The British Carrier Strike Fleet. David Hobbs

light fleet carriers and with the cancellation of the Maltas and likely long delays before the ships that became Eagle and Ark Royal and the four remaining Hermes class ships would be completed there seemed little point in continuing with aircraft which were expected to be obsolete before they could go to sea and both were cancelled. The first was the Fairey Spearfish, intended as a Barracuda replacement in the strike and reconnaissance roles, ordered to meet Specification O.5/43.¹⁷ Unlike its predecessor, dive-bombing was considered the primary attack method with torpedo attack relegated to secondary status. The first prototype, RA 356, flew in 1946 and it was followed by two other prototypes which were used for development work until 1952 but production orders for 208 Spearfish were cancelled and the airframes broken up on Fairey’s Stockport production line.¹⁸ It had a wingspan of 60ft 3in and a maximum launch weight of 22,083lbs, making it considerably larger and heavier than its predecessor, and had a large internal weapons bay capable of carrying a single Mark 15 or 17 torpedo or up to four 1000lb bombs. Defensive armament comprised a single 0.5in Browning machine in a turret aft of the cockpit that was controlled remotely by the observer. Another advanced feature was the torpedo and sight which included an early example of an analogue computer. It would have had a radius of action of about 400 miles. The prototypes and the first 100 production aircraft were powered by a single 2320hp Bristol Centaurus 58 radial engine; subsequent production aircraft were to have been fitted with the projected Rolls-Royce Pennine engine which was to be more powerful.¹⁹ The Spearfish was one of the largest single-engined aircraft ever flown.

      The other cancelled project was the Short Sturgeon which was designed to meet Specification S.11/43 for a long-range reconnaissance and light strike aircraft. Like the Spearfish, it was specified after the Joint Technical Committee’s decision to increase the size and weight of aircraft and intended for the new generation of carriers. The only twin propeller-driven aircraft to be designed for the Royal Navy from the outset rather than evolved from a design intended for the RAF, it was too big and too heavy for operation from the existing carriers. Powered by two Rolls-Royce Merlin 140 engines, each developing 2080hp, it had a wingspan of 59ft 11in and a maximum all-up weight of 23,000lbs.²⁰ A small internal bomb-bay was capable of carrying a single 1000lb bomb or four depth charges; it was also intended to have two 0.5in Browning ‘front-guns’ fitted in the wings and hardpoints under the wings for sixteen 3in rockets with 60lb warheads. These gave it a useful attack capability but its principal role equipment would have been two F-52 cameras with 36in or 20in lenses which would have given the aircraft a strategic reconnaissance capability. It would also have carried ASH radar in the nose and was capable of both radar and visual surface search and shadowing an enemy force at sea. The radius of action on internal fuel would have been an impressive 700 miles in still air and maximum speed was 325 knots. Like all twin-engined propeller-driven naval aircraft, the Sturgeon suffered from an asymmetric problem if a single engine failed on the approach to a carrier. Shorts tackled this by fitting the two engines with contra-rotating propellers which solved the problem of yaw on take-off but successful deck landing with asymmetric thrust after a single engine failure would still have been marginal because of the ‘good’ engine being necessarily offset from the aircraft’s centreline to give space for the propeller’s rotation. A single prototype of this variant, RK 787, flew in 1946.

      The Sturgeon T 2 was an unusual target facilities aircraft in that it was fully equipped for deck landing. This aircraft of 728 NAS at RNAS Hal Far is about to be given the ‘cut’ by the batsman as it lands on a light fleet carrier of the Mediterranean Fleet.

      In August 1945 a contract had been placed for thirty Sturgeon S1 aircraft and, rather than cancel them, the Admiralty tasked Shorts to modify them into high-speed target-towing aircraft to meet specification Q.1/46 and two further prototypes were built, VR 363 and VR 371. These retained the ability to operate from a carrier with tail hooks and power-folding wings but had a lengthened nose with extensive glazing to house cameras. It is a measure of the importance placed on realistic weapons training required after 1945 that twenty-three aircraft from the original production order were completed as target-tugs to this modified TT 2 standard for service with RN fleet requirements units in the UK and Malta. Of these, nineteen aircraft were further modified in the mid-1950s to TT 3 standard with the deck landing and photographic equipment removed together with a reversion to the original nose design. They remained in service until replaced by Meteor TT 20 jets in 1958.

