Reflections – Fairey Firefly

The Mk1 Firefly had seen service during the war and was a follow on from the Fulmar which in turn had followed the Battle. Fortunately by the time Fairey Aviation got round to the Firefly it had a pretty good idea of what was required in a naval aircraft and the Mk1 and its successors proved to be good solid machines.

The aircraft had a multi role capability as a long range fleet fighter, night fighter, strike, and anti submarine aircraft. It had a crew of two, the observer being located behind the pilot with the main fuel tank between them. In addition to four 20mm cannon mounted in the wings, it could carry bombs and rockets and assorted anti-submarine weapons.

Our introduction to the aircraft was via the Firefly Trainer, which was a Mk1 aircraft modified with an instructor’s cockpit installed immediately aft of the front cockpit. Our dual trips included spinning and as we were soon to find out, the Firefly was quick to react to the rudder in a spin and if you were at all slow getting the stick forward it would flick into an opposite spin. Sure enough on my first spin I followed the technique I had been taught in the Wirraway – which was to apply opposite rudder and then forward stick – and found myself rapidly spinning the other way. My instructor was understandably nervous as a Trainer had spun-in on the previous course but he managed to sort me out, stressing the need to get the stick forward at the same time as opposite rudder was applied. After a few more spins I was cleared for solo.

Not knowing any better I thought the Firefly was a pretty hot ship. It was powered by a Rolls Royce Griffin 12 and cruised ,. comfortably at 180 knots. The Mk1 was the lightest and fastest of all the Firefly marks and was quite good for aerobatics (provided you had a strong right arm).

Our OFS consisted of the usual formation flying, battle drill, night flying and cross country work. There was a strong emphasis on operating over water and we were soon introduced to sea navigation, called navexes, and carried out quite complicated ship shadowing exercises.

Following completion of OFS part 1 we were posted to RNAS Eglinton near Londonderry in Northern Ireland for weapon training and deck landing qualification.

It was whilst on a rocket sortie that I gained first hand experience of the unpredictable nature of early rocket-firing circuits. I was on my way to the firing range and contrary to instructions made the armament master switch prior to entering the range. A rocket immediately fired, without my having pressed the firing button. I was fortunate that the projectile missed both a railway line and RAF Ballykelly which I was overflying at the time. I immediately reported the loss of the rocket and was instructed to return to base and to carry out a right hand circuit to avoid pointing the aircraft at Southern Ireland (which was to the north of RNAS Eglington!). Needless to say my story was not believed and it was touch and go for a while whether I would remain on the course. My skin was saved however when the aircraft repeated the trick with a senior instructor pilot some days later. I well remember last seeing the offending beast with its canopy sealed, awaiting the arrival of the boffins from the Armament Trials Establishment.

Finally it came time to commence training for the deck. In the old straight-deck days and piston engined aircraft, it was not possible to see the flight deck over the aircraft’s nose at deck landing speed and hence aircraft had to be ‘batted on’. We now had to learn to fly our aircraft under the control of the batsman who gave directions for speed, height and turn rate using his paddles, which looked like oversize ping pong bats. T he deck landing approach commenced at the downwind end of the run way with the aircraft in the approach configuration and a few knots above the final approach speed of 90 knots. You normally ‘picked up the bats’ at the 90 degree point hoping to receive a “roger” which indicated that you were at the right height, speed and rate of turn to line you up with the flight deck centreline. The “roger” was given by the bats being held out horizontally from the body. High was indicated by a ‘V’, low by the bats indicating an inverted ‘V’. Fast was indicated by the right-hand bat held out horizontally, slow by the bats being slowly clapped together. The next two signals were the ‘high dip’ and the ‘low dip’. The former indicated that you were OK but a little too high and merely required dipping the nose down and then recovering to the previous attitude. The ‘low dip’ required you to hold the present attitude but to add a tad of power to regain the correct approach path. The signal to be avoided was the ‘come on’, given by the bats being slowly clapped together and scooped up at the same time (normally given by the batsman on almost bended knee!). There was no doubting this signal which meant you were low and slow, and needed to correct the situation quickly otherwise you would hit the after ’rounddown’ of the ship. The response to this signal was to add power and gently decrease attitude to regain height and speed.

