Fleet Air Arm Grumman Panther

[Weaver]

This was my entry for the "Coulda Woulda Shoulda" group build over on BTS. Between my ham-fistedness and various paint problems the build was a nightmare, but it came out sort of okay in the end (still flattered by the photography though).

American Big Cats in Britain
The FAA's Ferocious Felines

In June 1946, the new British Government formed a committee, lead by the respected economist Sir Charles Brokensha, to examine the future prospects for Britain and it's empire. The report, delivered some 18 months later, was possibly the most influential document of the post-war years, since it laid out a future that most politicians didn't want to hear, but did so with such meticulously logical reasoning, backed up by a wealth of evidence, that it's conclusions were inarguable. Britain was broke: it was going to lose it's empire, it was going to see it's role in the world diminished, and the sooner it started adapting to the new realities, the less painful the inevitable adjustments would be.

The report also made it clear that any policy to deal with this situation would fail if it was subject to the flip-flops and reversals of partisan politics so the first thing the Attlee government did was to hold secret talk with the Conservative party to gain agreement on the basic principles. The Conservatives relished the report even less than Labour, but it was Winston Churchill himself, perhaps more aware of Britain's precarious position than anyone, who swung the debate in the report's favour by portraying it's acceptance by the Conservatives in terms of making a sacrifice for the greater good of the country. Cross-party agreement having been reached, the Brokensha report was made public. It provoked howls of  indignation in the press, the Daily Telegraph re-christening it the "Broke and Scared" report, but with both major parties behind it, the controversy was weathered, and a host of committees and panels set up to apply the Brokensha principles to all areas of government policy, domestic and foreign, civilian and military.

The panels set up to apply the Brokensha principles to aviation and naval policy quickly arrived at some interlocking and far-reaching conclusions, one of which was that there was no point in Britain continuing to develop it's own naval aircraft. Britain's carrier force was likely to diminish rapidly in the near future to the point where it didn't represent a viable market for such aircraft, the Americans wouldn't buy British aircraft for domestic political reasons whatever their technical merit, and the rest of the world's requirements added up to less than the Royal Navy's. Limited research and development budgets, they argued, should be spent on areas of aviation where there were either real commercial prospects or a genuinely unique military requirement to meet. If the Royal Navy was going to stay in the carrier business, it would have to do so on the coat-tails of the US Navy.

This decision lead to yet more howls of protest, this time from an aircraft industry and unions concerned about technological leadership and jobs, but in fact, there was little loss of either. It quickly became apparent to planners that a number of American naval aircraft were already either using British engines or could be improved by them, and it proved possible to negotiate licence production agreements that meant that much of the resulting work and expenditure would remain in Britain, cushioning both the industry and the balance or payments. The obvious aircraft to pick as a jet fighter was the Rolls Royce Nene powered Grumman F9F Panther, and the government was careful to ensure that the Hawker Siddeley Aircraft conglomerate got the licence production deal in compensation for the cancellation of Hawker's own Nene-powered naval fighter, the P.1040, which was in many ways very similar to the American aircraft.

Hawker assigned production of the Panther to Gloster Aircraft, although many aircraft were actually made by their Armstrong Whitworth subsidiary. Adaption of the Panther to Fleet Air Arm standards proved relatively painless since it was already a naval aircraft, the biggest headache being the re-engineering of the wing-fold mechanism to "over-fold" so that the aircraft would fit in the RN carriers' 17'6" high hangars. British radios and armaments were provided for, and the Colt Mk.12 cannons were replaced by standard British Hispano Mk.Vs. British-built Grumman-Gloster Panther FGA.1s began delivery to the Fleet Air Arm in January 1950.

A more serious problem was finding carriers to fly the new jets from. The Colossus class light fleet carriers and their derivatives proved too short for safe and practical operations. Training was possible using Indomitable and Indefatigable, but these wartime carriers' hangars were too low to strike the aircraft below decks, and reconstruction had been ruled out following Brokensha. Only the two new Eagles, which had had their design modified during construction, would be both long enough to operate the Panthers and tall enough to hangar them, but although well advanced, due to resources having been diverted to them from the cancelled battleship Vanguard, they were both several years away from completion due to the post-war slow down. Events would soon change that, however.

When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, the only Royal Navy carrier able to respond was the Colossus class HMS Theseus with her complement of piston-engined Sea Furies and Fireflies. When this became known, the British press went without a blink from berating the government for it's "sell-out" purchase of the American Panthers to berating them for not being able to deploy them to a war zone. The government didn't need much prompting anyway: completion of Eagle and Ark Royal was given "super priority" status at the expense of the Centaur class carriers then in build, and after a hasty work up, Eagle deployed to Korea in March 1951, Ark Royal following in January 1952. Although the two ships were unable to maintain a continuous presence, requiring the deployment of Colossus class carriers to fill the gaps, they still made an extremely valuable contribution.

