Commander ‘Grassy’ Knowles gives us the low-down on flying and fighting in this 14-ton Anglo-Italian masterpiece of helicopter design. ORDER THE HUSH-KIT BOOK OF WARPLANES HERE
Describe the Merlin in three words? Flexible, Fast, Maritime.
What’s the best thing about it? Its flexibility, for a naval aircraft which all suffer what I call the tyranny of dispersion – you can’t have lots of specialist aircraft because you haven’t the space and you’re a long way from home when the job requirements change – I’ve launched for a 20-minute job and landed 6 hours later having done 15 different tasks before now, it excels at Anti Submarine Warfare but is also great for Search And Rescue and troop/cargo movement.
And the worst? Reliability, due to the size of the fleet, not enough aircraft means very expensive to support which results in low availability. A political decision to support Westlands (not a wrong choice) that means the Royal Navy pays a very large premium cost of ownership.
“As for Merlin vs Seahawk, just ask any US Submariner who they’d rather face…. it isn’t Merlin!”
How do you rate it in the following: A. Sensors Excellent ASW Radar and Sonar, ESM seriously needs modernising. Lack of Navigation Sensors in the Mk 2, (no Radio Nav aids not even an ILS) make it sometimes ‘interesting’ getting in and out of international civilian airfields. Mk 4 well equipped in that regard.
B. Noise in cabin. Pretty noisy cockpit due to numbers of fans to keep all the displays cool. However still quieter than most comparable aircraft and really great for lack of vibration due to the ACSR (Active Control of Structural Response).
C. Human Machine Interface Pretty great from a ‘flying’ perspective. I was very picky when I was the Mk 2 Project Pilot and critical of it but compared with other aircraft it’s pretty good. Interactions with the Mission System from the cockpit could be better.
D. Climb rate It’s pretty well powered in any temperate conditions and even at Maximum All Up Mass had a good climb rate. Somewhat limited when ‘hot and high’ but then it wasn’t designed to be there. But performed far better than the Lynx escorts in Basra for performance and surprised the Blackhawks when we powered past them during joint Ops.
E. Ease of take-off and landing Pretty good handling qualities although it’s mismatched in roll versus pitch control power so if you watch any Merlin takeoff they’ll wobble left and right whilst the pilots brain re-learns the compensation required. Landing is always limited by its high nose-up attitude in the hover vs tail rotor risk of impact so it’s tricky to stop and land quickly and dynamically. You’ve got to get rid of forward speed/momentum early.
F. Hover characteristics Great Automatic Flight Control System hover and reliably gets you in and out of the hover with nil external references. Can take a while to learn to be truly precise with it manually as the trim isn’t quite as fast as a Wildcat so many pilots end up trim releasing a lot as a control strategy, which takes away a lot of stabilisation.
G. Ease of loading Bit of a pain, cargo door is very high, and in normal ASW etc role normally has a number of seats and ASW kit in the back, but that said, still manages to show flexibility in moving stuff and people around the fleet. Mk 4 obviously better suited but the ramp is quite steep and can get slippy from experience in Basra etc.
H. As a transport That flexibility thing again, you can actually take all the mission kit out of a Mk 2 and turn it into a large transport aircraft, I remember thinking ‘we’ll never do that again’ after demonstrating it during acceptance. Couple of months, later Operation Gritrock, the UK support to the Ebola crisis and cue 3 Mk2 Merlin, kit stripped out, providing excellent support as a transport aircraft. You can also fast-rope from all marks of Merlin with a LOT of troops and it’s very quick, very smooth and surprisingly (until the last few seconds) quiet from the ground. It became a firm favourite of the troops in theatre due to that. Being able to arrive quickly and in a fit state to fight is after all the primary aim.
5. Do you feel an emotional attachment to Merlin? God yes! One of the first ab-initios on the Mk1, a rarity as an exchange pilot on Mk3 during Op TELIC, the Mk2 Project Pilot as a Test Pilot and the aircrafts Capability Manager in HQ in several guises, CO of 820 NAS taking Merlin back into proper Carrier deployments and bringing CrowsNest into Service, I’ve lived and breathed Merlin my entire career. I’ve poured sweat, blood and tears into its development and life.
Biggest technical challenge to the programme? For the Mk 2 programme I would say the new Mission System upgrade, For Mk4 integrating a folding tail into a ramped helo and for CrowsNest, overcoming the sales pitch of a ‘known mission system going into a known aircraft will be low risk’ it isn’t, it’s an engineering compromise and always was going to be.
