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(Note the major POD's here is a slightly earlier rearmament by the UK and the FAA coming back under control of the Admiralty 18 months earlier at the beginning of 1937 and a minor POD's being a 27000 ton Armoured carrier design starting with Ark Royal and that Albert George "Ramp head" Elliott does not join Rolls Royce).

Conceived as a Multirole carrier aircraft (specification O.8/37) the Fairey Fulmar was a development of Faireys earlier light bomber concept the Fairey P.4/34 - an aircraft capable of close support and stressed for 'Drop Altitude Bombing' itself a slightly smaller version of the single engined Fairey Battle light bomber.

This particular aircraft lost out to the Hawker Henley but was presented in modified form as the Fairey 0.8/37.

This aircraft was subjected to a series of differing requirements over the next 18 months as the Navy sought to modernise its Fleet Air Arm in the face of the massive expansion of the RAF and a rapidly changing situation around the world.

Initially it was intended to be a aircraft that combined the attributes of Fighter, Bomber (with capability to dive bomb) and reconnaissance aircraft.

In 1938 Admiral Dowling (Brother of Air Marshall Dowding of the RAF) picked the new Vickers/Supermarine Spitfire as the basis of a new Fleet fighter and so the requirement of being a fleet fighter was removed from the Faireys O.8/37 design.

At roughly the same time the ability to carry a Torpedo was added. The new Swordfish torpedo bomber was already being declared as obsolete in the face of rapid improvements in aircraft design and performance, despite only just starting to replace the older Blackburn Baffin and Blackburn Shark torpedo bombers and the Fulmar with its legacy design being a light bomber was further modified to carry a Torpedo with the aim of replacing the Swordfish and Skua dive bomber by EOY 1939

These changes delayed the final prototype until March 1939 and with the clouds of war appearing across Europe the aircraft was immediately ordered by the RN (now desperately trying to modernise their aircraft 'estate') before acceptance trials had even finished and the type was put into production with an initial run of 600 aircraft made the same month.

The final aircraft the Fulmar FTSR MK1 had the following attributes

General characteristics (licked finger in the air needs work)

Crew: Two
Length: 40 ft 2 in (12.25 m)
Wingspan: 46 ft 4¼ in (14.13 m)
Height: 14 ft 0 in (4.27 m)
Wing area: 342 ft² (32 m²)
Empty weight: 7,015 lb (3,182 kg)
Loaded weight: 9,672 lb (4,387 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 11,200 lb (5,080 kg)
Powerplant: 1 × Rolls-Royce Merlin 30 liquid-cooled inline V-12, 1,450 hp

Performance
Maximum speed: 278 mph at 7,250 ft (447 km/h at 2,200 m)
Range: 760 mi (1,255 km) without drop tanks
Service ceiling: 27,200 ft (8,300 m)
Wing loading: 28 lb/ft² (137 kg/m²)

Armament
8 × 0.303 in (7.7 mm) Browning machine guns wing-mounted, and occasionally 1 × .303 in (7.7 mm) Vickers K machine gun in rear cabin

1 × 1,670 lb (760 kg) torpedo or 1,500 lb (700 kg) mine under fuselage or 1,500 lb total of bombs under fuselage and wings.

Fairey however quickly ran into problems.

The company was struggling to fulfil RAF orders for the Fairey Battle Light Bomber (despite wanting to abandon light bombers production of suitable medium bombers was not enough to equip the growing number of RAF Squadrons so the Battle remained in production) and had also been chosen as the principle producer for the Navy's version of the Spitfire and was struggling to get the Fulmars production numbers into double figures by Sept 1939.

Worried by the delays and also concerned by the competition for the shared components for the Spitfire that the Sea Spitfire would use potentially delaying its production the Navy acted.

In Sept 1939 - war very nearly started for the UK when the Combined German-Russian invasion of Poland started - Britain being in another major war was no longer seen as a mere possibility but now a certainty.

The Navy in Oct re added the requirement for the Fulmar to act as a fleet fighter - luckily the design still retained the ability to mount 8 x Browning .303 MGs a holdover from the original requirement

Secondly Blackburn was contracted to build the Fulmar at its brand new modern facility at Sherburn-in-Elmet in Yorkshire - built to produce the Fairey Swordfish and its own Skua design the decision to replace both Aircraft with the more modern Multirole Fulmar had resulted in a sudden lack of orders for this factory as the original orders for both types had been cut/stopped and with the company familiar with Naval aircraft the choice made sense, and as it worked out, the majority of the first 600 Fulmars MK1s would be produced there.

The modern plant was soon out producing Fairey and on the outbreak of war with Germany in July 1940, 8 frontline and 10 training / replacement squadrons had been formed with a growing operational reserve.

This was enough to totally replace the Swordfish and Skuas on the New Armoured carriers Ark Royal and Illustrious as well as replacing 1 squadron of Swordfish on Furious, Courageous and Glorious.

