Carrier Training...on the Great Lakes

Neat

 

I could not access the link, but I seem to recall that at least some of these training carriers were based in Chicago.

 

Here is the picture of the USS Sable from the linked article.
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planes were flown from 3-4 bases
1.o'hare airport
2.great lakes/ft.sheridan
3.NAS glenview
4.hammond?

there were 4-5 carriers,1 is sunk off millwaukee,there was a whole display at NAS glenview during an open house back in 85'-90',prez bush's plane was there too all restored

 

Which one of Bush's aircraft was there? One of his did not make it for sure.

 

sorry,i dont remember the tail number,but it was a 2 seat trainer

 

Makes sense.

Cannot tell whether that little carrier has elevators or not. Looks big until you remember how small a Wildcat is.

 

Doesn't look like there are any elevators. They would be pretty large relative to the ship size.

I'm guessing that the planes were mostly land based and flew to/from the 'carriers' for L & T/O training.

Land was never that far away.

 

The flight deck was only 535 feet long.

Top speed was 18 knots.

During its flight training years, pilots made a total of 51,000 landings on the USS Sable.

It is estimated 135 to 300 planes were lost during those training years.

Source: USS Sable (IX-81) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

More from Wiki... no elevators or hangar deck...

Because Wolverine and Sable were not true carriers, they had certain limitations. One was that they had no elevators or hangar deck. When pilots used up the allotted spots on the flight deck for parking their aircraft, the day's operations were over and the carriers headed back to their pier in Chicago.


USS Wolverine (IX-64) underway in Chicago Harbor, 22 August 1942.Another problem the two carriers had to contend with was (a lack of) wind over deck (WOD). Aircraft such as F6F Hellcats, F4U Corsairs, TBM Avengers and SBD Dauntlesses required certain minimum levels of WOD in order to land. When there was little or no wind on Lake Michigan, operations often had to be curtailed because the carriers couldn't generate sufficient speed to meet the wind on deck minimums

 

Naval Aviation Museum in FL has a restored airplane that was once crashed in these exercises. Don't remember the story or type.

 

this brings back lots of memories: almost two years as an OOD underway on board U.S.S. Intrepid, a few thousand hours on watch on the bridge, hundreds with the conn during flight operations. You can be virtually certain that aircraft were never parked on Sable's flight deck; if they were, she could neither launch nor recover aircraft. I'd bet at long odds that aviators flew out from a Naval Air Station. She does appear to have arresting gear cables but no nets forward. Very likely they practiced a landing, then backed the aircraft up and practiced a take-off. Probably also did full throttle touch-and-goes. Interesting to note the tiny dark square next to the right edge of the photo, portside at the extreme after corner of the flight deck, the windscreen shielding the landing signal officer from the 20 or more knots of wind across the flight deck. Back in the day, Intrepid was operating jets, FJ3-M Furies, F2H Banshees (nicknamed Banjos), F9F8-B Cougars and A4D Skyhawks, and needed 30 knots of relative wind across the flight deck. She could make that speed so we were able to conduct flight operations when there was zero true wind.

 

See my wiki post that you quoted...

Wiki and the beginning thread have pics of numerous planes parked on the deck, which I agree is VERY small.

 

I've seen only two photos, one with a single F4F Wildcat, the other with two Naval Aircraft Factory TDN 'assault drones' - whatever they are. If the sole purpose was training aviators in carrier take-offs and landings, it is not easy to uinderstand why aircraft would be parked anywhere aboard where they would be a significant impediment to continuous landings and take-offs from an axial-deck carrier, rather than cycling them in and out. Furthermore, unless you've been on a carrier at sea conducting flight operations you can have no idea how many in personnel you need as plane handlers to move aircraft safely about a flight deck without impeding all operations. Sorry Tcar, couldn't happen.

Here are a few photos I took with my little Leica of Intrepid flight ops. they are copyrighted and I ask you to respect that. 1. is my C.O., Captain Joe Cool - really! tho' he spelled it differently: Joseph Kuhl, on the horn to Pri Fly (primary flight control) with the command to commence flight operations; 2. the foxtrot flag is two-blocked - hoisted to the top of the halyard to signal to other ships "I am conducting flight operations"; 3. LT Bob Probyn, the catapult officer, has just signalled the "launch" to the catapult petty officer who has hit the cat button; and 4. the F9F8B Cougar is airborne!
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Had the ship received the angled-deck conversion yet?

 

Jim, I reported on board in October 1956; in September the ship had returned from a Med cruise and was in the Brooklyn Navy Yard for a six month overhaul that included building the angle deck, enclosed hurricane bow, rebuilding the steam catapults and a bunch of other serious improvements. We came out of the Navy Yard in March or April 1957, then to Bayonne NJ for final outfitting and to our home port, NOB Norfolk VA, for carrier qualifications with CAG6 and to Guantanamo to shake down in May through July 1957.