XN923The reason they ditched withou too much damage is that they were built to stay afloat after ditching – In fact one floated ahore during Scharnhorst (IIRC) raids -There is a picture of it in Peter Smiths book
True, but the ones that survive tended to have sunk. The aircraft that conveniently floated were generally recovered and broken up. Some parts of these aircraft survive – u/c legs as jacks in a garage, prop blades as gateposts (!), but the ones that remain substantially complete until today were put down without being shot up too badly before they reached terra firma – or whatever the watery equivalent is. Any of the Skuas that were going at some speed when they went in generally yield only fragments.
I imagine Barracudas also had bouyant chambers designed in – most naval aircraft specified that they should float after ditching.
XN923The problem would be searching. What actions used Barracuda in that area and where did some go down? The cost of searching must be quite high unless you have a mate who has a boat and sonar equipment.
How much would all that cost?
Mark
Operation Tungsten, Operation Mascot and Operations Goodwood 1, 2 and 3, all against the Tirpitz and all in more or less the same place. There were at least two Barracudas shot down, but the condition might not be so good. The reason for some ‘lucky’ Skua finds is that some were ditched without too much damage having been done or force landed on frozen lakes that later melted.
Mark is right that locating wrecks is not a cheap business – Klas Gjoeslmi who was behind the location of Casson’s Skua had a lot of support from the NTNU who provided the boat and the ROV and in return were able to use the exercise as education for students and considerable credit is due to all of them for making this work.
I believe the Stirling is a war grave.
XN923Interesting photos – obviously the water is murky and the aircraft has been down there for decades but the fusealge roundel looks like what we refer to as a Type C1 today (ie: thin Yellow and White rings). This was not generally introduced until May 1942 yet the aircraft was lost in 1940? :confused:
This one for Lee Howard perhaps – but did the Royal Navy use a similar roundel back in 1940, the RAF certainly did not.
It does look that way, doesn’t it? It isn’t a C type roundel though. Just before the Narvik operation, all the Skuas on Ark Royal were very hastily repainted with A1 type roundels and fin flashes, but because of the speed with which this was done, regulation dimensions seem to have gone out the window. 800 and 803 squadron ended up with fuselage roundels that had a narrower than standard yellow band and a larger red spot, and they were pretty irregular in places as well. They probably differed from aircraft to aircraft – look for photos of L2963 which was also on this raid. I dare say the 67 years of immersion has had some effect on this aircraft’s paintwork, and has probably made the red appear to spread a little.
Other ‘interpretations’ of the A1 markings can be seen at this time – 801 squadron had fin flash bands that grew wider towards the base of the fin, rather than being vertical. I imagine vague instructions were given to RN squadrons in June 1940 and they applied them as quickly as possible.
XN923Bump? Surely BANG or KABOOOM would be more appropriate 😀
…Not when you are talking about British ordnance from the early part of the Second World War.
XN923…Or indeed a MkIb – were these converted to Vb status? (I think Geoffrey Wellum suggests as much but pilot’s memories aren’t always the best guide to this sort of thing)
XN923Tim, shes a B2, if u havent seen this site already, then click the link below, and on the Survivors page its got a nice bit about 163. The pages are done by the forums LesB who just happens to be a jolly nice chap 😀 Bex
Doesn’t she have the wings and engines of a Mk6? I have heard her referred to as ‘the only Canberra B.2/6’ – or is this just an airshow commentator’s conceit?
XN923Charge of the Light Brigade, that’s one I was thinking, others are Zulu (but UK Made? I’m not sure?), or perhaps Gallipoli?
The sinking of the HMS Glorious, there was a UK Documentary done. Hasn’t seen light of day this side of the pond, done 10 years ago. IMHO it would make a for a stunning Action Drama dispite the lose of the entire RN Unit. The brave fight of two distroyers protecting their charge, HMS Glorious, against two of the biggest capital ships in the Atlantic. Heroic stuff, they even got their licks in partially disabling the Scharnhorst. Perhaps seen as too shameful to the RN. No air assets doing recce, no spotters in the crows nest, no A/C on standby to take off and fight…what were they thinking?!? But the heroics of the DD’s really was the stuff legends are make of. Go back and read the accounts. Great, though sad stuff.
Hmm. Very sore point in the RN this. The full facts of what happened (or rather, why it was allowed to happen) won’t be known until the Board of Enquiry details are released in 2040. There’s a lot of ill feeling around this and would probably be very controversial, even now. The Norwegian campaign as a whole is probably ripe for reappraisal actually. Reading about it a lot recently and was reminded of the Falklands – i.e. a task force hastily cobbled together to fight a campaign it wasn’t prepared, equipped or trained to fight, making it up as they went along and actually close to (at least partial) success – the Narvik landings were the first proof that a heavily defended shore could be taken. Sadly by this time Britain and France had their backs to the wall so Norway was untenable.
All I can say is watch this space.
XN923Please excuse my ignorance, but is it a problem if the winds move / turn the props?
Is there any more news as it to if / when we might see a Shac gracing our (UK!) skys once more?
