the view, (he was an ATA Ferry pilot for the last two years of WWII) so presumably the same applies to a deck approach.
Keith
 
Works on straight deck carriers too, although you want to come up behind on the starboard quarter so you can keep the island in sight. Aim a little to port of the island. You're still going to lose sight of the flight deck on short final but you can pretty much judge where you're at by keeping an eye on the island. I set up with flaps, dropping the gear and hook while on the downwind. Then just make my turn into the wind and get off the starboard quarter at about 1000ft and come on in.

I still bugger 'em up now and then though. The trick to that is learning to take the wave off before it's too late and you hit something solid :icon_lol:
 
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This ought to be about 5000 of them then. I had to do a go around on the first attempt as I was a bit hot on final doing about 120. The Seafire doesn't slow down as easy as the SBD does.

I'm not real happy with the screenshots as I had to size them down in order to attach them. Going by the skidmarks on the last shot, I just did catch the last wire....
 
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