"State-of-the-ark" is a humorously apropos typo given that the Swordfish was employed on the HMS Ark Royal.

@@OlOleander Talking about arks and grails: "When though dost pull on the starter cord of the Swordfish, thou must count to three......"

Where, who, when and build another what?

@@DaveSCameron A barracuda, It is under restoration by the Fleet Air Arm at Yeovilton in England, they are restoring one from a number of crashed aircraft to a static display standard. They are not going to get it to a flying standard as the parts from the crashed are too badly damaged for use in a flying airframe and, as a museum they wish to retain as much of the original aircraft as possible. If they got it to flying condition they would have had to replace so many components it would be classed as a replica with no historical significance.

@@DaveSCameron YOLO

Similar project here in the U.S. restoration of a P61 black widow

@@foxhoundms9051 true. And that one's going to fly!

Geoffrey de Haviland once said, when offialdom was having no interest in the prototype Mosquito, that his company was asked to build the wings for another's aircraft, apparently called the Ape. I have never been able to find out what and whose kite this was to have been.

​@@johnjephcote7636 the Armstrong Whitworth was a single research plane first flown on 5 January 1926 to "answer all the questions of aerodynamics." It could be configured and tested in an infinite range of configurations to see which ones worked best. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Whitworth_Ape

They were planning to make land only versions too, by Northrop, the Grumman version just being the carrier version. However foreign airforces, like Australia, Canada & Finland were quite happy to buy the carrier version, leaving the land version stillborn. Meaning they got a tougher plane with marine certification for the plane including the engines, making it suitable for shoreline airfields. Makes one ask how much the US would save if the airforce simply bought the same planes the navy bought. Australia forgot to take this into account when it purchased the F35, buying the A variant, leading to the corrosion issues it has now, due to a significant percentage of the RAAF’s major fighter airfields being on the coast.

Sorry, where I typed Grumman, I meant MacDonnell Douglas. The browser I’m using doesn’t seem to be compatible with UTube’s edit feature.

Hawker had a 'storm' theme going for their fighters: Hurricane, Tornado, Typhoon, Tempest, Fury. Supermarine had a marine mammals theme for their seaplanes for a little while (Walrus, Sea Otter), and a S for spite theme going for piston fighters (spitfire, spiteful and seafang).

@@nerd1000ify Yep, thanks for the additions, those were just the ones I could think of.

So before that they just didnt have a floor? Or an entire floor?

@@shakybill3 More of a sealing the floor by installing a strip that prevented air from coming up through the floor.

... and keeping them below the surface was already half the rent since it seriously limited the u-boats visual range. Please keep in mind that success in the battle of the atlantic wasn't neccessarely measured in U-boats sunk but in supplies delivered to britain relative to losses endured in the attempt. Apart from that - don't forget the arctic where the sun wouldn't set or rise for months during summer or winter respectively.

Also worth noting that radar was capable of detecting periscopes, snorkels, radio/radar masts, and other surfaced equipment. This would ultimately lead to subs keeping an eye out for enemy radar contacts so long as such equipment was in use, on top of everything the above comment pointed out.

In certain conditions, keeping the lights *on* actually helps mask the aircraft against the sky. This is sometimes called ‘counter-illumination’. The eye needs (among other things) contrast to discriminate discrete objects from background clutter such as scud, haze, low clouds, etc., and lights of the right intensity and orientation can help reduce that contrast. The Americans experimented with lights-on attacks against U-Boats. Their big lights were known (unofficially) as ‘Yehudi lights’.

@@julianmarsano8212 What you are talking about is totally different. The conditions you are talking about is when you have lights in the background. The Titanic lookouts spotted the iceberg because they could see a "hole" in the stars near the horizon. They didn't see the iceberg directly, and it was the less experienced lookout who say the berg first, but not knowing what it meant. His buddy did know, but by this time the berg was close and very big. Had someone put a bunch of tiny lights on the iceberg they would not have seen a hole and thus not seen the iceberg. The airplanes they the U-boat lookouts were trying to spot were very much smaller, whole the iceberg would have blocked dozens of stars the airplane blocked out just a few at any one time. In such a case what you are talking about would make the plane more visible, not less. Imagine you are in a large dark room. There is no light and someone is looking for you. You can see all of the light from the flashlight but for him to see you enough light from the flashlight needs to reflect off your body and get back to his eye. This would be a tiny fraction of the light from the flashlight so if he's far enough away, even if he shines the light directly at you, not enough light will return to his eye. Now he turns off the flashlight and you can no longer see him. He is using radar to get your general location and with that he can ger close to you without you knowing he is there. He can't get a location precise enough to shoot you, but when he things he's close enough he aims his flashlight at you then turns it on when he's 10 feet away. He aims and shoots before you recover from the surprise of having the light on you. This was the battle of the Atlantic.