Enough power? I heard stories of air con being removed from Merlin’s in the Middle East Yes, tricky hot and high as it’s optimised for Atlantic ASW or European Plains Trooping by design. Normally runs out of Turbine Temperature first (TIT) before Torque. Wasn’t much point having the Air Con packs in Middle East anyway as the doors were always open for self defence weapons.
What should I have asked you? And what’s the answer? Where next for Merlin? I was intimately involved in the recent move to extend the Merlin’s life to 2040; apart from the CrowsNest AEW role, supposedly that is going to a UAV by 2030 but we’ll see, I’ve yet to see the replacement capability have a serious programme. I think the Royal Navy should invest in a midlife upgrade/obsolescence package to modernise the Merlin systems. At the moment there are lots of bespoke processors, chassis and card. This could make cost of ownership cheaper, and help develop the technology and de-risking of the eventual replacement, especially if the intent is for it to be uncrewed. An example of this: You should be able to reduce crew by introducing more automation too if you want to eventually bring uncrewed aircraft into the mix.
What was your most memorable mission in Iraq? 27th March 2008. During the Battle of Basra, I was day tasker Captain, we had an intense day operating as a 2-ship with the IRT aircraft (captained by Flt Lt Kev Harris, an awesome bloke, humble and great pilot who had been my Captain during my first Basrah deployment and taught me loads) he rightfully earned a DFC for his actions during those days, all I can say is that as the other aircraft Captain he earned it. We had awoken somewhat surprisingly to find ourselves supporting a major offensive by the Iraqi Army which hadn’t been well planned or coordinated it felt and we were on the back foot. Those few days were seriously hectic, flying into and out of a lot more dynamic fighting than we had been used to recently and with the Iraqi troops taking a lot of injuries as were some of the U.K. embedded mentors. That day I remember we flew multiple 2 aircraft trips into Basrah Palace, Old State Building and I think at one point 5 mile market, flying as a 2 ship was always more fraught, you’re a richer target for indirect fires (mortars etc) and it just made for a frantic, dynamically planning and replanning and reacting kind of a time. Little glimpses jump out from those few days, the moment an American embed grabbed my crewman and yelled something like “Don’t leave us here man, don’t forget about us.” Like a scene from a Vietnam film, only to have said crewman reply in his B-road Irish accent “We’re only popping back to the base for more water fella, we’ll be back in half an hour!” Those funny little moments of levity that keep you sane in high pressure times are peppered across my deployments in Iraq.10. Which piece of equipment did you wish it had during your time in Iraq Mini-Gun. Never really had much faith in the GPMGs as self-defence weapons.
What’s its closest US counterpart and how do you believe they compare? Any opinions you’ve heard on Merlins from US helo crew or soldiers? Seahawk for Mk 2, Blackhawk for Mk3/4. US were always surprised how fast we were and that we could/would fly in conditions they wouldn’t/couldn’t. I once flew Gen Petraeus during the Battle of Basra and he was ‘perplexed’ that he was riding in a Brit helo when the Blackhawks wouldn’t fly. As for Merlin vs Seahawk, just ask any US Submariner who they’d rather face…. it isn’t Merlin! Is it good having 3 engines? Nope. It’s a good idea to only lose 1/3rd of your power during an engine failure, especially when you spend so much time in the hover, but 2 good engines where you had better One Engine Inoperative performance would be better; less weight (not just extra engine but very complex Gearbox to incorporate 3 inputs), plus massively decreased maintenance and support costs. If you could change one thing about it what would it be? Be more reliable, and to be fair that’s not about the aircraft but the support solution. There’s not a great deal of Merlins across the world so the spare and support is very expensive per aircraft/per flying hour as a result. If you’re going to support a sovereign industry then you need to accept it might be more expensive to do so and fund accordingly.
If there’s one thing that social media knows about aircraft, it’s that the Blackburn Blackburn is the perfect meme. Of course, I must remember my social media may be different to yours, and you might not be mired in the Groundhog Day of aviation twitter, where ancient jokes are denied a dignified death – and exist in a parody of life, like severely injured sea turtles in a Buddhist rescue centre. But if you are aware of this ‘Av-Geek*’ online world you will know the Blackburn Blackburn is a visual punchline to expectations of the beauty of flight; its chonky earnestness has cemented its manufacturer Blackburn’s reputation as uniquely gifted constructors of ugly airframes. And the existence of the Beverley, Roc (below) and just the mere name of the Blackburd have only added to whatever we’re supposed to call the antithesis of mystique. The problem is that jokes about Blackburn become a little stale when everybody is making them.