Ironically, despite having been bought as fighters, the Fleet Air Arm Panthers spent most of their time in Korea on ground attack duties which could and were carried out with equal facility by the piston-engined aircraft they'd replaced. The swept-wing MiG-15 had made it's shock appearance, and the general feeling was that any straight-winged jet was no match for it. However this didn't stop the Panther pilots from scoring thirteen kills during the war, one of which, a MiG-15 downed by captain Peter Tremayne of 738 Sqn in May 1951, was the Fleet Air Arm's first jet-on-jet victory.

The period after Korea saw more big changes for the Royal Navy's carriers. Although operations with Eagle and Ark Royal were successful, they also suffered from a high landing accident rate, and  it became clear that the new technology of angled decks was the way forward for jet operations. The Prospect of reconstructing the recently completed Eagles was regarded with some enthusiasm by many in the Royal Navy, but this wasn't shared by the Government, who, still applying Brokensha, decreed that the future for British carrier aviation lay in small ships. The purchase of the last two Majestic class light carriers Hercules and Leviathan with an interim angled deck arrangement involving minimal reconstruction was authorised, followed by the completion of the stalled Centaurs to a new angled deck design.

The future was limited for the Panthers too. The appearance of the MiG-15 over Korea had caused all orders for the Panther to be immediately converted into orders for it's swept-wing Tay-powered successor, the F9F-6 Cougar, and these, as Cougar FGA.1s (also built by Gloster) began arriving from 1954. The Cougar's landing speed was even higher than the Panther's so these aircraft were restricted to the new angled deck carriers as they came into service, with the Panthers soldiering on on the straight-deck Eagle and Ark Royal until there were enough of the former to replace them. It was originally envisaged that this state of affairs would last until 1959, but in 1956 came the surprise decision to convert Eagle and Ark Royal to helicopter-carrying commando carriers for the Suez adventure, and so the Panther's FAA career as a fighter came to an abrupt end. It wasn't the complete end of the story though, for the FAA, feeling that it's Sea Vampire T.22s were less than representative of a modern jet, campaigned successfully for many of the Panther airframes to be re-built as two-seat trainers, these Panther T.3s giving sterling service until the last one was retired in 1980. It was by no means the end of Grumman's involvement with Gloster either, but that's another story...

The aircraft depicted by the model is a Panther FGA.1 flown by 738 Squadron FAA from HMS Eagle during the Korean War. FAA Panthers were fitted to fire up to sixteen British RP.3 rockets (the so-called "60lb" RP) rather than the six 5" HVARs of the original American aircraft. Although an individual RP.3 was less destructive than an HVAR, the increased combat persistence of the British warload was often greatly appreciated in close air support situations. Supply of munitions of all kinds was a problem for British forces during the war, and these rockets seem to be from a batch that were assembled from RN-held motors fitted with warheads taken from an RAF stockpile in Aden, hence the mismatch between the relatively pristine motors and the rusty warheads.

Model : Hasegawa 1/72nd Grumman F9F-2 Panther
Rockets : from two Frogspawn Sea Venoms
Paint : Brush-painted Humbrol enamels and coloured pencils
Decals : Xtradecal X72-136 "13 Sea Hawks"

[scooter]

Hamfisted or not, lovely Panther.  So...Panthers and Cougars.  Will the FAA be seeing Tigers at some point?  Or land based Tomcats?

Inquiring minds, and all that rot.

[sandiego89]

Very smart scheme.  Well done. 

[Old Wombat]

Already said elsewhere that this is a great build, still holds true, & the story fits perfectly, too! Great job!



Guy

[nönöbär]

I like this one, as I like the F9 

There is still one waiting here to be build as one of my Graf Zeppelin carrier aircraft, the camo painting will not look that different I think

[Thorvic]

Nice build Weaver and nice back story, so Cougar next perhaps circa about 1956 ? 

[PR19_Kit]

I DO like that Weaver, looks realistic and very plausible. And that EDSG over Sky scheme suits the Panther to a T! 

Love the rusty look to the rocket warheads too, superbly done.

How about a USN Sea Hawk to keep the Balance of Payments level? 

[kitbasher]

Very nice.  FGA.2 in Extra Dark Sea Grey/White scheme next please!

[Army of One]

Great build H.....love it....I've always wanted to do an aircraft on that colour scheme...just dunno which one......

[Dizzyfugu]

Nice! EDSG/Sky suits so many aircraft well - and this looks very good! Nice story, too. 

[Weaver]

Cheers Folks!


A Cougar, a Tiger, one or two Skyhawks and maybe one or two other things are in the plan: just don't ask me for a timescale!

[kitbasher]

Now a Tiger would be nice - deffo EDSG/White for that.

[NARSES2]

I like that 

[crudebuteffective]

VERY NICE


this opens up a whole new avenue of thought for FAA aircraft

[Madoc]

Nice?  Well executed?  Yes, it certainly is those things.  But.... it's WRONG!

Panthers are supposed to be Navy Blue!  Not... not... this!

It's WRONG!