Fairey's best aircraft?

[fastmongrel]

Hendon's are you sure. An aircraft that is flat out at 150mph cruises at 130mph, has a range with 1600lbs of bombs of 500miles and is armed with 3 Lewis guns. Wouldn't it be quicker and more humane to just shoot the crew before take off.

 

[swampyankee]

I always rolled my eyes at the calories burnt by some trying to say it was scuttled and not sunk by the Royal Navy.

It's like trying to argue your Spitfire wasn't destroyed by the Luftwaffe, it just impacted the ground after you jumped out at 18,000 feet.

From what I've read, the Bismarck's deck was awash before the decision was made to scuttle. Unless a very well-equipped salvage ship was available, the only heading Bismarck could make would be more-or-less straight down.

 

[Shortround6]

Let's give Malaya an all Fairey air defence. Albacores and Swordfish instead of the Vilderbeest; Hendons (we'll need more produced) instead of Blenheims; Battles instead of Hudsons. Fulmars instead of Buffaloes.

To quote Herbert Morrison at an aviation disaster on May 6, 1937.

"Oh, the humanity!"

 

[MiTasol]

give me time to scan the rest of it - many pages are 50cm square and very fragile and I only have an A3 scanner. The "professional" scan shop 60 km away are rough as guts and tore the last page I took them to bits so I have to do each page myself in four scans

Well I have not yet had a chance to get these done - work and other four letter words - so here is the basic manual. Most of the large pages to come are from amendment 1 anyway.

Fairey Hendon manual

Well I have not yet had a chance to get the large foldouts done - work and other four letter words - so here is the basic manual. Most of the large pages to come are from amendment 1, Complete and yes figure five is roughly 43cm/27 square in the original. You can print whatever size you want...

ww2aircraft.net

 

[nuuumannn]

I kinda like the Gannet. It was a beast and was quite manoeuvrable for a sub hunter.

Gannet

Dunno if it was the best at what it could do, but it was very good at it.

Gannets doing what Gannets do...




A more recent clip with sound.

 

[Graeme]

A few more of the Gannet.

 

[Graeme]

Hi Grant.
When you were there - did you notice that SE 5a model (RC?) seen in your first photo above - top right, on the roof..

 

[nuuumannn]

When you were there - did you notice that SE 5a model (RC?) seen in your first photo above - top right, on the roof..

No, I didn't, what's the significance of it?

I got quite a few of the Gannett as I had access while I was there to do walkarounds. It's a cool aeroplane. Here's one at Coventry Airport.

MAM 40

The AEW variant leaves a lot to be desired in the looks department...

NAM 51

NAM 52

YAM 10

YAM 11

 

[swampyankee]

The RN could have used some sort of AEW aircraft in the Falklands Campaign. Too bad the Gannet (and the RN carriers' catapults) were long gone by then.

 

[Graeme]

No, I didn't, what's the significance of it?

No idea mate. Same for the beautifully made Felixstowe F.2a in the observatory/cafeteria area...

 

[SaparotRob]

That is lovely.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Is it just me, or does the Gannet look like the bastard child of a Brewster Buffalo and a Fairey Firefly with some origami thrown in for good measure?

 

[SaparotRob]

Now that you mention it......

 

[Admiral Beez]

Is it just me, or does the Gannet look like the bastard child of a Brewster Buffalo and a Fairey Firefly with some origami thrown in for good measure?

Its French cousin isn't any better.

It's a tossup to decide which is uglier. But the Gannet AEW shown below would have been superbly useful at the Falklands had HMS Hermes maintained her arrestor wire capability. With its 50-knot stall speed, the Gannet could have used even an old and almost wornout arrestor kit. Given a longer nose wheel the ski jump on Hermes should have eliminated the need for the cat.

 

[nuuumannn]

There are some nice models at the FAA Museum, including ship models, four generations of HMAS Sydney...

Emden & Sydney 51

Emden & Sydney 52

Emden & Sydney 53

Emden & Sydney 55


The Alize has a beauty all of its own...

Alize

The Falklands war highlighted lots of inadequacies in British armed forces policy, including a lack of close-in weapon systems and airborne early warning. following the conflict, the RN invested in Goalkeeper CIWS for its surface combatants and converted Sea Kings with an airborne search radar on a swivel mount.

Sea King AEW

 

[Admiral Beez]

The Falklands war highlighted lots of inadequacies in British armed forces policy, including a lack of close-in weapon systems and airborne early warning.

If there's one thing British aviation needed for the Falklands it's long range strategic transports like the Short Belfast but with inflight refueling capability. With such a capability once rumours of Argentine plans to invade are realized the RAF could fly in and drop several hundred members of the Parachute Regiment.

Once the Argentines realize they're facing not only a few dozen Royal Marines but also three hundred or more elite Paras they may loose some of their mettle.

 

[nuuumannn]

Once the Argentines realize they're facing not only a few dozen Royal Marines but also three hundred or more elite Paras they may loose some of their mettle.

It's kinda hard to quantify either way, as if you look at the numbers of British troops engaging the Argentine forces, especially at Goose Green, the Argies outnumbered the Brits, yet the British beat them in those battles. In hindsight, manpower numbers were not an issue for the British forces, although I'm sure they would have disagreed at the time. They achieved victory with inferior numbers because their training and preparation were superior.

As for equipment, the British armed forces were just not prepared for the battle they planned to fight, and the lengths they went to modify what they had, eg, putting Vulcans back into service - the type was due for retirement and at the time there were no Vulcans with working IFR equipment nor were there any personnel in squadron service who had current IFR training, yet they cobbled together enough Vulcans and crews to produce five serviceable aircraft - were extraordinary. It's worth remembering that the Victor K.2 was Britain's only IFR tanker because at the time the only thing that required it in the RAF were fighters and transports (and Buccaneers). Putting Harrier GR.3s onto the carriers took basic modifications, such as drilling holes in the lower fuselages to enable water to drain out of them and stuffing chaff into air brakes to confuse ground radars because there were no standard launchers fitted to RAF types at the time.

Of course, it's easy to say that if the Brits had the fixed-wing carriers or if they had this that or something else they would'a done better, but they didn't. They went to war with what they had and every war highlights the inadequacy of peacetime military spending - let's not forget the British succeeded in their objectives despite high material losses and equipment shortcomings. Lessons are to be learned of course, but it often takes a war scenario where inadequacies are revealed before changes are made and adopted in the world of the armed forces - politicians hate spending money on the armed forces during peacetime.

 

[Admiral Beez]

They went to war with what they had and every war highlights the inadequacy of peacetime military spending - let's not forget the British succeeded in their objectives despite high material losses and equipment shortcomings. Lessons are to be learned of course,

The lessons learned at the Falklands by the British government was the apparent utility of further reductions, eliminating first the SHAR and then the Invincible class carriers, along with massive reductions in numbers of destroyers and frigates.

The new Queen Elizabeth class carriers partially correct this downward path, but still the above chart that ends in 2011 needs to continue to 2021 to show even more reductions in destroyers and frigates.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I like the Fairey Flycatcher. Competitive in its day, unique looking.

 

[MiTasol]

Especially with a Pratt engine and Ham Std constant speed prop