googling "Dennis Campbell" "obituary" "carrier" produces no
relevant results, as does using
dogpile with those search terms. That's a shame, because his
modification to carriers permitted simultaneous launch and recovery
of aircraft, launch more aircraft in a given time, allowed landing
approaches at higher speeds and the possibility of an abort if the
tailhook didn't engage the arrestor cable, and eliminating the
previous danger with straight-decks, of aircraft missing the
arrestor cables and then crashing into other aircraft, vehicles and
personnel. A simple idea had numerous benefits. '[M]any
self-inflicted near-misses and other close contacts with the Grim
Reaper' enabled him to conceive an idea that would forever change
Naval Aviation. He had piloted Royal Navy fighters off three
carriers in the 1930s.
Carrier Design at
.
The Royal Navy tested the concept on
HMS Triumph in the
early 1950s (Reginald Stanley Birch mentions that in
his reminiscences and some details are available at
Carrier Aviation) and
HMS Centaur was fitted with an angled flight deck. The tests
on
HMS Triumph merely repainted the landing line, and left
the arrestor cables in the same locations (!!).
HMS Ark
Royal in 1955 was the fleet's first carrier to enter service
with an angled deck.
The US Navy quickly adopted the design:
From 26 to 29 May 1952, the feasibility of the angled
deck concept was demonstrated in tests conducted on a simulated
angled deck aboard Midway by Naval Air Test Center pilots and
Atlantic Fleet pilots in both jet and prop aircraft.
The
History of Midway's Magic and
A Brief History of U.S. Navy Aircraft Carriers Part IV -- Korea and
the 1950s
The US Navy converted USS Antietam (CVA 36) in December 1952
and fourteen carrier Essex and Ticonderoga class aircraft carriers
got angled flight decks between 1954 and 1959.
SCB-125
modernization of Essex/Ticonderoga class aircraft carriers,
(CVA/CVS 9-12, 14-16, 18-20, 31, 33-34, & 38)
SCB-125
modernization of Essex/Ticonderoga class aircraft
carriers. The three
Midway-class
carriers,
USS Midway (CVB41),
USS Coral Sea/Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB-42) and the
second
USS Coral
Sea (CVA-43) all were retrofitted with angled decks and the
CV-59
Forrestal class carriers all had angled decks from the
beginning.