Regards
927
I saw someone demonstrating the contra-props on one of the Gatwick Shackletons once, by pushing the blades round by hand. Didn’t look like there was too much resistance.
Can’t imagine it does the engine too much good though.
XN923Are there any photo’s of this lost Skua…
There will be…
(In a rather fat softback book with orange trim :dev2: )
Seriously, there is a really good one in the magazine referred to, and there was even some film on the internet (sorry don’t have the link on me)
XN923BTW: Has the UK produced a film where it lost the battle? (none come to mind..) If it did, did it make money in the UK ?:D
We Brits love to lose, as long as we do so valiantly and play the game for the game’s sake! Look at films like ‘Scott of the Antarctic’. Even films like ‘Aces High’ – if an alien landed tomorrow and watched it with no knowledge of the war, he might be forgiven for thinking the British and French lost. ‘Angels One-Five’ – ends in the death of the main character. ‘The Way to the Stars’ – more about coping with grief than who won. The Life and Death of Col. Blimp – about how playing the game for the game’s sake might not be enough any more. Even in ‘Battle of Britain’ we only win because Hitler screws up.
It’s a cultural trait. I’d say liking to win is a more healthy cultural trait really! Perhaps we in Britain need to stop being Victorians and learning that ‘win’ isn’t a four-letter word.
XN923An update..
“I have checked with Bodo, they now say that Skua L2991 was the one that crashed at Ålesund April 26th. (Filmer/Baldwin) I guess that we have to wait until we have raised the wreckage in order to find the correct serial.
Sorry for giving you the wrong information.”
Just goes to show how much anything from this part of the war is a minefield in terms of missing and contradictory info. Speaking from experience, it is so easy to let faulty info creep in and I don’t blame Peter in the slightest (I’ve seen Casson’s a/c cited as L2991 and L2992 in various sources going back years). His book is the definitive Skua reference as far as I am concerned and a superb book by any measure.
BTW some of the survivors and relatives of the aircrews from the raid in which this aircraft crashed met in Trondheim last week to commemorate the event in which eight aircrews were shot down. By all accounts it was a very moving ceremony. In addition, Denis Rolph, who is the brother of the late Dickie Rolph (800 Squadron’s senior TAG in 1940 and present at the raid on the 13th June) presented the NLM Bodo with a Skua radio receiver (I think a R1082) for display and eventual use in their rebuild.
We are getting closer to a complete Skua!
XN923I emailed Peter C Smith on this issue…
He replied…
“Casson’s crate should be L2991, but until the boys at Bodo Museum get her up out of the water, they are treating this with caution – but it should be. Sorry about the typo not picked up at proofing, one of several I fears. Hope did not spoil book too much for you.”
Interesting. L2991 was ditched by Lieutenant C.H. Filmer near Alesund in May 1940, and although it was towed to the shore and pulled out of the water by British forces, significant damage had been done. The engine mounting and forward fuselage had been ripped off by the impact and the machine had been hit by machine gun fire from a Heinkel He111. The version I heard was that L2991 had been recovered largely to fool German forces (though to what end I am not sure) – there is actually some contemporary colour film of this taking place. A number of Skuas were force landed in Norway and in some cases were in very good condition, but generally they were destroyed to stop them falling into enemy hands – the British and Norwegian armies generally had too much on their plates to arrange for crashed machines to be transported back to the RN.
So I suppose this could possibly be L2991 but I hadn’t previously thought it likely. I wonder what the basis for this is? I’ll drop Peter a line and check with him.
XN923Bearing in mind that there were no changes to the fin and the two rudders interchange, the prime reason for the pointy tip may just be to maintain the horn balance ahead of the rudder hinge axis to compensate for the broader chord behind the hinge axis.
Mark
…Or it could be that 😀
XN923Why did they replace the early rudder type with the broad chord rudder type?
It looks to give more drag and problably weight as well?
I imagine weight increase would be negligible – rather less than increases from things like Hispano cannon, two-stage superchargers and so on.
As far as the pointy tip is concerned, from the little cod-aerodynamics I know, this would seem to be to encourage the vortex further up the rudder and try to get it to bleed off the tip instead of further down. low-aspect ratio foils with blunt tips tend to lose some of the effective length of the device and have a larger vortex bleeding energy from the whole. A falcon’s wing is one way of doing this by bringing the tip to a point. An eagle’s wing is another way, with the turbulence bled off bit by bit, but still allowing a broad tip and lots of area for soaring.
Anyway, I imagine the broader chord rudder allows greater area and directional stability/control, while the pointed tip recovers some of the lost efficiency from the extra wetted area.
XN923Give me some money, a hangar, some ex-TSR2 mechs, a foundry, and a conservative government…………….
If we’re getting political, remind me what political hue Duncan Sandys was again?
…Speaking of which, I’d love to see in the flesh (so to speak) some of the aircraft that would have in all probability entered service were it not for the 1957 White Paper (even if that’s not really in the remit of this thread…) The Saunders-Roe SR177 for example, which must have been spectacular with both jet and rocket lit. I picked up a model kit of it the other day and was surprised at how big it would have been – similar size to a Lightning.
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