Lt Cdr Doug Taylor was a long serving engineering officer with broad experience of naval operations both in carriers and ashore. He was also an inventor and whilst posted to MoD at the time that the CVA01 carrier programme was cancelled turned his mind to launching fixed wing STOVL aircraft with vertical catapults from small ships.
In 1969 his ideas were exposed to various bodies and were not well
received however he was introduced to the Harrier Chief Designer John
Fozard who saw no use for his catapult but offered him some Harrier data to help him investigate other ideas.
The launching project was not his day job but in the next year he came to the conclusion that if an aircraft could be given an upward velocity by first running along a short flight deck and up a ramp it could then accelerate to fully wing borne along a ‘runway in the sky’.
Another paper was published but did not arouse much support however Doug’s departmental head suggested that he should apply for a sabbatical posting to a university to enhance his academic credibility. He was accepted by Southampton University to study for a Master of Philosophy Degree where he produced his thesis entitled ‘The Operation Of V/STOL Aircraft from Confined Spaces’.
Doug’s thesis was circulated and was more positively received so in Feb 1974 he presented it in person to a gathering of the MoD Scientific Community, the Navy and British Aerospace.
British Aerospace (Hawkers) did some calculations of their own and then
became very interested when they found that some of the proposed Sea
Harrier spec points could not be met without the performance benefits
bestowed by the use of a ramp if they were realised. Further
calculations were carried out with the constraint that it was unlikely
that a ramp with an exit angle greater than 20 degrees would be
practical on a ship the size of HMS Invincible.
In early 1976 John Fozard Chief Designer Harrier and John Farley
Harrier Chief Test Pilot briefed the staggering performance improvement
and Pilot Safety that the Ski-Jump could produce and at last the Navy
accepted that its feasibility
should be demonstrated.
Doug was a happy man as he knew it would work out. Job done.
G-VTOL 1969 Credit: mx.pinterest.com Aviation Historian 4