Fairy Spearfish controls.

There is a wonderful 3 page ‘thumbnail’ flight test report on the Spearfish in Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown’s book Wings of the Wierd and Wonderful volume 1.

In which he states tht before hydaulic airlerons were fited: ‘The Spearfish had heavy controls in cruising flight and in fact the lateral control was so solid I could barely move the ailerons with one hand at 150mph.’

Hope this helps Steve.

On pp 171 of my edition of Wings on my Sleeve Brown says that “The Spearfish had its troubles and never went beyond the prototype stage. We eventually used it as a hack for arrester gear and catapult development work.” concise but not particularly illuminating. (Incidentally, is anyone else’s copy of that book falling to pieces as badly as mine is? I have the Phoenix paperback edition and it hasn’t had very heavy wear but all the pages of falling out!)

I sit corrected on the spelling of Fairey. :o:rolleyes:

This is what Wikipedia says ‘The Admiralty refused to accept the Spearfish for service use.
Richard

Not sure if that is absolutely the case, the Spearfish became obsolete quite early on its life, Faireys’ were all ready concentrating on a twin engine (initially Merlin, but very quickly becoming turbine) design which incorporated various roles, eventually matured as the Gannet, and the Admiralty were showing full support for this.
The Spearfish wasn’t seriously being thought of for service use by the time that if reached initial trials – I dare say if it was it would have been modified suitably for full service carrier use.

This is what Wikipedia says ‘The Admiralty refused to accept the Spearfish for service use. The aircraft had such heavy controls that in bad weather a pilot circling a carrier whilst waiting to land was forced to fly such a wide circuit that he could not keep the carrier in sight.’ which if true it must have been b****y awful.
Somewhere else it said it had servo tab ailerons but that these were going to be replaced by hydraulically operated servo ailerons on production aircraft.
Incidentally its a Fairey not the other sort that live at the bottom of the garden, they had very light flying controls.

Richard

I think the Spearfish had powered controls – a Fulmar was modified as a testbed for the systems.

Haven’t heard any assessments of their efficacy though. I’d imagine as pagen01 says that as a type stillborn early in its development, there was little effort put into solving niggles like this. Same goes for the Blackburn Firecrest which I understand had some control issues.

Did Winkle Brown ever fly the Spearfish, and if so, does he refer to it in Wings on My Sleeve?

This is a very particular subject you are after, you might find test pilot reports (Fairey & A&AEE) in the The National Archives (TNA), or with existing Fairey files, many I believe or with Ian Huntley. W.A.harrison may also be a good contact and he does post here occasionally.
I have heard of the heavy controls and that they weren’t a huge issue.
This is an absolute guess (and am willing to be corrected) but would have thought the size of the control surfaces and lack of more modern servos and control sysytems were partly to blame, the fact that production was a no go from quite early on (Gannet decided on by then) and that they were only used for trials work, probably meant further develpement wasn’t worth it.

Neither Putnam’s Aircraft of the Royal Navy or Fairy Aircraft Since mention this problem, but Putnam don’t tend to elaborate on drawbacks, concentrating instead on the design and development process. The Fairy volume does mention the prototype’s and pre-production aircraft being used for many years, suggesting that whatever problems they might have been were either overcome, or not that serious.