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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 1886.PDF
25 June 1954 849 Avro Shackleton M.R.2 (four Rolls- Royce Griffon). Military Aircraft 1954 MARITIME RECONNAISSANCE Segregation of these aircraft from the foregoing land-based reconnaissance types was decided by two considerations: their peculiar field of over-water employment, and the extensive pro vision invariably made in their design for anti-shipping weapons. Not surprisingly, they will be seen to contrast sharply with the other reconnaissance types in having piston engines or turbo- props (for a primary requirement is endurance at low or medium levels); and a number of them are flying-boats. Just as radar picket aircraft were earlier considered as long- range reconnaissance machines for the use of land-based forces, so here will similar aircraft be dealt with in relation to naval forces. There is, however, a single specialized type—the Martin Sea- master jet-propelled, mine-laying flying-boat—which in reality is a shore-based strike aircraft and more closely related to the jet bomber than to current maritime reconnaissance types, though it is considered under this head. GREAT BRITAIN Avro Shackleton M.R.1, 2 and 3. The first protoype of the Shackleton M.R.1 flew early in 1949. It was powered with—like subsequent models—four Rolls-Royce Griffon engines, and was intended to be armed with two forward-firing 20 mm guns, in remotely controlled barbettes on each side of the nose; two more in a Bristol turret in the dorsal position; and two 0.5in guns in a Boulton Paul tail turret. Production M.R.ls, how ever, have neither nose nor tail armament. Originally it was stated that a tail-wheel undercarriage was chosen in order to obtain the maximum utilization of the space available in the nose for operational equipment, and that stow age of weapons was also facilitated by this arrangement. It will be noted, however, that the new M.R.3 version has a nosewheel undercarriage. The Shackleton M.R.2 is essentially similar to the M.R.1 and is operationally interchangeable. Externally, obvious points of difference include the longer nose and tail, transference of the radar scanner from the nose to a ventral position, provision for nose-mounted 20 mm guns, and rearranged ancillary equipment. Technical data for all Shackleton variants are restricted, but the following extracts from an account of an ocean patrol in an M.R.2 written by a member of Flight's staff and published on January 29th this year is illuminating. "We walked under the nose and into the open bomb bay, the doors of which reached almost to the ground; with spotless white walls, it suggested a hospital operating theatre, and vari coloured weapons of all sizes hung from carriers in the 'ceiling.' (Left) Tank model of Saunders-Roe maritime-reconnaissance flying-boat. (Below) Short Sunderland 5 (fcur Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasp).
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