Float plane recovery on US Cruisers and BB's

Yes it is. There's some film on YouTube IIR.

I don't know abt BBs but cruisers are essentially screen ships and their float planes are scouts so remaining underway is important.

There's a boom on the side of the hull usually up forward. It trailed a cable with a cable mat on the end.

The float has a retractable kind of spur on the bottom of the main float. Pilot lands behind and drives up onto it. Crane lowers hook, observer attaches to wing, upset whoops.

Sound easy...

Mostly done while underway (but possible at anchor). The recovering ship would turn so that the airplane landed in the lee of the ship with smoother water and would taxi up to the mat, which was actually a net. There was a hook on the bottom of the float (visible here being held by the sailor to the right) that would catch on the mat, which would allow them to idle the engine and essentially keep the plane in the same area so that the ship could move the crane out and let the crew hook up for lifting.

Thnaks for the insights. Tell me was the process the same for the cruisers with midship mounted cranes as it was for the ships with the cranes in the stern?

You kind of answered my next question, which was lifting the plane done while the crew was still on board or were they taken off first. "in the event of an emergency landing your seat cushion can be used as a floatation device...."

On cruisers, the net was trailed as Tracy said, on the lee side abreast the cranes. There was a boom mounted on the side of the hull, up near the forward turrets. It was pretty long, like a boat loading ladder boom, and could be swung out. The net was trailed on a cable from there.

IIRC in Squadron's USN Seaplanes book, there are some photos of this operation.

I have never seen photos of a BB doing this, and the stern crane probably wouldn't really be usable as the little bobber would be in the wake of the ship.

Crew stayed in the plane - if you think about it, there's no real safety advantage to climbing out of the plane, transferring to a breeches buoy or similar, and then being hoisted aboard before the plane. Same with taxxing up to a boarding ladder - too easy to bang the plane up. All it would do would be to cause more injury and damage and slow down recovery operations.

On the battleships I've seen photos of the sled (mat/net) being strung from the amidships boat cranes for recovery by the stern crane. Planes launched from atop the #3 turrets were set on the catapult by the midship cranes, so the sled was rigged from further forward.

Here's a page that talks a bit about the procedure from the perspective of a pilot. Stern cranes were regularly used.

That landing mat also did one other thing--it would "smooth" a sea slightly.

Choppy seas were the anathema for capital ship scout planes.  Operations at sea complicating things.  Might be perfect flying weather in the mornings, but not so, some 6, 7 hours' later.  Which leaves the brownshoes in a bit of a pickle.  Tough to get 'home' if the seas are too rough.

So, many answers were dreamt up--heaving to with a sea anchor  to make a lee; pumping oil to calm the troubled waters, floating nets, and the like.

The hook on the landing floats was a problem, too, sometimes tearing the nets, sometimes ripping a hole in the float(s).

You also wanted some burly BM's out to the plane to help make up the slings for hoisting.  So, you need to send a whaleboat or barge out to the plane.  So, the seas need to be calm enough for boat operations.

So, we have a bunch of people over the side.  We've got booms and boats rigged out.  The stuff of peace rime exercises, and eclipsed by the operations speed needed in wartime..

The conservator in the maritime history program at the university where I work got an interesting job a year or so ago: taking charge of preservation of the landing mat from the USS North Carolina. Apparently it had been languishing in storage somewhere for many years. I haven't had an opportunity to see it since Susanne and her students started working on it, but when it's done it should be pretty interesting. 

The ship still has her stern crane, and a Kingfisher (obtained from elsewhere). But the catapults are long gone. I'm not sure how the mat will be exhibited - if at all.

http://youtu.be/Bnv4pPaSxbo

Some film of operations here.

http://youtu.be/nmd9l0cYR0Q

An interesting little history fim.

You will, perhaps, notice in the first film that the pilot is holding full opposite ( away from the ship's side ) rudder to keep from being pulled into the side. This perhaps explains the ships speed to allow for sufficient engine power to be used to provide necessary prop-wash  over the rudder.

Good links.  I stand corrected on letting aviators hook up to cranes, too.

Here's the link we needed to share with Don while he was building his USS SF--www.youtube.com/watch

Thumbing references shows that the landing mats were an essential part of the plan to put Kingfishers on Fletcher class DDs. 

While I was doing some research for the Coast Guard Historian's Office some years back, I had occasion to figure out how the landing evolution was done on the 327-foot "Treasury" class cutters.  (Each of them originally had either a Seagull or a Duck, which was carried on the afterdeck.) The rig was quite rudimentary.  I saw pictures of a Duck approaching the ship with the observer sitting on the top wing, holding the bridle and getting ready to grab the hook that was dangling from the crane.  I wonder how many observers fell in the water before somebody worked out a better way to do it.

Nothing to wonder about. Some 200 lb cigar puffing CPO politely advised them that, in the event of emergency their seat cushions can be used as afloatation device....