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Aviation History
1939
1939 - 1529.PDF
5o8 y$m MAY I8, 1939 The Supermarine Walrus (top) is an amphibian flying-boat used extensively for catapult work. Below it is a Fairey £wordfish torpedo-spotter-reconnaissance machine operating as a float plane. aircraft used from these ships are, for the greater part, biplanes, although very con siderable numbers 01 Blackburn Skua mono planes are now being delivered. Smallest of the I\aval aircraft in use are the single-seater fleet fighters. Fcr many years our standard type has been the Hawker Nimrod, but certain fleet fighter squadrons are being equipped with Gloster Sea Gladia tors. These machines, highly manoeuvrable biplanes with Mercury engines, are essen tially similar to the Gladiators used by R.A.F. fighter squadrons, but carry in addi tion to their four guns and other Service equipment a collapsible dinghy, in case of a forced alighting on the sea, and a hook which can be lowered to engage with the arrester wires on the deck of an aircraft carrier. An obsolescent fleet fighter reconnaissance type is the Hawker Osprey biplane also with a Kestrel engine. The new two-seater Fleet fighter which will shortly be appearing on the carriers and, in all probability, on the catapults of other naval craft, is the Black burn Roc, built by the Boulton Paul con cern at Wolverhampton. The Roc is basic ally similar to the Blackburn Skua dive- bomber-fighter (of which more later), and carries its armament of machine guns in a power-driven turret after the same fashion as that described earlier in this issue in con nection with the Boulton Paul Defiant. Like the Skua, it is fitted with a supercharged Bristol Perseus sleeve-valve engine, and has a watertight monocoque fuselage. Intended primarily for dive bombing, the Blackburn Skua has a different armament arrangement from the Roc, and has specially designed flaps to retard its speed in a bombing dive, enabling the pilot to approach more closely to his target and to obtain greater accuracy. Ingenious wing folding arrangements are incorporated, and the machine is quite up-to-date in its conception. For torpedo dropping, gunnery spotting and reconnais sance work the Navy has large numbers of Fairey Sword- fish and Blackburn Shark biplanes. These carry a crew of two or three, depending on the duties being undertaken, and in landplane form have a maximum speed in the neigh- rap h • Dunn; training pilots are assisted in thsir "landings on" by signals from an officer stationed on the deck of the carrier. On the left the Blackburn Shark is seen just before touching down and engaging its arrester hook with the transverse wires on the deck.
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