Carriers!! (1 Viewer)

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Nice pics Fastmongrel; I've always had a fascination with these early carriers. Those pics of Furious are great, the first one shows her as she was launched as a seaplane carrier; she could launch the seaplanes from her forward deck, but in common with earlier seaplane tenders she had to come to a stop to recover her aircraft. Note the 18.1 in gun turret on her stern. Her forward one was fitted to a monitor. When Dunning landed on her forward deck up at Scapa, she was in this configuration. She was retrofitted with a stern deck after the success of Dunning's experiments. Campania sank in the Firth of Forth off the coast of Edinburgh, not Scapa. She was launched as a seaplane tender and was the only Great War carrier to have an aeroplane named after her, the Fairey Campania.
 
When Dunning landed on her forward deck up at Scapa, she was in this configuration.

I have been wondering exactly how Sqn Cdr Dunning managed to land on Furious with the mast, bridge and funnel in the way. I suppose with Furious going at full speed a good head wind and the low landing speed of a biplane he could side slip in and almost land vertically by cutting the engine. It must have been a very bumpy ride though and very dangerous as was proved by his death the next day trying it again.

Campania sank in the Firth of Forth off the coast of Edinburgh, not Scapa

Whoops sorry about that one I knew it was the Firth of Forth I had been looking at the sonar pictures of the wreck I even know where the wreck is in the Firth but somehow my fat fingers typed Scapa Flow :oops:

This link shows the wreck site
http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/campaniasitedescription.pdf
 
When Furious was at Scapa, her aircraft squadron, commanded by Dunning was sent to Smoogro, from where the aircraft, a handful of Pups would fly alongside the carrier's deck. Geoffrey Moore in his book Early Birds discusses the timing. It was in his aeroplane that Dunning lost his life; Dunning's had suffered damage during his second landing and was undergoing repair. Sadly, Dunning's life was cruelly taken by fate and the unreliable technology of the day, rather than the dangers of what he was doing; he approached the carrier too high and realising his mistake attempted to restart the engine (being a rotary, the Pup's motor had blip switches rather than a throttle), but it didn't start and the aircraft went over the side. Dunning drowned before they could get to him.

After this incident, landing on Furious was banned, although Dunning's replacement, Sqn Cdr Fredrick Rutland (Rutland of Jutland) carried out a touch and go without landing on the deck to satisfy himself that he could do it. These guys had balls of steel. Hats off to them.
 
An aerial view of the escort carrier HMS AVENGER at sea with Sea Hurricane aircraft ranged on the flight deck.
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A Hawker Sea Hurricane taking off with Fairey Swordfish aircraft alongside during an anti-submarine sweep from on board HMS STRIKER.
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Convoy PQ 18 under attack seen from the deck of an aircraft carrier (possibly HMS AVENGER), 9/42
PQ-18-Merchant-ship-bombed-595x441.jpg
 
Better hope that there was some wind to turn into!
Don't think these little carriers could go quickly enough to generate much wind on their own!
 
The aircraft would have been ranged as far aft as possible in a cluster round the stern for take-off ops, rather than in line astern formation like that. I'd say it's highly unlikely that they could get enough speed to get airborne in that space with the aircraft arranged like that; there were no catapults on those jeep carriers. Take a look at the picture of HMS Striker.
 

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