Comments by "COL BEAUSABRE" (@colbeausabre8842) on "HMS Ark Royal (91) - Guide 100 (Extended)" video.

  1. Talking about strange accidents, HMS Formidable had a landing Seafire bounce over the barrier and go straight down the the forward elevator pit (the elevator being lowered) and since the armored blast doors were open, the resulting explosion and fire set off an inferno on her hangar deck
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  2.  @thunberbolttwo3953  Excuse me, the Seafire was notorious for things like landing gear collapsing, tail hook pulling out and remaining with the arrester cable while the aircraft roared down the deck into the barrier, even having the entire tail pull off, it had the ditching qualities of a submarine. At Salerno, sixty percent of the Seafires were lost due to accidents on the first day ". As a carrier based fighter, the design was a compromise and suffered many losses through structural damage that was inflicted by heavy landings on carrier decks: a problem that continued even with the strengthening introduced by the Mk II. The Seafire had a narrow undercarriage track, which meant that it was not well suited to deck operations.[1] The many modifications had shifted the centre-of-gravity aft, making low-speed control difficult and the aircraft's gradual stall characteristics meant that it was difficult to land accurately on the carrier, resulting in many accidents. Other problems included the basic Spitfire's short range and endurance (fine for an interceptor fighter but not for carrier operation), limited weapons load and that it was dangerous in ditching. The low point of Seafire operations came during Operation Avalanche the invasion of Salerno in September 1943. Of the 106 Seafires available to the British escort carriers on 9 September only 39 were serviceable by the dawn of D-Day plus Two (11 September).
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  3. Reference Radar - People may wonder what that "dustbin" affair at the head of her mast was. That was an aircraft homing beacon to call all her chicks back to mum . Second, the Ark Royal was designed, like USN and IJN carriers, recognizing that her air group was her main battery. The armored flight deck was nice, but it limited the number of aircraft you could carry and Ark Royal carried more planes than any RN carrier in the war. By way of comparison, her contemporaries, the Yorktown class carried 80 and the Essex class, essentially improved Yorktowns, carried 100.
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