Fairey Spearfish

History in brief:


In 1943, the British Naval Air Service drew up technical specifications for the O.5/43, articulating its requirements for a new deck-mounted torpedo bomber. The requirements were high for the time; the new aircraft had to carry a torpedo, be capable of dive bombing, perform reconnaissance or anti-submarine patrol flights, the armament had to be more effective, and the performance had to be higher than all previous types had achieved.


The technical specifications were passed directly to H.E.Chaplin - the chief designer of the Fairey company. Thus the project of a large single-engine aircraft was born, which was to be powered by a powerful 18-cylinder Bristol Centaurus 57 engine with a maximum output of 2,580 horsepower.


Work on the prototype began, but prototype construction did not have the necessary priority, so there were delays and the first prototype (RA356) did not fly for the first time until 5 July 1945, at a time when there was still interest in a similar aircraft for wartime operations in the Pacific. However, it was a forlorn hope, for immediately after the first flights it was found that even the use of the most powerful Centaurus (version 58, 2,840 hp) could not rid the Spearfish prototypes of their clumsiness, awkwardness and reluctance to climb. On the other hand, we must remember that the aircraft had a takeoff weight of almost 10 tons (with overloading, it easily exceeded that weight). The top speed did not exceed 470 km/h (470 mph) and the Fairey Barracuda Mk.V bomber with the Grifon VII engine passed the tests with almost no problems.


The Spearfish, as the new aircraft was called, however, brought many interesting things in terms of design. The engine was aerodynamically finely cocooned despite its massiveness, the five-bladed Rotol propeller of the VH-65 type was reversed, this reversed propeller thrust was to be used to arrest a dive, it was certainly an interesting solution, but in the end this was replaced by conventional brake flaps in the wings which extended above and below the wing. The Spearfish was a large all-metal mid-plane, with a bomb bay under the wing in the fuselage that could hold a single 457mm torpedo, or the larger American 560mm calibre, for anti-submarine operations it was planned to be able to hang depth charges or bombs up to 907 kg in the bomb bay, for reconnaissance flights it was planned to install an additional fuel tank with a capacity of 818 litres, this tank was also to be carried in the bomb bay. The aircraft then carried a total of 2,678 litres of fuel and could be airborne for a respectable six hours. Behind the bomb bay was a slide-out housing with ASV Mk.XV radar. The barrel armament consisted entirely of 12.7mm Browning machine guns, two were fixed in the wings and two were to be in the FN-95 remotely operated gun turret, however no Spearfish aircraft had the turret installed.


The trials were not completed until after the war, the machines produced ( three prototypes RA356, RA360 and RA363 and one pre-production aircraft RN241) were used for various trials. The last Spearfish was scrapped only in 1952. 37 Barracudas Mk.V were produced in place of the Spearfish.


Resources:
L+K 12/95 Aircraft 39-45
http://www.airwar.ru/enc/sea/spearfish.html
www.fleetairarmarchive.net
http://www.vectorsite.net/avsword.html#m6
avia.russian.ee
www.jaapteeuwen.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Spearfish
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Fairey Spearfish