1953 Coronation flypast

[Rheged]

How long would a RAF Review take today?

About 10 mins..................

That long?

Much longer!!  The cunning plan is to include the Swordfishes from the FAA  Historic Flight.  If they are aviating into a brisk headwind, it will take them at least 25 minutes to fly past!!

Too brisk a headwind and they'll be going backwards  Dad had some wonderfull stories of trying to persuade Swordfish to land on a carrier deck whilst he was serving on escort carriers

My uncle had similar tales of getting an Albacore on the ground at Akureyri.  I  think that they considered getting it to come in as low as possible, whilst the handling  crew dragged it out of the sky and pinned it to the ground!

[NARSES2]

My uncle had similar tales of getting an Albacore on the ground at Akureyri.  I  think that they considered getting it to come in as low as possible, whilst the handling  crew dragged it out of the sky and pinned it to the ground!

Similar story to my dads. The Swordfish telegraphist was sharing a mess with the seaman (the stokers might have eat him  ) and swore to the lads that on one occasion they had been overtaken by a seagull and that on another he swore blind they were going backwards---- the pilot swore him to secrecy over that one, took no notice of that though.

[rickshaw]

I thought they just put the carrier into reverse and backed it up, under the Stringbag and the deck crew reached up and grabbed in and pulled it down onto the deck? 

[Logan Hartke]

My uncle had similar tales of getting an Albacore on the ground at Akureyri.  I  think that they considered getting it to come in as low as possible, whilst the handling  crew dragged it out of the sky and pinned it to the ground!

Similar story to my dads. The Swordfish telegraphist was sharing a mess with the seaman (the stokers might have eat him  ) and swore to the lads that on one occasion they had been overtaken by a seagull and that on another he swore blind they were going backwards---- the pilot swore him to secrecy over that one, took no notice of that though.

Yeah, my grandfather was on the USS Ranger in the late '50s and early '60s and they had a USMC observation unit that embarked to drop off at a base.  The Bird Dogs landed without issue, but the takeoff was the interesting thing.  Once a couple of guys let go of the struts, they almost went straight up when the carrier was sailing into the wind.

As for Swordfish stories, one of my favorites was about a convoy in the Mediterranean that was being escorted by a British carrier.  An Italian flotilla of surface ships (cruisers, destroyers, etc.) came in, hit the convoy, then sailed away at flank speed.  Swordfish were almost immediately launched to attack the Italian ships escaping to the north.  Unfortunately, a storm had brewed up and a 30 knot wind was blowing in from the north, as well.  Well, here you have a group of fully loaded Swordfish red-lined, going at most 90 knots with a torpedo, heading into a 30+ knot headwind, chasing 30+ knot Italian ships.  Despite having been launched while the enemy ships were still within sight of the convoy, they almost ran out of fuel before they closed on the ships.  Finally, they got to the extreme range of the torpedoes and they dropped them--albeit without scoring any hits--then had to head back if they wanted to land.



You know your naval strike aircraft is slow when the enemy ships are outrunning you.

Cheers,

Logan

[The Wooksta!]

Another tale is that the Kriegsmarine gunners computers couldn't fire on the Swordfish attacking them (not sure if this was the Bismark or the Channel Dash) as they were so slow and thus below their speed tolerances.

[Logan Hartke]

The Channel Dash had the famous issue of Luftwaffe fighters having to lower their landing gear just to stay behind them long enough to shoot them down.

Cheers,

Logan