Albion

Wow, thats a beautiful model, just as she would have appeared after her final refit in the 60's. Nice job on those Buccaneers, now if I had had that as a kid.....
As I sit here considering hull structure and the thousands of details that will go into it, it occurs to me that I have not considered about a hundred other necessary items. I do not yet know what to use for catapults. They (there are two) should be around 22 feet in length, hydraulic, and capable of excellerating a 12-15lb object to about 15mph within there own length, and adjustable to boot... How does the catapult connect to the aircraft? What was ther method used on British carriers? Could I use the same system on a 1/7th scale Victorious?
And then theres the arrester gear. When an aircraft catches the arrestor cable, the cable doesn't spring back, it plays out obsorbing the shock, instead of snapping the aircraft in reverse like a bungee cord would do. How can I simulate that?
And electric elevators would be nice too, they would only have to move maybe 20lbs for thirty inches up and down, however the motors would be exposed to spray and the elements, anyone know of a good off the shelf solution?
I can go on and on, but you get the idea. There are a lot of things I have not contemplated yet, and if anyone out there thinks of anything that might be nice on a 1/7 scale RN aircraft carrier, by all means jump in... with both feet. My time frame is to have all design work completed by October this year. Lay down the hull by November 1st and launch by April 1st next year, fitting out will take probably a year maybe two.

Albion

Thanks for the link, thats exactly what I am looking for.

MartinH-K

That's the beauty of doing this stuff! You get to work out 'how' to do things much smaller and from gear you wouldn't normally think about for the purpose!

Albion

Well yes that can be exciting, the whole project is exciting for me. The only thing that I am worried about, is will I think of everything that I need to, before I lay the keel? It might seem that I am rushing the entire project, but after mid October I will have a six month window, during which I will have no work obligations.

Bluewavestudios

Hi Albion,

Just a couple of thoughts on items you have mentioned above, eg the arrester hook wire mechanism & The elevators.

For the arrester wire, you could use something like a fishing reel system with twin motorised spools hidden under the flight deck, the spools will allow a certain amount of cable to reel out freely, but rotated in the opposite direction will have the motors to reel it back in....you would obviously need a right handed and a left handed reel to fix this up. (They are available too)

As for the motorised elevators,
you could build the platform based with 4 nuts, one on each corner, those nuts would lay flat & would be on vertical threaded rods each fitted onto a motor, All the motors would be powered at the same time from a single switch so when the power is turned on, the threaded rod rotates and your platform will move up and down accordingly. You can buy the threaded rods in 4ft lengths in most hardware shops. If you can't quite picture how it works, just look at any sea-drilling rig which uses a similar method to raise and lower the legs to and from the sea bed. They generally use a rack and pinion gear system which is also another way to look at. The threaded rod principle I mention here has been used to great effect on many R/C Jets which use swing wings...eg Tornado, F-14 etc.

At the size ship you are looking at, these should be perfectly viable methods to use....I hope these help.

Regards.........Mark.

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Albion

Great Ideas, thanks!
I am a little concerned over size constraints within the island. As I said in my first post, I want the ship to be conned from the the island as well as some of the air operations controlled from there. In order to sort these issues out I have decided to go ahead and begin building the ship's island this week to see if it is feasible to control the ship from there. Otherwise I will have to do one of the following:
A) somehow increase my available building area, and thus increase the scale to 1/6.5 or 1/6 i.e. have a hull 114-123ft in length (something I do not really want to do)
B) transfer some or all of the navigation functions into the hull (also something that I do not want to do)
I will begin to post pictures here as soon as building starts.

alan2525

What are your plans for the internal layout of the aircraft carrier? I'm not too familiar with the relative proportions of the vessel but will it have berths and be fitted out inside? Would be fun to cruise the waterways of the UK - be a little different from the average narrow boat!

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Albion

I have some general ideas for the interior, but nothing definite. The hanger, catapults and arrester gear mechanisms will take up nearly the entire length of the boat below the flight deck, except for the space between hanger and catapults, where I would like to build a small version of the pilots ready room on the old Victorious. Beneath the hanger deck there will be a lower deck for the engine room, storage and fuel tanks, as well as crew berths for 12 or more personnel (volunteers, who will be very welcome). If space permits I would also like to include a small wardroom.

Gaz

If my Memory serves me correctly doesn't Duncan have a large scale Carrier?
It would be worth having a chat with him as I think he'd be "the man in the know" as it were.

Albion

I have read of his HMS Invinciple, very very nice looking model. Is there an account of his rebuild anywhere?