Very Intense Position

They used Battles for this ferrying work in South Africa - out of harm's way by then. Barracudas were also dubbed 'Barra-wee-wees'. The 'wee-wee' implying weak and rather a piss-off.

Barracuda for reconnaissance? Ops officer: What did you see? Barracuda pilot: Just my wings, not much else.

Was thus the trip when you met Eddie Rickenbacker in Crete?

@@JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe wow a comedian 👏

@@michaelleslie2913 Wish this was funny.

At 90 mph 🤣

@@johnstirling6597 Slow but steady wins the race...

@@gingervirus2988 And gets you shot down against a competent opponent.

Swordfish 👏👏👏

At the time that the aircraft manufacturers were designing their aircraft we British knew that we would be going to war with Germany (again) and the other Axis nations, thus the priority was not to be building prototypes but the aircraft that we were going to send into battle, and unlike the USA and Russia who didn’t enter WWII until they were attacked/ready to enter the war we were, unfortunately, going to be leading from the front (as usual) and it damn near bankrupted us, material like aluminium, steel, rubber and fluids became scarce, scarce enough to stop building prototypes, we had to rely on what we had at the time and hope that enough development could be achieved to replace our existing aircraft, and during war the aesthetic of an aircraft was immaterial to what it was capable of doing. We might have been operating aged biplanes during the war but they performed as well as could be expected and more besides, look at the attack on Taranto harbour, the disabling of the Bismarck and the exploits of three aircraft which were nicknamed “Faith Hope and Charity”, please take a look at these examples of how our torpedo bombers and “string bags” faired for yourself, and whilst your at it look at the biplanes the United States 🇺🇸 Navy were operating at the time, they were not exactly pretty. I really do wish people would stop comparing the British and Commonwealth aircraft with the United States aircraft, there are very many variables between the two countries that direct comparison is worthless and invariably wrong. As for not having a designer who could design a good looking torpedo bomber the answer is yes there was but unfortunately they were busy designing and building aircraft for the Battle of Britain and the battle of the Atlantic.

What I loved about the Swordfish was its continued development whereby it got both radar and rockets! As for a 'good British torpedo bomber .... Fairey Gannet! The only Sub Hunter Killer

I can't believe how many things they have sticking off the wings of the Barracuda. My god. Have they never heard of drag? There's no less than 3 items sticking up and 1 down PER WING and one of those is an entire antenna mast.

A big problem with with Britosh carrier aircraft was the fact that from April 1918 until just before the outbreak of World War 2 was that everything pertaining to aviation was controlled by the Air Ministry. At a time when the USN and Japanese Navies (controlling their own aviation) were working out just what could be done and what aircraft were needed the RN was hamstrung by a disinteresed Air Ministry which tended to make up their minds about naval aviation often without checking facts. For instance the Ministry believed that the USS Langley couldn't possibly operate more than 20 aircraft when they were operating over 30 and even up to 40. They all but forbade the Admiralty from learning ANYTHING about naval aviation and whenever the Admiralty took up the matter all successive governments could do was shrug and say that when it came to aeroplanes the Air Ministry were the experts and so the Admiralty should shut up and listen. Read 'The Dawn of Carrier Strike.' by David Hobbs. It is about the trials and tribulations of the inter war Fleet Air Arm regarding equipment, dictrine and all the political nonsense affecting the FAA. Given we know what ended up happening it's almost a tragic read - but well worth it.

Naval was always second to the air force when it came to production decisions. They were always having to change engines when the desired one was canceled and they were expected to produce aircraft with capabilities which compromised one another. What did those "crusty" admirals do to deserve your criticism? There are so many assumptions made about the officer class of the period which are little more than prejudice.

The Air Ministry was in charge of all aircraft production. They simply thought they knew more about shipborne aircraft than the men who would have to use them. The Navy had to put up with second rate kit until they could get more modern planes from the USA near the end of the war. Nothing to do with crusty old admirals, in fact the Royal Navy had some of the best admirals in the world at this time.

