But would you want to be in the cockpit when they did? I sure as heck wouldn't.
F5F or F4F. Did the U.S. Navy make the right choice?
- Thread starter Draconis
- Start date
I was just going to post that. I came back to my computer and there it is. I don't think it would have worked so well with a CAM Hurricane. 1000 lbs versus 6200 lbs at twice the speed.
But the main thing is to save the pilot. Not the hand me down clapped out Hurricane Mark 1. Someone should have invented paragliders for CAM pilots. Then they could have bailed out and landed on a deck instead of the sea.
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McPherson
Banned
The stupid shall be punished. The Japanese... were not that stupid. But they still muffed it.
Ok, thank you both as I now have an image of the same basic system being used to yank the PILOT out of the plane as it goes by...
(There MAY have been a level of alcohol involved somewhere in that process... If not there should have been
)Randy
marathag
Banned
Booms with steel cables in a net to 'catch' the fighter, with hooks added to the fighter to assist sticking to that net
marathag
Banned
Fulton Recovery, but in reverseOk, thank you both as I now have an image of the same basic system being used to yank the PILOT out of the plane as it goes by...
(There MAY have been a level of alcohol involved somewhere in that process... If not there should have been
In the early days of the Battle of the Atlantic it wasn't stupidity so much as desperation. Your suggestion of using high performance float planes to shoot down/chase off Condors and also watch for U-Boats is interesting. Catapulting off a CAM ship is practical enough but what about recovering the float planes in the stormy and wavy North Atlantic?
The CAM ship would need to slow down or stop for awhile to do this. I'm not sure how difficult that would be but I'm thinking almost anything would be better than the OTL CAM setup. What high performance float planes did the British have in 1940-1942? Or can a Hurricane be flown with floats?
Ok, thank you both as I now have an image of the same basic system being used to yank the PILOT out of the plane as it goes by...
(There MAY have been a level of alcohol involved somewhere in that process... If not there should have been
Randy
I don't know if there was alcohol involved in the Brodie system but I'm pretty sure there is alcohol involved in some of the CAM ship discussion.
NTB.
Oh excellent! The Spitfire showing its Supermarine float plane roots. I should have remembered that.
Errolwi
Monthly Donor
My 'local' Spitfire Tr.9 looks much better than the double (with raised rear!) Malcolm versions.
MH367 looking the business by Errol Cavit, on Flickr
NTB.
I unashamedly possess a weakness for Amphibious aircraft...and Supermarine Spitfires
R J Mitchell would have wept with rapture
I'm really surprised how long it took the RAF to try that considering they had this 12 years earlier.
I'm really surprised how long it took the RAF to try that considering they had this 12 years earlier.
Hey it took so much time to get them to take those training wheels off, nobody wanted to put them back on
Randy
I'm really surprised how long it took the RAF to try that considering they had this 12 years earlier.
The Engine was a very powerful beast for its time but only had mere 'hours' of life before it needed to be reconditioned (bit like a Formula 1 racing car Engine)
So it was not a practical choice for a military aircraft
It's proof that very high performance aircraft can be mounted on floats. For a maritime nation it should be a short step from that to experimenting with a fighter on floats. That it's a bad idea is something they would soon discover, but that's why you experiment.
The British did come up with a pretty good stop gap solution to protect the North Atlantic convoys. The Merchant Aircraft Carriers. However the British were about 2 years too slow in implementing it. Bear in mind that these MAC ships were still carrying full cargoes as well as functioning as modest escort carriers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_aircraft_carrier#
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It's just a shame they didn't do that with a couple of fleet oilers from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary in 1938 - 39, or some of the Armed Merchant Cruisers they impressed at the start of the war.
Wouldn't the Royal Navy have needed all their fleet oilers? Using tankers and bulk carriers for Merchant Aircraft Carriers seemed to work out OK. They were big enough and fast enough. And they carried cargo that didn't need to be loaded and unloaded through large cargo hatches so building a flight deck on top wouldn't interfere with the ship's cargo carrying capability.
The Swordfish could do the anti-submarine job. But the MAC ships would also need a Hurricane or two to deal with the FW-200 Condors. The Condors were still a threat in 1940-1942. So if the MAC ships had been ready a couple of years earlier they would need to carry more than Swordfish to deal with them.
Would have to install a catapult to launch Hurricanes.