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After the Second World War Fairey built the record breaking FD2 jet and diversified into rotary wing aircraft, mechanical engineering and boat building. The aircraft manufacturing arm was taken over by Westland in 1960.
This article represents a Jet Age Reserve Model Collection history of Fairey aircraft, as displayed at St Margarets Hall for the Cheltenham GWR Modeller's Exhibition in aid of CLIC Sargeant in October 2009.
The legendary ‘Stringbag’ Fairey Swordfish, was a Torpedo
Spotter Reconnaissance biplane which went into service with the
Fleet Air Arm in 1936 and could carry an unlikely combination of loads. The
Swordfish remained operational until the end of the war, gaining the
distinction of being the last biplane to see active service.
In September 1939 the Fleet Air Arm had 13 squadrons
equipped with Swordfishes, most of them based on the six fleet carriers, and
three flights of Swordfishes with floats, that operated from catapult-equipped
warships.
After 1942 the Swordfish was replaced in its
torpedo-bombing role by the Fairey Albacore, Fairey Barracuda and Grumman
Avenger, and was employed in anti-submarine missions and was provided with a
anti surface vessel radar ( between the landing legs) and air-to-surface
rockets. Swordfishes also operated from 14 escort carriers and 18 MAC (Merchant
Aircraft Carrier) ships. MAC ships were converted oil tankers or grain ships,
with a flight deck but minimal maintenance facilities, and the aircraft were
continuously exposed to the often Arctic weather conditions. For operations
from small flight decks with heavy loads, rocket-assisted take-offs were
necessary.
First flown on 10 March 1936, the Fairey Battle carried the pilot and air gunner/ radio operator in a long "glasshouse" cockpit and a bomb aimer/ observer in a prone position in the bottom of the fuselage. The Battle had very limited defensive armament, carrying one 0.303" Browning machine gun on a mounting in the back of the cockpit.
On 20 september 1939 a Fairey Battle of 88 uadron shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109 - the first RAF kill of the war. However, during 1940 the Battle was to prove incredibly vulnerable when attacked by German fighters.
Just how vulnerable the Battle was would become tragically clear after the start of the German Blitzkrieg in the West. Battles would make desperate low level attacks on the advancing German troops. This reduced its vulnerability to German fighters but massively increased the numbers being shot down by anti-aircraft - and even small arms - fire.
Like the German Stuka, the Battle could only safely operate in areas where it was protected by local air superiority. Unlike the Stuka, it was almost never to operate under such conditions.
Just as Avions Fairey were preparing to build Hawker Hurricanes under licence however the factory was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe on 10 May 1940. The company personnel were evacuated to England via France although 12 perished when their ship was also sunk by German bombers.
Following the War, Avions Fairey restarted at Charleroi by servicing Belgian Air Force C-7 Dakotas before producing 240 Gloster Meteor IV jet fighters for the Belgian and Dutch Air Forces in association with Fokker. From 1953 to 1958 256 Hawker Hunter fuselages were also built at Charleroi, again for the air forces of Belgium and The Netherlands, and did a similar job for the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter after 1962. After Fairey in the UK bought Britten-Norman, Avions Fairey assembled Romanian-built Islander and Trislander aircraft for flight to the UK and the Charleroi company was later bought by the Belgian Government to work on ts General Dynamics F-16s. On 1 June 1976 Avions Fairey became part of SONACA.
The Fairey Fulmar emerged in 1938 as an
adaption to Specification O.8/38 for a two-seat Naval fighter, of the PA/34 day
bomber: essentially a navalised Battle. Differences included a small reduction
in wing span, folding wings, deck-arrester gear, catapult points, modified
cockpit canopy, naval equipment and use of a 1,275 hp Merlin VIII. Armament
comprised eight Browning 0.303-in guns in the wings and provision for a similar
Vickers K gun in the rear cockpit. One P.4/34 prototype was converted to test
features of Fairey Fulmar in March 1938.
A total of 250 Fairey Fulmer Is were built for the Fleet Air Arm, the first
flight being on January 4, 1940, with a Merlin VIII engine. The first entered
service June 1940 with No 808 Squadron and began operations during September
1940 on Malta convoys. Fulmars equipped 14 front-line squadrons by the end of 1942
including one in Egypt and one in India.
The Fairey Fulmar also operated
as night-intruder from shore bases, including Malta, and as night-fighter with
No 813 Squadron on Russian convoys. One was even captured and operated by Vichy
French forces at Dakar in 1941.
The
Firefly was to the Fleet Air Arm what the Mosquito was to the RAF. By far the
most effective carrier-based aeroplane of British design to be flown during
World War II, it was used for virtually every task a naval aircraft is called
upon to carry out. Entering service in March 1943, the first aircraft went
aboard an aircraft carrier in the following July of that year.
In 1944
Fairey Firefly aircraft of 1770 Naval Air Squadron took part in the attack on
the German battleship Tirpitz. The Firefly squadrons then went to the
Pacific, at the beginning of 1945, and there undertook many distinguished and
successful missions including rocket attacks on vital oil supplies.
The
Firefly had a wide-track undercarriage, smaller than the Fulmar, and was provided
with a more powerful engine, a single 2,250hp Rolls Royce Griffin 74 engine.
The design was deliberately conventional, to bring it into service quickly, and
with the trailing edge provided with patented Youngman flaps for use at low
speeds and in cruise. Unlike the installation on the later Fairey Barracuda,
these flaps could be recessed into the wing. Early Fireflies had a deep
'beard' radiator, while later models had wing leading root intakes.
The
Firefly was regarded as a versatile aircraft, taking part not only in WWII but
also in the Korean war. The last of the 1702 built was delivered in 1956. The
Firefly ended its naval career as a target drone.
Fairey Type Q VR546 made the first deck landing by a turbo-prop aircraft aboard HMS Illustrious on 19th June 1950 and was to evolve into the Fairey AS1 Gannet with the addition of a dedicated radar operator in a separate rear cockpit and a lengthened weapons bay to accommodate torpedos. This in turn required vertical finlets to be added to the tailplane to increase directional stability.
The RN's first operational Gannet squadron (826 NAS) embarked on HMS Eagle in 1954 and trainer versions first appeared in 1955. These T2 Gannets were particularly needed as the Double Mambas handled very differently to piston engines, especially when sudden demands for power were made.
Gannets were also purchased by Germany, Australia and Indonesia and also appeared in Royal Navy service in Carrier Onboard Delivery and Airborne Early Warning guises. Royal Navy Gannet AEW3 XL500 was also fitted with a boom extending forward from the fixed portion of its port wing to house a microphone to measure the noise of its contra-rotating Dowty propellers. This was part of a development of acoustic prediction techniques by the Staverton based company and XL500 later became RN airframe A2701 stored at Lee on Solent.