The British Carrier Strike Fleet. David Hobbs

      Seafire FR 47s equipped front-line squadrons but a number of earlier versions, such as this Seafire F 17 of 771 NAS at RNAS Lee-on-Solent, continued in use until the early 1950s. (Author’s collection)

      The other legacy types were the Seafire and the Barracuda. The latter had been built in large numbers for the RN during the war as a torpedo/dive-bomber /reconnaissance aircraft. With the reduced torpedo attack role being assumed by the Firebrand, a number of Barracudas were scrapped or ditched at sea but a single unit, 815 NAS, was retained with the radar-equipped AS 3 variant for the development of airborne anti-submarine tactics based ashore at RNAS Eglinton after 1945. The type’s 1642hp Merlin 32 engine had only given it a marginal performance and Lend-Lease Grumman Avengers had replaced it in the BPF. Of interest, delays in producing a replacement led to the transfer by the USN of 100 Avengers to the RN under the Mutual Defence Assistance Plan (MDAP). Some of these re-equipped 815 NAS in 1953 giving the Barracuda the unique distinction of having been replaced in service by the same type on two occasions nine years apart.

      The Seafire was also built in large numbers and both production and development continued after 1945 as the Griffon-engined F 15 replaced the Mark III.³⁴ They were the only fighters available to replace the Lend-Lease Corsairs and Hellcats and gradually equipped all the operational fighter squadrons as the situation stabilised after 1946. The RN procured 791 Griffon-engined Seafires after 1945, the final variant being the FR 47 with a 2375hp Rolls-Royce Griffon engine. It had an improved undercarriage which made it less susceptible to deck landing accidents and an armament of four 20mm cannon.³⁵ Hardpoints under the fuselage and wings could each carry a single 500lb bomb or 90-gallon drop tanks and rails for four 3in rockets with 60lb warheads could be fitted under each wing. Oblique cameras could be installed aft of the cockpit to give a reconnaissance capability, hence the FR designation. The type’s weakest feature was its radius of action of only 150nm on internal fuel, although drop tanks could increase this to 250nm with a small bomb load. The Seafire FR 47 was the last variant of the Spitfire/Seafire line and differed radically from the early versions produced a decade earlier but it was never able to overcome its diminutive size and the weakness stemming from its lightweight airframe and undercarriage. A developed airframe with a new ‘laminar-flow’ wing named the Seafang was flown in prototype form but had unpleasant handling qualities, offered little advantage over the FR 47 and was cancelled.

      The British aircraft industry ran down quickly after 1945 with the end of the ‘shadow’ factory scheme and every firm sought to rationalise its production capacity to meet the new peacetime reality. Aircraft such as the Seafire and Firefly had been ordered in large batches but many of these were cancelled and, henceforward, types were generally ordered in small numbers which increased the individual price of an aircraft but decreased the sums required in the annual naval estimates, a process that became familiar over the next seventy years. The methods used to develop new types by the British aircraft industry were outdated and in need of radical modernisation as aircraft became more complex and this contributed to the slow progress with which the new generation of jet and turbo-prop aircraft were introduced during this period. However, the massive reduction in orders after 1945 gave little inducement for change. The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at Farnborough was tasked by the Government with developing the technology of flight and would suggest new developments to both the Admiralty and industry. ‘Undercarriage-less’ landing on a flexible deck, ‘swing-wings’, swept wings and ‘zero-length’ launches are examples of the Establishment’s advanced ideas, some of them derived from captured German technology. The Admiralty took up ideas that appeared useful for the next generation of naval aircraft and issued requirements to the Ministry of Supply which took over the responsibility for military aircraft procurement from the Ministry of Aircraft Production after 1945. The Ministry would give advice on the practicality of producing aircraft to meet the specification and, if general agreement was reached, issue a specification and request for proposals to firms it deemed ‘suitable’. Of interest, Saunders Roe had to meet all the costs of its own submission to the specification that evolved into the SR 177 Joint Strike Fighter because, with background of flying boat manufacture, the Ministry of Supply did not consider it to be ‘suitable’.

      A number of firms would often offer sketch designs and it was usual to give a contract to two of these for the construction of one or two prototypes which were evaluated against each other. It would have been impossible for the firms to cost a project accurately at this stage because they would not know the size of the production quantity. The prototypes that were selected would then undergo proof testing by the manufacturer followed by acceptance tests of the airframe, systems and armament by the RAE and, finally, service trials including deck landing so that the type could eventually be released for naval use. This tortuous process was made even longer by the separate development of systems such as radar at the Royal Radar Establishment (RRE), which designed sets speculatively without a defined aircraft project in mind, and engine manufacturers who designed new power units which often had no specific application at first. Radios, armament and other systems were usually Admiralty or Air Ministry-supplied items and modifications to new aircraft designs might be needed to fit them. No matter how good the initial specification had been, protracted development led to changes being specified to meet the latest front-line requirement and these added to the time needed to achieve front-line capability. As if these potential causes of delay were not enough, the majority of British aircraft manufacturers built prototypes by hand in special departments that were often remote in both location and thought processes from the production sites. If they were selected for production, the prototype would have to be ‘reverse-engineered’ to make the design suitable for large-scale production. Prototypes were ordered in small numbers, as they had been with the simple biplanes of the 1930s, but now had to fulfil a number of different tests to evaluate airframes, engines, armament, radar avionics and carrier compatibility which had to be carried out sequentially and added to the delay. The loss of a prototype could set a new type’s entry into service back by years. The lesson was eventually learnt and in the mid-1950s the Admiralty ordered twenty Blackburn NA39 Buccaneer prototypes so that testing could be carried out concurrently

      This was the situation in the late 1940s, made even worse by limited funding, but the Admiralty had to maintain a latent capability through the manpower crisis and replace obsolescent aircraft types at a time when politicians saw no immediate threat to the UK. Existing stocks of legacy aircraft had to equip the front line for longer than had been intended and it was against this background that the requirements for the new generation of jet and turbo-prop naval aircraft were drawn up. Jet fighters had entered service with the RAF in 1944; they were at the start of their development process whereas piston-engined aircraft were probably close to their limits. A prototype RN Sea Vampire, LZ 551/G, was the world’s first jet aircraft to land on a carrier when Lieutenant Commander E M Brown landed on Ocean in December 1945. It had a good view of the deck but had to use a new technique in which the aircraft was flown into the deck at constant speed without closing the throttles. This, together with a slow engine response, gave concerns about climbing away after a baulked approach. The Sea Vampire had a high top speed but its endurance was even more limited than the Seafire and although the RN formed second-line jet fighter units to give pilots experience of the new technology and tactics, none were embarked on a regular basis as a component part of a carrier air group. To add to the Admiralty’s concern, aviation turbine fuel, known as avtur, was not yet refined in the UK and had to be bought from the USA in dollars, making jet aviation expensive. On the other hand, it had a higher flashpoint than avgas and could be stored in carriers’ double bottoms like furnace fuel oil, greatly increasing the amount a single ship could carry and significantly reducing the risk of fire or explosion.