From the first days of World War II the Royal Navy desperately
needed a carrier-borne fighter plane of the new generation.
The British Navy didn't realize
the importance of aviation for naval warfare.
Conservatism reigned there.
In fact, they didn't even see
any potential aerial targets at sea;
they didn't think aviation would be useful to them.
Meanwhile, in other countries, for example,
Japan or the US, it was developing at a tremendous pace.
This situation resulted in a paradox where the leading naval power in Europe
entered World War II with outdated carrier-based aircraft:
the Swordfish strike plane and the Gloster Gladiator fighter.
It wasn’t until May 1940
that the British Navy received a modern carrier-borne fighter aircraft—
the Fairey Fulmar.
The Fairey Aviation company produced 600 vehicles before the end of 1942.
The Fairey Fulmar is the first stress skin,
all-metal monoplane fighter that the Navy
had specifically built and ordered for it.
…The Fulmar as a name, as a graceful bird,
a beautiful sea bird, that’s extremely agile
and is a beautiful, almost an acrobatic flying gull.
Specifications of the Fairey Fulmar carrier-borne fighter plane
Length: over 12 meters
Wingspan: over 14 meters
Maximum takeoff weight: 4,944 kg
Engine: Rolls Royce Merlin 30; 1,300 hp.
Maximum Speed: 426 km/h at a height of 3,000 m
Armament: 8x7.7-mm Browning machine guns.
Payload: 8x11-kg bombs under the wings.
Crew: 2 people.
There’s the pilot, of course, at the front, and, again, an observer/navigator,
in the rear compartment.
This is essential, again, for navigating across open sea,
where there are very, very few landmarks or referent marks
to get the aircraft safely back to the aircraft carrier.
The observer situated in the rear cockpit
would have to be constantly taking
plotting details to track their course away from the ship
and, of course, back to the ship safely to recover,
with the ship not being in the same position as when they left it.
The aircraft was too big for a fighter plane and had insufficient speed.
In addition, the crew faced considerable difficulties
when their vehicle was shot down
and they needed to leave it as quickly as possible.
In this case, the high location
of the tail plane posed serious danger.
Firstly they have to get the aircraft cockpit open,
which slides back, but only that far.
So now the pilot has to unbuckle himself,
get himself out into the slipstream of the aircraft
which is possibly as much as a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles an hour,
and then, whilst being buffeted by that wind and slipstream,
has to get himself out onto the wing
and jump through the gap between the main plane and the tail plane.
Now, the critical thing there is the tail plane is not going to wait for him
to go through the gap.
The tail plane is still coming forward
at two hundred miles an hour.
It was even more difficult to leave the aircraft for the navigator.
If the cabin was ablaze and the pilot had already bailed out
or was wounded, the vehicle could enter an uncontrolled spin
and the navigator's odds for escape were slim to none.
Fortunately, there were very few recorded problems of them getting out,
because adrenaline works wonders.
If you have to get out, you’ll do things
you normally cannot achieve.
Regardless of all the Fulmar's shortcomings,
it received an enthusiastic welcome in the Royal Navy.
For nine months, World War II ravaged Europe
and the new fighter plane could not have come at a better time.
It took part in air cover support for work in the Mediterranean
and the defense of Malta,
as well as doing reconnaissance, fighter reconnaissance work
for the Bismarck raid ahead of the Swordfish
and also for the battle of Taranto, again in the Mediterranean.
From March 1941,
the British Royal Navy began to receive US carrier-borne aircraft
under the Lend-Lease policy—
a program under which the US supplied its allies with everything necessary
to support their war efforts.
At the same time, Great Britain continued
to design and create their own aircraft.
Because we have limited resources compared with America,
we design airplanes that can do more than one task.
They are designed for a specific task,
but they are adapted to do others.
The Royal Air Force performed excellently during the Battle of Britain.
