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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.
In my the notes I have the Vmax for the Roc floatplane as ~190 mph.
The 1939/40 variants (-1, -2) of the AR196 were likely slower. The 1941 -3 variant was approximately the same speed at 194mph.
Blackburn Aircraft since 1909 states the Roc Floatplane max speed as 193mph at 10K ft vs 194mph for the AR196-3 at 3300ft (Warplanes of the Luftwaffe).
I wonder if Bismarck had managed to launch a pair of Ar-196 if they'd be able to break up the 2nd, most critical Swordfish strike. Did they had Fulmars along?The AR-196 was pretty slow (Wiki shows 206 mph) but it did have the advantage of being armed with two forward firing 20mm cannon, which makes it a good bit deadlier in a fighter role (or for strafing a submarine etc.)
Bismarck's catapult was disabled by a splinter hit during her engagement in the Denmark Straits on 24 May 1941; this wasn't realized until they tried to launch an AR-196 to carry Bismarck's War Diary to France on 26May, IIRC. The first strike by Victorious on 24/25 May was given a Fulmar escort. The weather during the 2nd strike from Ark Royal would have prevented Fulmar sorties, IIRC.I wonder if Bismarck had managed to launch a pair of Ar-196 if they'd be able to break up the 2nd, most critical Swordfish strike. Did they had Fulmars along?
Late war or post war
Note the towed sled/skid/raft.
Also note the curved track of the ships wake to use the wake and bulk of the ship to reduce the wave height during recovery.
also note the, from the camera perspective at long range, relative calmness of the seas.
You can only operate float planes in certain sea states, which are often not good in the NA. If the sea state is too high the pilot may as well ditch.
"The biggest criticism of seaplanes amongst WWII battleship captains was their inability to be recovered in rough weather. To address this, the Seahawk was rated to land in 25 kts surface winds and 5′ waves."
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzjT_EEk5eI
Pilots may have been instructed to bail out vrs ditching, or at least told to consider it as they had figured out the ditching qualities (or lack of) Hurricane well before they came up with the CAM scheme. Digging a float in wave at speed still means a cartwheeling aircraft and very poor survival.but landing one in the sea is probably still a much better prospect for pilot survival than ditching a Hurricane was.
Armament varied a lot and got better as time went on.Fw 200s were fairly well armed so you did want something that could cause a fair amount of damage pretty quickly)
Yeah I didn't mention the Seahawk just because it came so late. it was probably the best Allied seaplane fighter of the war (that actually went into production), technically. Only the A6M2-N and N1K1 Kyofu version were clearly superior as fighters.
The Curtiss SC Seahawk by the way had a Wright R-1820-62 producing 1,300 hp
It takes a couple of years to get an assembly plant online and up to speed, and the only F4F variant worth building would be the FM2, so no gain over the historical timeline. Even if the decision was made to build the folding wing F4F-4A (Martlet II) it wouldn't be in production until mid 1943 at the earliest.Was there ever any consideration of making the Wildcat in Canada or otherwise licensing production in Britain or Australia?
Canadian Warplanes 1: Canadian Car & Foundry (Grumman) Goblin
Harold writes articles on Canadian military history, including Military Parachuting, Warplanes, Armour and Artillery, Castles, Fortifications, Sieges and Battles, Warships, The Cold War, Women in the Canadian Forces, First Nations and Black Canadian Military Service. Each article is supported by...www.silverhawkauthor.com
If we can produce Helldivers, we can make Martlets.
Canadian Warplanes 3: Curtiss SB2C Helldivers made in Canada
Harold writes articles on Canadian military history, including Military Parachuting, Warplanes, Armour and Artillery, Castles, Fortifications, Sieges and Battles, Warships, The Cold War, Women in the Canadian Forces, First Nations and Black Canadian Military Service. Each article is supported by...www.silverhawkauthor.com
From early 1939 CC&F were busy gearing up to produce Hurricanes. The first of 1,451 rolled off the production line in Jan 1940 and the last in 1943.Was there ever any consideration of making the Wildcat in Canada or otherwise licensing production in Britain or Australia?
Canadian Warplanes 1: Canadian Car & Foundry (Grumman) Goblin
Harold writes articles on Canadian military history, including Military Parachuting, Warplanes, Armour and Artillery, Castles, Fortifications, Sieges and Battles, Warships, The Cold War, Women in the Canadian Forces, First Nations and Black Canadian Military Service. Each article is supported by...www.silverhawkauthor.com
If we can produce Helldivers, we can make Martlets.
Canadian Warplanes 3: Curtiss SB2C Helldivers made in Canada
Harold writes articles on Canadian military history, including Military Parachuting, Warplanes, Armour and Artillery, Castles, Fortifications, Sieges and Battles, Warships, The Cold War, Women in the Canadian Forces, First Nations and Black Canadian Military Service. Each article is supported by...www.silverhawkauthor.com
It's rate of climb that's most important, and mostly lacking.If it's fast enough to catch an FW 200 it might have been a viable idea... I kind of doubt it though.
And yet supermarine made the Schneider cup floatplanes, sounds to me like a classic case of too many chiefs and not enough indiansFinally read through the Spitfire on floats article that mack8 uploaded upthread. Wow what a s***t show. I think they must have put some second or third tier guys in charge of this little side project.
The interesting thing is that even the earliest attempts seemed to result with very good performance, well over 300 mph, with apparently good handling (in the air).
The litany of problems start with the apparently clapped out or just badly made specimen they started experimenting with had a variety of mechanical issues which contributed to several delays. Then there were more long delays before they finally brought some of the later versions to the Mediterranean for some operational testing, where they ran into several problems.
They apparently did a very slipshod job on the floats, which kept leaking and weren't strongly made enough. They evidently failed to do sufficient (or any) corrosion resistance prep for the salt water, which quickly ate up three airframes. All of that could probably be avoided.
They also found some other maybe more tricky problems with water handling, especially during take off - With torque, requiring the addition of a tail fin, some issues with water handling (waffling from side to side) and most problematic, the bottom of the cowl air intake for the Merlin tended to suck up some water sometimes which definitely isn't good.
So it's somewhat "up in the air" as to whether this could have really been a viable seaplane, and I didn't see any mention as to whether they ever tried to launch it from a catapult. I suspect it could have been with a little work but it was obviously a fairly low priority due to other serious concerns (like saving Britain itself and then saving the Suez Canal etc.) and due to time wasted on other projects that ended up going nowhere (which is where hindsight comes into play).
However,
As a CAM fighter even the earliest experimental version of this, assuming the catapult is strong enough to launch it, seems like it would perform beautifully as a fighter, I think more than sufficient to intercept and shoot down an FW 200 Condor. Then, arguably, the landing (on floats) should work out much better (for the pilot and probably for the aircraft too) than ditching a Hurricane. So it does seem like it might have been a good candidate for CAM.