While the Sea Spitfire was initially delayed by several issues enough had been produced to stand up 4 operation Squadrons with 4 Training / replacement squadrons and production issues had been largely overcome and the fighter was being produced at Faireys Hayes plant, Westland Aircraft Limited in Yeovil and Follands on the Hamble near Southampton.

This happy state of affairs lasted until the end of October 1940 and I must now bring the reader up to date with historical events as they had enfolded.

The war so many in Britain had predicted and feared eventually came to pass.

Despite having ensured Czechoslovakia's borders and sovereignty by standing up to Herr Hitler during the Munich conference in September 1938 and as many had hoped staved off war at least for a few years Germany's Military might had grown and had now effectively eclipsed that of France.

Germany having absorbed Austria during the relatively bloodless Anschluss in March 1938 and Much of Poland following the Joint German / Russian invasion of Poland on the 17th Sept 1939 (the day after the signing of the Molotov–Tōgō agreement) now turned its sights on Czechoslovakia - now surrounded both geographically and politically and weakened by what is now known to have been German backed factions dividing the nation.

On June 30th 1940 following days of violence after a Slovakian independence movement declaring the succession of Slovakia on the 19th June and on the same day several regions of the so called 'Sudetenland' also seceded from Czechoslovakia - Germany invaded the country under a pretext of restoring order and preventing what it claimed were the ethnic cleansing of Germans and Slovakians by the Czech armed forces.

The Reporter Clare Hollingworth despite heavy censorship was in the region and had noted the heavy German military build up from as early as the End of May and somewhat cynically would write that the German Government seemed very concerned for its 'citizens' welfare in Czechoslovakia.

On July 2nd Britain and France's ultimatum to Germany having not received a response both nations declared war on Germany.

The fighting in Czechoslovakia was fierce with heavy losses on both sides - but despite a spirited effort the main fighting only lasted 24 days until the last major military unit surrendered although the Government - now in London never formally did so.

Germany quickly then moved the bulk of its armed forces into the West of Germany before the French army had fully mobilised and the limited somewhat hesitant advance by a single French Army Corps quickly fell back on the Maginot line as the BEF's eventual total of 17 Divisions rushed into France as quickly as it could deploy taking up preplanned positions ready to advance into Belgium.

However Belgium remained Neutral.

At the end of July, Germany fearing efforts by the UK and France would interdict the strategically important iron ore supplies via Narvik invaded Denmark and Norway and both Britain and France scrambled to react.

This would be the first test of the Fulmar and early clashes with ME109 fighters, twin engine bombers exposed its fortes and foibles.

An early successes occurred when Ark Royals airgroup bombed Admiral Hipper and 2 of the 4 destroyers that had transported troops to Trondheim on Aug 1st - the 2 surviving destroyers quickly left the port and headed for open seas leaving the 1700 troops without much of their heavy equipment and supplies.

Several radar directed fighter interceptions resulted in a number of kills but conversely on 2 occasions dog fights with ME109s resulted in a negative kill rate proving the need for a modern fighter.

The successes by the RN during this campaign were all for nought as the German army invaded the Lowlands, Belgium and France in the first week of August and in an 11 campaign defeated the Allied armies and air forces with the Netherlands surrendering on Oct 3, Belgium on Oct 7th (the same day Italy declared war on the UK and France) with France asking for a ceasefire on the 17th Oct (when German advanced units reached the outskirts of Paris).

The Majority of BEF forces had already evacuated from several ports abandoning much of their equipment after the break through in the south of Belgium had isolated just over half the British force (and many allied units) against the Channel coast.

The same day Prime Minister (Alternative to Winston?) fearing that BEF forces would be trapped in France ordered all British forces now mostly West of the Seine to retreat to the closest port and as the French leadership were signing the Armistice and with that the western campaign came to a unhappy end.

What does all that have to do with the Fulmar?

Well as the last major units of the BEF were arriving back in the UK the RAF had lost over 1500 aircraft including over 600 precious fighters mostly Hurricanes but also a large number of Spitfires.

The decision was made to equip as many squadrons as possible with the Spitfire and this impacted production of the Sea Spitfire as all factories capable of building Spitfires and the associated components were now being leveraged to build up as many Spitfires as possible before Germany's gaze inevitably fell upon the United Kingdom.

This mean that the Royal Navy was unable to increase numbers of Sea Spitfire Squadrons before production restarted in Feb 41 and only had a limited stock of replacement airframes and spares and was forced to disband several 'Home Fleet' squadrons in order to maintain the interceptor Squadrons on the 2 Armoured carriers operating in the Med towards the end of 1940 and so the greater burden towards the latter part of 1940 and the early part of 1941 fell upon the Fulmar.

In the next installment - 'Judgement Day' the Fulmar verse the Italians in the Mediterranean
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