I don’t know what they are called or why they are there (which is my question) but you can see what I’m talking about in this photo. It’s the two things sticking off the front of the flightdeck and overhang the water. Not all aircraft carriers seem to have them. In fact, I’m not sure if this is an older design that was done away with. Nevertheless what possible use could they have? The only thing I could come up with is it would catch a plane that sunk too low upon launch but I can’t really see how that would be at all helpful.
[whimsey]They allow you to snap two carriers together to make a longer airstrip.[/whimsey]
Sorry, couldn’t help myself. When I looked at the picture, that seemed like what it would be for, if it were a picture of a toy.
Fangs.
They appear to give an extra 10 feet or so to the flight deck for the nose gear of an aircraft to use…I’m sure someone else (ex-Navy posters?) can give you a better definition. They seem to be fairly common on the current carriers in the fleet - I’ve seen them on photos of the Enterprise, Nimitz, Eisenhower, and Roosevelt, and probably other carriers I’m not remembering offhand. I’ve never seen them in any pictures of older-generation carriers, WWII or Korean War era.
That as good a guess as I’ve heard so far (barring snapping two carriers together 
) but it still doesn’t make much sense to me. The prongs/flanges/fangs slope downwards immediately. I would hope the piolt is rotating the aircraft to point more up than down by the time they are leaving the flight deck. If the nose gear runs on that thing to the end it would seem like the plane would be pointed at the water not too far below and that would be a Bad Thing[sup]tm[/sup].
Still, what do I know?
Perhaps they are there to provide aerodynamic support to the aircraft and it’s jet exhaust during takeoff, at the point where the aircraft loses the deck from beneath it.
Now, IANA Swabbie, but I suppose I could take a shot at answering this as my first SDMD post. Long time reader, first time poster, all that stuff out of the way.
Now, the particular carrier we see in that photo is CV-64, the USS Constellation, a Kitty Hawk-Class carrier commissioned in 1961. She is currently the second oldest carrier in the US fleet, and is slated for decomissioning this year. Those flange-like protrusions seen at the front of the flight deck no longer exist on the current USS Constellation. They are the protruding forward tip of the launch catapult. In 1982, the ship was upgraded with flush mount catapults, in the process of a large modernization overhaul. The flush mount catapults eliminate the need for the protruding catapult tip you have noticed.
To my knowledge, all carriers in the US Navy are now fitted with flush mount catapults, so those flanges are something of a thing of the past. Good question, though. Thanks for helping me waste a few hours of time-I’m-supposed-to-be-working.
Here’s a thread in the newsgroups that answers it. As banks says, they are for an older style of catapult launch using “bridle arrestors”. New planes don’t use the system, so the new carriers don’t have it.
Haven’t you ever seen a 20 meter diving platform before?
Seriously, I served on the Connie, the ship in the photo, for a WESTPAC and several short rides and I don’t have a damned idea what they are for. They aren’t used for normal operations though they may have had a use in the past.
That’s interesting. Are you saying the shuttle is flush with the flight deck? My cruise was just before the '82 overhaul and we were still flying the last of the bridle launched planes, A3 whales. The cats had modern style shuttles and holdback devices but used an attached cover to hold the bridle. Still it wasn’t clear to me what function the extension served.
The extensions at the front of the catapults were called bridle arrestors. When I was in the Navy, most aircraft were hooked up to the catapult using a heavy wire bridle. The bridle had a loop at each end which gave it a sort of Q-Tip shape. The middle was wrapped across the front of the catapult shuttle, the part that sticks up above the deck. The two loops were hooked onto two hooks on the belly of the airplane. When the catapult launched the plane, the shuttle pulled the plane down the deck and the bridle would stop on the bridle arrestor and slip off of the hooks. The arrestor angled down to keep the heavy cables from flying up and striking the bottom of the plane. The internet has a lot of information on catapults and the bridle systems.
That’s because the internet has had 11 years to figure it out.
And I realize that Padeye hasn’t been here for a while, but his post is somewhat incorrect. The A3 may have been the last COMBAT aircraft to use the bridle, but the T-2 and A-4 (both used as training aircraft at least into the 90s when I was in) both used the bridle launch system. Bridle runner* is the job you give the new guy (or the guy on the shit list).
- The bridle runner is the poor schlub that runs out and grabs the bridle off the arrestor, then hauls ass back to the cat head, drops it on the deck, then hauls ass back to the cat end to get the next one. It sucks about as bad as it sounds…