Even the Hurricane, which was quite obsolete
compared to the German Messerschmitt
and inferior to it in terms of specifications,
it was still a good and reliable fighter plane,
which pretty much allowed them to defend Britain.
And in wartime, under the conditions of limited funds and resources,
they just took this Hurricane and rebuilt it
to be used as a carrier-borne plane.
However, when allies got closer to the enemy shore, so to speak,
that's when they needed a more reliable fighter.
Again, they took a land based aircraft—
the Spitfire—and upgraded it to be used from carriers
under a new name—the Seafire.
SPECIFICATIONS of the Supermarine Seafire F.Mk.XVII carrier-borne fighter
Length:10 meters
Wingspan: over 11 meters
Maximum takeoff weight: 4,300 kg
Engine: Rolls Royce Griffon VI; 1,850 hp
Maximum Speed: 636 km/h at a height of 3,900 m
Armament: 2x20-mm Hispano Mk.V cannons
4x7.7-mm Browning machine guns
Payload: 1x227-kg bomb under the fuselage or 2x114-kg bombs under wings
and a suspended fuel tank under the fuselage.
Unguided rockets: 8xRP-3 rockets
Crew: 1 person
The Seafire was an extremely effective and useful aircraft once airborne,
but during the takeoff and landing on a ship was incredibly difficult.
Often difficult enough on a land based airfield.
The Spitfire undercarriage can be vulnerable enough
on a rough landing on a land base,
but even more so on a ship
with a heaving flight deck that may be raising up 20 or 30 feet
during the swell of a ship’s flight deck rising.
The Spitfire undercarriage was proving to be quite a problem
with its narrow track and its quite small design and size… and strength,
when it became used as a flight deck aircraft.
However, the aircraft was constantly upgraded.
Further models featured more powerful engines
and contra-rotating propellers for the latest modifications.
By the end of Seafire development, it was an extremely useful airplane,
once it was flying.
Airborne, it was every bit as effective as the RAF were finding
the Spitfire to be during the Battle of Britain
or any of their major air offensives.
Superb handling aircraft loved by the pilots once airborne…
Simultaneously with the work on a new fighter,
British engineers were designing an all-purpose carrier-borne aircraft.
Their efforts resulted in the Fairey Firefly,
which entered service in 1943.
SPECIFICATIONS of the Fairey Firefly FR.I carrier-borne fighter
Length: over 11 meters
Wingspan: over 13 meters
Maximum takeoff weight: 6,759 kg
Engine: Rolls Royce Griffon IIB; 1,735 hp
Maximum Speed: 509 km/h at a height of 5,200 m
This one was done by people, manually fold.
There was no power,
it took 20 people to get the wings from their present folded position
into the flight position, so the aircraft could take off. It took time.
It took time also once the pilot had landed the airplane on the flight deck
to get the aircraft back into the folded position,
so it took up less space or could go in the hangar.
Again, 20 people. Very manpower intensive: a crew of two, but at least 20 people
on the ground, so you could actually operate.
Armament: 4x20 Hispano-Suiza Mk.II cannons in wings
Payload: 2x454-kg or 227-kg under wings
RP-3 unguided rockets.
Crew: 2 people.
And they also enjoyed the fact they had someone to talk to in the back.
Single-seat flying over the sea was not something pilots often enjoyed,
because they had to also track where they were, finding their ship, returning again
was often really quite difficult.
When designing this fighter,
British engineers considered all the faults of previous models
that were causing crashes during take-off.
A plane needs a strong headwind to successfully take off from a ship deck.
To achieve this, a carrier would turn towards the wind
and accelerate to maximum speed.
With favorable wind conditions, two thirds of the deck length was enough
for the Fairey Firefly to take off.
It would accelerate and take off without even
reaching the ship's bow with about 60 meters of spare distance.
If the ship could not generate sufficient wind,
and they normally wanted something like
35 knots of wind over the deck, then in fact they had to use a catapult,
which in those days was a hydraulic mechanical catapult: hydraulic ram,
lots of wires and pulleys, and it went off.
