I might reiterate what I wrote in another thread; every country made mistakes and planning errors prior to the outbreak of WW2, but conversely each one of the main combatants produced some truly brilliant master strokes in design and capability in equal measure. I hope we aren't descending into this 'bias' between the USA and GB.
The aircraft of the RN were controlled by the RAF almost until the last moments before WWII, austere budgets, a customer that was reluctant to develop new technology aircraft, obsolete specifications, etc.
The Admiralty produced aircraft specifications, based on what it felt applied at the time. There was a definite favour for multi-role types that dominated British carrier decks throughout the 20s and 30s in the likes of the Avro Bison and the Torpedo Spotter Reconnaissance requirement, although single seat fighters definitely had a place in that period, see the much favoured Fairey Flycatcher and the excellent Hawker Fury development the Nimrod. So why, when it came to modern designs, was this shunned in favour of combining the requirement with a dive bomber, producing the Skua or a long range two-seater in the Fulmar? Although available, the Gloster Sea Gladiator wasn't that much far removed from the Nimrod it replaced; it's shore based original specification even predated that which produced the Swordfish.
There definitely was a tendency to stick with a conservative approach to progress, if that's what the Admiralty's approach could be described as. The Fairey Albacore is evidence of this; although very much an improvement over the Fairey Swordfish and Blackburn Shark (both contemporaries and very similar in performance and capability), but was still a throwback compared to the Grumman Tarpon (nee Avenger and to be renamed as such because Tarpon just doesn't cut it as an emotive appellation) that the Admiralty controlled FAA ordered to supplement and fulfill requirements that the British industry could not, again, largely because of the previous misfires of its own board in the production of naval aircraft specifications.
Leaving aside the barely adequate but well liked Fulmar for a moment, that the Sea Hurricane was an interim was a given. It's acquisition was also more of a knee-jerk reaction however, despite work by Hawker prior to the war's outbreak, and it certainly wasn't ideal either. Brown describes it as thus in the introduction on the chapter on the Sea Hurricane in Wings of the Navy;
"Short on range, with the ditching propensities of a submarine, harsh stalling characteristics, a very mediocre view for deck landing and an undercarriage that was as likely as not to bounce it over the arrestor wires. What less likely a candidate for deployment aboard aircraft carriers as a single-seat fighter than the Hurricane could have been imagined when, more than two score years ago, the FAA found itself at war! Yet, legacy of parsimony, expediency and short sightedness inflicted on British naval aviation of the 'thirties through its seagoing assignment two years later undoubtedly was, the Hurricane was to take to the nautical environment extraordinarily well. Its shipboard debut was to give the FAA an enormous fillip, and while no fighter designed solely with shore-based operation in mind could have expected unqualified success at sea, it was to aquit itself with distinction during its brief navial first-line career."
The last surviving Fulmar. It's a big aeroplane for a fighter.
0307 FAA Museum Fulmar
Even by 1939, the FAA's future fighter requirements did not match what was really required, but again, as has been stated in another thread, pre-war requirements were laid down without the benefit of post war experience and foresight. Both N.8/39 and N.9/39, calling for a two-seater, front gun fighter and a two-seater single engined turret fighter showed promise but again, fell short of the mark in terms of what was really needed. N.8/39 was fulfilled by the rugged and successful Fairey Firefly, but it saw action primarily as an attack aircraft (let's not even mention the FAA's turret fighter du jour the Blackburn Roc!).
A year later, with the war in full swing and with a year's vital experience under its belt, the Admiralty finally released OR.88 for a single seat naval fighter. This became hardware through specification N.11/40 for a single seat front gun fighter (at last), to which the the over-engineered and much maligned Blackburn Firebrand was designed. It was the first British purpose buiIt single-seat naval fighter for the FAA, but didn't fly for the first time until 27 February 1942. Sure, that Blackburn, producers of a successful line of naval aircraft, beginning with the Swift of 1919 was to fail miserably with the Firebrand can't be blamed on the Admiralty, it did demonstrate that the British industry needed to devote more effort to modern single seat naval fighter requirements than it had because of the absense of a viable requirement. It wasn't as easy as the old throwback of converting a land based fighter for sea service, as experience with the Sea Hurricane showed.
Hawker Sea Hurricane Ib Z7015 seen here in action in the summer of 2018.
0107 Shuttleworth Military Pageant Sea Hurricane
