If all the above is true, if you paid attention to instruction, if you were good at your job, all of this would have come together so smoothly you would never even notice it. Apparently, you were a great student and a great pilot!

Follow-on question: Why do all the clips of crashes on approach seem to show us aircraft hitting the island. My first answer is speculation; we pay more attention to more dramatic events and so remember them more vividly. A crash where the plane veers less harmfully off the port side creates less of an impression in our minds than those that veer right. My second answer has to do with the cause of those missed approaches that veer right and is more based on observation. The left-turning approach seen preceding these crashes shows a plane that did not loop far enough to starboard on approach because the pilot was “naturally avoiding” the island and therefore flying too far to port. As the plane approaches the stern of the flight deck, final corrections find the pilot having to allow the plane to drift right to get to the flight deck instead of crashing the port side of the ship. Now the plane is travelling somewhat port-to-starboard as it touches down, the pilot is focused on the new threat staying away from the water to port caused by his avoidance tendency during approach, and strikes the island if the arresting gear misses. NOTE: this port-to-starboard drift is caused by pilot error. The torque and natural avoidance principles still apply, but the line of approach being wrong to begin with causes the crash.

THIS then leads to the the next development in carrier aviation, the angled flight deck. The original article notes that early pilots found if the ship took the wind over the port bow the wind over the deck was fine in spite of having an island. Add to this a landing path which takes this wind direction into account and has been angled into the wind. This forces a line of approach which, 1. makes the pilot take maximum advantage of the wind over the deck, and 2. avoids the island by design preventing the approach error before it happens. The shift from slower propeller driven planes to faster jets results in a straight approach replacing the older turning approach – down an angled flight path – resulting in a safer line of travel in the event of a missed arrest.

Hope this “windy” explanation helps! (See what I did there? I’ll see myself out.)

Yes, interesting, and I’ve been pondering the convention of starboard side islands myself. My father flew sea furies in the Royal Australian Navy in the late 50’s aboard H.M.A.S. Melbourne, and apparently the torque roll effect during a wave off was so great that the aircraft would almost certainly collide with the island if it had been on the port side.
Although nearly 3000 hp and a 14 ft propellor would exacerbate the effect!

This is what I read–and it makes perfect sense.

The real reason was more subtle.

In the 1920s and 1930s, many nations didn’t like carrier islands as they disrupted air flow over the flight deck (among other reasons), and sought to minimize the problem. When Sōryū was built and Kaga modernized from 1934-1936, a small island far forward was thought the best placement to minimize air turbulence. However, when Hiryū was built and Akagi modernized a couple years later, a new study came out suggesting an island towards the center of the flight deck would be better. However, on these two ships the boiler uptakes were in that position on the starboard side and the Japanese did not want to trunk the uptakes through an enlarged island. They could either spend a ton of time and money (in a period of significant budgetary proems that extended Akagi’s refit) to move the uptakes or put the island on the port side.

After that came another study saying the former position was better, used for the Shōkaku class, and later that trunking the uptakes through an enlarged island was actually better, used for the Hiyō conversions, Taihō, and Shinano.

🙂

Oh, interesting! Could be!

Thanks 🙂

Ah, interesting. Yes, you’re probably right. 🙂