A matter of opinion I would suggest, clearly the Spitfire has almost become the logo for Allied air power and is so ingrained in our culture it would be impossible to out do it but take away the legendary halo I believe Supermarine made a few belters including the Seafire and the flying boat but other contenders. 🎚️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Literally puting all of their aritistic skill on Spitfire and then none for others.

It's later jet aircraft were fine but they managed some truly hideous piston engine types in the 30s and 40s

Supermarine's jet aircraft were quite good looking.

Supermarine Swift was attractive, but wasn’t especially successful.

The Mk.V had a Griffon

Was the Griffon available when the Barracuda was designed?

I wonder how it would have done with the Napier Sabre in , although that engine was problematic it plenty of power.

@@michaelleslie2913 the original RR Exe 24 cylinder, sleeve valve engine was more powerful than the RR Merlin engines first fitted & similar to the Napier Sabre which developed over it's period of service.

​@pcka12 the exe was in a different league but unnecessary due to jet engines

McDonnel Banshee

​​​@@user-xj6rr3yv8qThis pilot I speak of was loaned to the USN and was on his tour of duty with the USN squadron for the Cuban Missile Crisis. His C.O. at his RCN Fleet Air Arm squadron wrote to the USN C.O. mentioning the pilot was absolutely forbidden from flying wartime sorties if WWIII broke out. I am not sure what would actually have happened. Peacetime plans tend to get flushed down the toilet in wartime.

Special Hobby, the Czech firm offer both 1/72 and 1/48 versions, fiddly but buildable.

Ark Models of Russia makes it in 1/72 scale.

Ah, the Tu-22's electronics coolant. Alcohol wasn't a large component, it was THE component, 100% ethanol.

Hey, the Skua wasn't that bad as a dive bomber (it even inexplicably held its own as a fighter early in the war) and the Walrus was excellent for its intended function, even if it was a little awkward looking. Also you missed the other crappy FAA aircraft: the Fulmar and Firefly.

If the Swordfish had to face the teeth of the Japanese fleet in 1941 and her Zero fighters it would have been torn to pieces

@@zoperxplex Just like US Aircraft at that time? Taranto, a warning unheeded, ONE YEAR BEFORE? The Stringbag had been participating for over 2yrs. Check out Skynea`s opinion of Japanese AA (Morale Boosters)

@@moosifer3321 Even the Devastator was a superior aircraft than the Swordfish and that was considered obsolete by the start of the war.

@@zoperxplex Remember Midway? How many Biplanes lost against Bismarck. There is a difference between Obsolete and Obsolesence, when in adversity, use what you have - Big shout for Taffy Three and USS ENGLAND (using British Hedgehog/RADAR ) Guessing you are American, good luck with your Politics. Great chat. As to WHO won the war ......American Industry? PS How many Devs are still flying or are they still recovering Sable and Wolverine`s quota?

@@moosifer3321 Had the German or Italian navies in 1941 been as well equipped in terms of air power as the Japanese navy we wouldn't be discussing Swordfish.

Why sadly? The avenger was a good beast. Not like the SB2C

But only as a bomber as the Royal Navy torpedos would not fit in the internal bay.

The Swordfish remained in service for its short takeoff run for small escort carriers in the bad weather of the North Atlantic. Fairey ceased production of the Albacore and ir’s spares to turn to making Barracudas but Blackburn continued to make Swordfish and their spares in their purpose built shadow factory. Once in the air the Albacore could carry more war load further and faster than the Swordfish.

Wartime FAA pilots I have spoken to rated the Hurricane and Barracuda as the easiest to land on a carrier.

@@johnfisk811 Looking at the gear config, it looks like under compression the track widens greatly. Hell on tire tread, but probably aided in stability.

it served in the Pacific in USN colours!

@@uingaeoc3905 Shhhh! No one is supposed to know about that. Cheers.

The ship is protected by torpedo Nets.

I think you are confusing the X engine layout of the Exe (like the river) with the similar but much larger Vulture.

@@philhawley1219 Yes you're right. Learn something every day!

Actually, they had a very long line of successful aircraft.

The Battle was a good airframe but too large for one engine. As Fairey told them before it was ordered and recommended it be made as a twin.

There were two Supermarine Seagull flying boats. One which first flew in 1921 and the other which first flew in 1948. Neither of these was the Walrus which was a totally different aircraft.

@@Richard.Allsop the first Supermarine Seagull was for the Australian Navy, the RN ordered the same but changed its name

@@ianallan8005 I stand corrected!👍