Editing Flight deck (section)

===Flexible===
An idea tested, but never put into service, was the flexible or inflated, air-cushioned, "rubber deck". In the early jet age it was recognised that eliminating the landing gear for carrier borne aircraft would improve the flight performance and range, since the space taken by the landing gear could be used to hold additional fuel tanks. This led to the concept of a deck that would absorb the energy of landing.<ref>{{cite patent |country=GB| number=742240 |status=patent |title=Improvements in or relating to apparatus for facilitating landing of aircraft |pubdate=| gdate=1955-12-21  |fdate=| pridate=| inventor=[[Arthur Davenport (aeronautical engineer)|Arthur Davenport]] |assign1=Westland Aircraft Ltd}}</ref> 

With the introduction of jet aircraft the risk of damaging propellers was no longer an issue, though take off would require some sort of launching cradle.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/scimitar/history.php |title=Supermarine Scimitar - History |first=Damien |last=Burke |work=Thunder & Lightnings |year=2012 |access-date=9 November 2015}}</ref> Tests were carried out with a [[de Havilland Vampire|de Havilland Sea Vampire]] flown by [[test pilot]] [[Eric Brown (pilot)|Eric "Winkle" Brown]] onto a flexible deck fitted to {{HMS|Warrior|R31|6}}.<ref name="Rubber deck flight tests">{{cite web |url=http://www.livingwarbirds.com/de-havilland-vampire.php |title=de Havilland DH.100 Vampire |publisher=livingwarbirds.com |access-date=9 November 2015}}</ref> 

The deck consisted of a rubberised sheet fully supported on multiple layers of pressurised fire hose.<ref>Farnborough and the Fleet Air Arm. Geoffrey G.J.Cooper 2008, Midland Publishing, {{ISBN|978 1 85780 306 8}}</ref>  [[Supermarine]] designed its [[Supermarine 525|Type 508]] for rubber deck landings. The flexible deck idea was found to be technically feasible but was abandoned, as the weight of carrier aircraft increased and there were always doubts about the ability of an average pilot to land in this way. The Type 508 was subsequently developed into a conventional carrier aircraft, the [[Supermarine Scimitar]].

The US Navy evaluated a shore-based flexible deck made by Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. using two modified [[Grumman F-9 Cougar#Flexible deck testing|Grumman F9F-7 Cougars]]. Three US pilots had participated in the British flexible deck trials at Farnborough and the US Navy, despite liaison with the British, partially redid the Farnborough trials, with 23 landings at Patuxent River, before cancelling the project in March 1956 for similar reasons.<ref>''U.S. Naval Air Superiority, Development Of Shoipborne Jet Fighters 1943–1962'' Tommy H. Thomason 2007, Specialty Press, {{ISBN|978-1-58007-110-9}}, pp. 190–191</ref>