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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 1218.PDF
and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 No. 2214 Vol. LIX. FRIDAY, 29 JUNE 1951 EDITORIAL DIRECTOR G. GEOFFREY SMITH, M.B.E. EDITOR MAURICE A. SMITH, D.F.C. ASSISTANT EDITOR H. F. KING, M.B.E. TECHNICAL EDITOR C. B. BAILEY-WATSON, B.A. ART EDITOR JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE. STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.1. Telegrams, Flightpres, Sedist, London. Telephone, Waterloo 3333 (60 (inn). Branch Offices: COVENTRY 8-10, Corporation Street. Telegrams, Autocar, Coventry. Telephone, Coventry 5210. BIRMINGHAM, 2 King Edward House, New Street. Telegrams, Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone, Midland 7191 (7 fines). MANCHESTER, 3 260, Deansgate. Telegrams, Iliffe, Manchester. Telephone, Blackfriars 4412 (3 fines). Deansgate 3595 (2 fines). GLASGOW, C.2. 26b, Renfield Street. Ttlegrams, ffiffe, Glasgow. Telephone, Central 1265 (2 fines). SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Overseas: Twelve months £3 3s. Od. U.S.A. and Canada, $10.00 BY AIR: To Canada and U.S.A., six months, $16. IN THIS ISSUE: Weather Defeats Festival Air Races - - Westlands Introduce S-SS 752 758 759 761 Basic Training for the N.S. Man - - - - Report from Paris - Evolution of the Guided Missile 768 Jet Airliners in Service - 777 Teams Against the Submarine IT is hardly surprising that much confused thought should persist concerning anti-submarine aircraft and their applications. Security is especially stringent in thesematters, particularly as affecting weapons, and the diversity of aircraft now being adapted or developed for anti-submarine duties naturally adds to the confusion. It must first be appreciated that several classes of shipborne and shore-based aircraft now appear to be necessary to counter the modern submarine in its various forms and operational roles. For the protection of a fleet or a convoy at sea the primary requirement is for deck-landing machines capable of detecting and destroying submarines at moderate range. To this end the Americans and ourselves have sought to evolve a "single-packet" design capable of functioning impartially (with appropriate equipment) in the search or strike role. It is no longer a secret that the newest U.S. Naval type built to this formula— the Grumman Guardian—will not normally operate independently; instead, two Guard- ians—a "hunter" and a "ki^er"—will work as a team, the one being more or less ineffective without the other. At preslnt the Royal Navy has no counterpart of the Guardian, which, in essence, is a large single-engined multi-seater monoplane capable of carrying heavy internal and external loads. The AF-2W "hunter" variant provides for a four-man crew (pilot and co-pilot in the forward cockpit, and two radar operators in the fuselage) and its bulky radar is useful not only for detecting submarines, but for providing early warning for the fleet. In a purely anti-submarine capacity this radar is said to perform most effectively below 5,000ft, where it can pick up a schnorkel, though the degree of success in this is dependent upon the skill and experience of the operator. The AF-2S "killer" carries an offensive load of some 8,000 lb, in addition to a relatively simple radar installation and a searchlight. Contemporary with, though by no means a counterpart of, the Guardian, is our own Fairey Firefly Mk 7, an interim adaptation of the fighter/reconnaissance Firefly, exclu- sively intended for anti-submarine search and strike pending the introduction of the Fairey 17 (now named Gannet)—a type more directly comparable with the Guardian but turbine-powered, and, like the American machine, having provision for heavy and bulky loads for the fulfilment of its search and/or strike missions. To date there has been no official intimation that the Gannets will operate in pairs, as do the Guardians, and there appears to have been some hesitancy in deciding on the final crew-layout. In this connection, it may be observed that the side-by-side arrangement, with a radar operator in first-hand contact with the pilot, has much to commend it, though there is no provision for this in the Gannet. The divergence of thought in the design of carrier-borne anti-submarine aircraft is illustrated by the new Grumman XA2F-1, with two Wright Cyclone piston engines, and the French Breguet 96, having an Armstrong Siddeley Mamba turboprop and a Rolls- Royce Nene turbojet. The Breguet, it must be observed, is of less specialized character. Effective as is the equipment now available for search, an occasional submarine will inevitably elude the hunter/killer packs and close in on its quarry. To deal with these menaces, helicopters—operated from Naval or merchant ships—make a strong claim, and it is known that the Royal Navy is deeply interested in this application of rotary- wing aircraft. The latest manifestation of this interest is the expeditious ordering of sea-trials with the new Westland-Sikorsky S-55, some impressions of which appear in this issue. This, then, is the picture as now presented on the ship-borne side of development; but it is self-evident that for Commonwealth defence and for the discharge of our inter- national commitments we must have long-range, shore-based machines to deal with any submarines operating in areas where fleet protection is not guaranteed. It is gratifying to record that the Avro Shackleton landplane is already in R.A.F. service, but adoption of a new flying-boat, such as that proposed in our issue of May 18th, is still awaited. It must be recognized that without the short-range ship-borne helicopter and the long- range flying-boat our Naval/R.A.F. anti-submarine force must remain seriously unbalanced. .
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