The faster take-offs and landings happen, the better.
Independent take-offs allowed
for a new launch every 10 seconds, while the use of a catapult slowed
this process down to 1 minute.
When landing his plane on a carrier,
the pilot was assisted by a landing control officer,
who signaled instructions from the ship's deck with the help of paddles.
When the batsman crossed his arms, the pilot merely closed his throttle;
and if it got it right, his hook, which is the first part of the airplane
to actually touch the deck, would catch one of the wires across the deck
and he’d be brought to a halt
from 100 miles an hour to zero in about 200 feet.
He would then have to raise his hook and be taxied forward to actually
keep out of the way of the airplane behind.
They landed on, with a worked up ship,
about one every 45 seconds.
Several modifications of the Firefly were created: a deck fighter plane,
a night interceptor equipped with a radar, which was cutting-edge technology
at that time, and a very good strike aircraft.
A lot of pilots named their aircraft, usually with a girl’s name.
This one is no exception: Evelyn Tentions, which is a play on words
if you say quickly Evil Intentions,
which is exactly what the pilot hoped his airplane was actually achieving.
We, also on the side of the airplane, have a map of Japan,
one of these airplanes was the first British-built and designed airplane to fly
over Tokyo towards the end of World War II
when the raids were starting on Tokyo itself
before Japan surrendered.
New aircraft successfully operated in the Pacific Ocean, providing support
for Allied landing operations in North Africa,
escorting bombers, which attacked and sank
German battleship Tirpitz in Norwegian fjords.
However, war is war and losses were inevitable.
Not only new vehicles had to be built,
but also new crews had to be trained.
It was better and safer to train pilots outside the country.
And there was a great training pipeline in Canada, and in America,
and in the West Indies, which people loved going to because the weather was lovely…
and it was in winter time normally when they went there.
It was impossible to use real carriers for training and future pilots exercised on
special airfields that were the size of a flight deck
Ashore, he had 3,000 feet; on the ship, he had about 300 feet.
Ashore, he had a 150-foot wide runway;
on the ship, he had about a 50-foot runway.
So, everything was miniaturized, and he had to be a lot more accurate,
a lot more skilled getting himself back on again.
So as well as lining himself up he had to ignore
what ship was doing under him,
otherwise he would actually never get back onto the deck.
The Sea Fury became one of the last propeller-driven planes
used by the Royal Navy.
It was a high-speed aircraft designed to defend carriers and their escort
ships against air attacks.
SPECIFICATIONS of the Hawker Sea Fury FB.Mk.11 carrier-borne fighter plane
Length: over 10.5 meters
Maximum takeoff weight: 6,522 kg
Wingspan: almost 12 meters
Maximum Speed: 724 km/h at a height of 6,100 m
Engine: Bristol Centaurus 18; 2,560 hp
With shape of the wing they needed you couldn’t get people to fold it,
so they gave the pilot a hydraulic little device;
he pressed a button in the cockpit.
Armament: 4x20-mm Hispano Mk.V cannons
Unguided rockets: up to 12 RP-3 rockets
Payload: up to 907 kg
Crew: 1 person
Usually, the Sea Furies were launched with the help of a hydraulic catapult,
because carriers' flight decks were too short for it
to gain the necessary speed and take off
with a full payload.
If there was a catapult malfunction,
additional rocket thrusters had to be used.
They were mounted under the wings
and activated by electrical ignition.
And sadly, often that didn’t happen and they went over the side.
And there were two
known cases of airplane going over the front,
when the RATOG kit didn’t work at all,
and the pilot sit in the cockpit, watching the ship go overhead
before he decided to get out
and get himself rescued by the attendant destroyer.
However, the service run of the Sea Fury was quite short—
engineers were already working on modern jet engines.
New technologies allowed them to improve airplane dynamics,
the system for flight control,
and make vehicles more powerful and maneuverable.
A new age of deck aviation began...