måndag 14 oktober 2013

Opus Magna, flight deck



I did get some time between sneezes and blowing my nose to day to lay out the flight deck of the Opus Magna. Once again I am struck by the sheer size of this project and I am starting to wonder what I have started. But so far I am sticking to my initial drawings and as they where made to scale I am assuming that it will all turn out ok in the end. On the launch ramp I put my Desert Eagles Storm Raven just to see what it would look like. It is actually fitting quite nicely. I can not have a dual ramp as on a current day super carrier which is fine as the model actually only measures about 160 cm which corresponds to about 102 m in length and as such is only a third of the length of a real super carrier or half the length of assault carriers or helicopter carriers. I am still going to go for an angled deck even though most of the 40 K fliers are VTOLs. One might argue that it makes it easier with hot landings in a combat zone if one does not have to come alongside the carrier and hover before landing. Here you can just make a normal approach and touch down any where along the strip or bolt if you can touch down safely. The same goes for the launch ramp at the front, even if this actually is slightly more realistic as most VTOLs like some help to get up without spending to much fuel. I also have to make small tow-tractors to carry the fliers around deck as they do not have wheels but still needs to get moved around a crowded flight deck.
At one point I also started to wonder weather such a contraption as the Opus Magna really would work. Could you just ad a set of tracks to a ship and make it land borne? There are plenty of tracked landing craft with this ability in reality but none of this size. Aside from the military fact that such a contraption would not serve any real strategic purpose as it would be to vulnerable to survive (tracks) it is actually quite feasible. The largest tracked self propelled vehicle is the NASA crawler-transporter. It can carry an amassing 8 200 metric tons. As it happens the Iranian frigate Jamaran is 95 m and weighs 1 500 tons and has a small flight deck for helicopters. Put one on top of the other and add a real flight deck and there you have it.

1 kommentar:

  1. That is awesome! It's gonna be a monster when it's all done, definitely looking forward to seeing the build continue!

    SvaraRadera