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If Grumman and/or USN really want to have the best possible F4F, something needs to be axed. Probably the F5F/XP-50 projetcs - lot of effort and resources invested, for no actual gain. Decision for that change needs to be in effect by some time of 1938?
The Royal Navy were wanting escort carriers rather than Catapult Aircraft Merchant ships but the CAM ships were a quick and dirty solution using existing catapults, ships and aeroplanes as an interim. My stepdaughter's grandfather was a CAM Hurricane pilot.At that point the USN was looking to the British escort carrier experience and in Oct 1941 the US naval attaché in Britain reported on the experience of HMS Audacity on the Gibraltar run with an air group of 6 fixed wing Martlet I. (Audacity only completed her conversion in June, landed her first Martlet on 10 July and escorted her first convoy in Sept thereby proving the concept of the escort carrier with a fighter complement as being far superior to the CAM ships).
The Royal Navy were wanting escort carriers rather than Catapult Aircraft Merchant ships but the CAM ships were a quick and dirty solution using existing catapults, ships and aeroplanes as an interim. My stepdaughter's grandfather was a CAM Hurricane pilot.
I wonder how slow the Roc floatplane was.On the theme of floatplanes, found this.
Didn't realized the Floatfire was so fast. Certainly i always found the CAM idea hairbrained, wasting the aircraft and endangering the pilot like that. By 1941 when the danger of invasion faded surely they could have found a dozen or two Spitfires to convert to floatfighters.Secret Files :The Spitfire floatplanes
The German invasion of Norway in April 1940, and the now seemingly unstoppable advance of her armies across Europe began, it seemed likely that any confrontation in the north of Europe would, in all likeliness, be a sea one. The current British naval fighters in service in 1940 were either...www.solentsky.org
But we digress.
This is as fast as you will ever see it. Flat out full power.
Is there any slower monoplane, single engined floatplane?In my the notes I have the Vmax for the Roc floatplane as ~190 mph.
Hmm…. maybe the Vought OS2U Kingfisher?Is there any slower monoplane, single engined floatplane?
7 mph performance difference of the NP3 probably isn't enough to run off a Condor. (Hurricanes with 80 mph speed differential were hard pressed to catch them).Hat's off to that brave man. It's too bad they didn't have a seaplane fighter available for that role, then the pilot would at least have a better chance to survive the landing and recovery, even if the plane didn't.
They did have the NP3 available ... probably enough to run off a FW 200, or at least keep it high enough that it couldn't do so much harm... that's really the only Allied seaplane that could plausibly work as an emergency fighter. The Japanese had the F1M and the Germans had the Arado 196.
The 1939/40 variants (-1, -2) of the AR196 were likely slower. The 1941 -3 variant was approximately the same speed at 194mph.Is there any slower monoplane, single engined floatplane?