      Another aircraft that saw limited production in the years immediately after the Second World War was the Blackburn Firebrand, originally conceived to meet specification N.11/40 for a fleet air-defence fighter. Large, robust and never to prove popular with its pilots, the Firebrand’s first prototype, DD 804, first flew in February 1942 by which time the Seafire appeared to fill the role adequately and it was decided to modify the Firebrand into a long-range torpedo-carrying strike fighter. Further development spanned the remaining war years and the first production version, the TF 4, only entered service with 813 NAS in September 1945. It took part in the victory flypast over London in June 1946. A total of 220 aircraft were produced, mostly to TF 4 standard but a small batch was built to the definitive TF 5 standard. A number of TF 4s were upgraded to TF 5 standard.

      A Firebrand of 813 NAS armed with a Mark 17 torpedo taking off from Indomitable. The aircraft parked aft are Sea Furies and Firebrands. (Author’s collection)

      The Firebrand²¹ had a maximum all-up weight of 17,500lbs and a wingspan of just over 51ft which meant that it could only be operated from Implacable, Indefatigable, Eagle and the modernised Indomitable. By 1946 it lacked the essential performance needed from a fighter but with no strike aircraft other than the obsolescent Barracuda capable of carrying a torpedo it had a limited usefulness and equipped two front-line units, 813 and 827 NAS. It was expected that both would re-equip with the new turbo-prop Westland Wyvern in 1948 but development difficulties delayed their replacement until 1953. The Firebrand TF 5 had a 2520hp Bristol Centaurus 9 engine giving a maximum speed of 380 knots. It had four 20mm cannon, each with 200 rounds per gun, in the wings and a single 1850lb Mark 15 or 17 torpedo on a hardpoint on the fuselage centreline which could be fitted with alternative loads of a single 2000lb, 1000lb, 500lb bomb, Mark 6, 7 or 9 mine or 100-gallon fuel tank. Hardpoints under each wing could be fitted with 500lb or 250lb bombs or depth charges, 50-gallon tanks or eight 3in rockets with 60lb heads. Radius of action with internal fuel was about 250nm; this could be extended with external tanks but the aircraft’s handling qualities would have been marginal with a heavy load. In any event it was a cumbersome aircraft to fly to the deck and was considered obsolete by 1950.

      A specialised variant of the Mosquito fighter/bomber, known as the Sea Mosquito, had been developed after Lieutenant Commander E M ‘Winkle’ Brown landed a modified Mosquito on Indefatigable on 25 March 1944; the world’s first carrier landing by a twin-engined aircraft.²² Designed to meet specification N.15/44, the RN variant was designated the Sea Mosquito TR 33 and a contract for three prototype examples was followed by another for 100 production aircraft, the first of which was delivered in late 1945. 811 NAS re-formed with former RAF Mosquito FB 6 aircraft to convert aircrew onto the new type at the end of 1945 and re-equipped with Sea Mosquitoes in April 1946. By then, there was literally no deck from which the type could operate at its maximum all-up weight of 22,500lbs with a torpedo and full fuel although its wingspan of 54ft was acceptable. It could have operated at reduced weight from Indefatigable or Implacable but there were concerns about its marginal single-engine deck landing performance and, while these might have been acceptable in wartime, they were not in peacetime. 811 NAS operated ashore at RN Air Stations Ford, Brawdy and Eglinton before disbanding in July 1947.²³ The production Sea Mosquitoes were subsequently used by second-line squadrons until the mid-1950s, together with a small batch of improved TR 37 versions.

      A Sea Hornet NF 21 seconds before catching number 2 wire on its parent carrier. The batsman has his bats lowered