The final signal was the ‘cut’, which was mandatory and required the throttle to be chopped. The nose was then allowed to fall to the horizontal (giving a momentary view of the flight deck), which stepped the aircraft down to a height at which a smooth and full flare would ensure the hook engaged the wire.

After some weeks of aerodrome dummy deck landings or ADDLS we were finally judged as being ready for the real thing and duly joined HMS Illustrious (the earlier one)in the Irish Sea. I’m afraid my first landing was rather heavy due to an incomplete flare resulting in a bounce . Fortunately I had hooked a wire but the aircraft was slammed down on the deck when we came to the wire’s full run out. This resulted in some damage to the torsion box , the only damage to result throughout a further 253 straight-deck landings career. Not so lucky was my mate ‘Blue’ who for some reason failed to allow the nose to drop when given the ‘cut’ and immediately flared. He gracefully sailed down the deck until he realised that he was going to achieve a ‘full toss’ on his first landing and end up in the barrier. The barrier, commonly known as the ‘net’, was strung across the flight deck to catch any aircraft that missed the wires. Blue, when he realised that he was for the net remembered what he had been told and lowered the nose to ensure that he entered it cleanly. Failure to do so could result in the aircraft catching its undercarriage on the top strands of the barrier and flipping over onto its back. I saw this happen once and it was not a pretty sight.

Blue’s aircraft hit the net at some speed and successively shed its airscrew, undercarriage, flaps and other bits and pieces as it tore its way through. It continued up the deck on its belly until it stopped just short of the forward 4 inch guns which were inset in the flight deck in the Illustrious class. I witnessed all this from the ‘goofers’ which was a favourite position to watch the action, located aft of the Island. A full-bottle barrier is a remarkable sight but the noise is as equally impressive – it is shor t in duration but very expensive sounding!

After a further couple of sessions of ‘Dls’ I was beginning to gain a little confidence but soon had this rudely shaken. I had just started the first approach of my third session and as I picked up

the bats I could see that I was being given a ‘slow’. I added a tad of power but still continued to receive a ‘slow’. I added a tad more power but to my surprise received a ‘come-on’ which meant that I was low and slow. I added even more power without any apparent effect and at this point had the throttle way forward of where it should have been and could feel the aircraft settling. After recovering from the initial surge of panic I had the sense to look down at the throttle quadrant and to my horror (or relief) saw that the pitch lever had slipped back (a known failure in Fireflys at that time). At this point all my good training came to my rescue and stopped me from ramming the lever straight forward; if I had done so I would have been on my back in a flash as all the boost I had selected took effect and pitched me into a torque stall. I can remember to this day easing the pitch lever forward and the feeling of relief as effective power was restored.

My only other fright occurred on my first catapult shot. This was in the hydraulic era before the steam catapult. Being hydraulic, the power of the shot was applied almost instantaneously, not dissimilar to being kicked in the behind by an elephant.

We were strongly cautioned not to grip the throttle during the launch as the accelerative forces could cause you to pull the throttle closed. The technique taught was to apply full power, lock the throttle with the friction nut and then after raising and dropping the right hand to indicate readiness for the launch, to grip the right elbow with the left hand to prevent the right arm being forced back. I did all this but nevertheless was taken completely by surprise by the accelerative forces and found my right arm slipping back, thus applying a large amount of up elevator. I recovered quickly enough and rammed the stick forward to counter the anticipated pitch-up. What I hadn’t realised was that we were still on the catapult when I pulled the stick back and it was only the large amount of forward stick that had any effect. Needless to say I went off the end in a screaming dive and disappeared below flight deck level (which was about 50 feet above the sea). The recovery from this was evidently equally spectacular!

Following completion of our initial deck landing training we had our wings confirmed and duly sailed for home in HMAS Sydney which was in the United Kingdom at that time to embark the 21st Carrier Air Group.

Little did we know that we would soon be in Korea; but that’s another story