Source: Reddit
To hell with bad British aeroplanes.. what you really want is a lot more mon dieu, mes yeux!
The joy of the Anglo-centric experience is the great treasures our ignorance has hidden. As we listen to the tiresome Hurricane-defenders and provocative Defiant-apologists we are missing out on a wealth of French aircraft, some of them delightfully rubbish.So join us as we leave the browning cliffs of Dover and meet a parallel universe Blackburn, where the designers had better sex and coffee yet STILL created av-bominations. Allow me to introduce you to the grislyGaulish output of Avions Farman.
*The term ‘av-geek’ is an imperialist move by the geeks to rob an intrinsically cool subject of its cool, and debase it in the sexless muck of the hoarding data-collators
The Farman Voisin / Farman III
Like the American Wright Brothers, Henri Farman was a skinny guy with an interest in bicycles and natty headwear. Like so many other great innovators, Farman started with a plane built by somebody else. Henri bought his first aircraft from Gabriel Voisin in 1907 and soon started making improvements of his own, which Voisin then incorporated into production aircraft. It was one of these hybrids that Farman used to set records for distance, duration, and actually landing where you intended to. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the design, however, is that if you cover over the tail with your hand, it now looks like Henri is flying a much later biplane backwards.
Unfortunately, the partnership with Voisin was short-lived. French aviation was notoriously fractious, and having previously fallen out with Bleriot, Voisin now angered Henri by selling the intended Farman II to the perfidious English. Piqued, Farman went and designed his own version, the Farman III, which was to become hugely influential. With a leading elevator extended forward on twin booms and a pusher prop, the “Farman type” was widely copied elsewhere and known by that name. The genuine Farman III would set several national firsts around the world, including as far afield as Japan where the one original survivor (the first powered aircraft to fly in the country) can be found.
Other good, early Farman designs include younger brother (and business partner) Maurice’s MF.7 Longhorn (left) – one of which holds the dubious honour of being the first military aircraft to be shot down in air-to-air combat – and his slightly more modern-looking MF.11 Shorthorn, which would enter history as the aircraft that the fictional character Biggles first learned to fly in.
The F.60 Goliath
By the end of the Great War, Farman had moved away from pusher props and also embraced and a far less delicate look, one that fans of Blackburn’s output will love. The 60 Goliath was intended as a heavy bomber but found the role disappearing with the end of hostilities. Not wanting to lose commercial opportunities, Farman rapidly converted the nascent bomber to become one of the first airliners by (apparently) sticking some windows in the bomb bay and calling it a day.
Despite flying characteristics that weren’t ideal – and marred by the inconvenience of asking the rear passengers to shuffle forward to try and get the tail off the ground – the Goliath was a commercial success. It was later converted back to a heavy bomber, a role in it which was also successful. Whether the bombs were ever asked to scooch up to help the pilot is unrecorded.
C-roic madame
Perhaps the oddest – yet successful – developments of the Goliath was as a torpedo carrying floatplane. This continued a long tradition of naval feuding that had begun with a Japanese Shorthorn attacking a German cruiser in 1914 – the first recorded naval strike in history. I wonder whatever happened to the Japanese and that idea?
The Super Goliath and, er, the other Super Goliath
Farman struggled to repeat the success of the Goliath, so much so that two entirely different designs were given the “Super Goliath” name. The first, the BN.4, was another slab of what might politely be described as utilitarian design and an example of the 1920s urge to do-the-same-thing-but-bigger. With the ability to haul two and a half tons of bombs skywards, the BN.4 could certainly deliver, but the French military were undergoing one of their regular phases of being utterly skint.
On landing outlying bits of the Super Goliath stopped well after the main undercarriage, giving the alarmed crew an intense jolt and tipping the aircraft frontwards. An additional nose gear was added to soften the inevitable upset.
The second attempt at a Super Goliath, the 140, wasn’t exactly super either. Although three experimental prototypes and six production aircraft were delivered, a series of major structural failure led to the French grounding all their multi-engined Farman designs including the hitherto solid Goliath variants. Wondering whether the wings were about to fall off is the sort of thing that leads to a loss of confidence in a design though.
FUNDING IS VERY LOW FOR THIS SITE
Thank you for reading Hush-Kit. Our site is absolutely free. If you’ve enjoyed an article you can donate here. Hush-Kit depends on your donations to keep going, and funding is currently very low. If you love this aircraft history and news then do support us, we may need to pause service if we can’t increase funding levels.
The F.120 Jabiru – ‘All-aspect ugly’
And now we’re really into the good stuff. The 120 and its bafflingly large family of related oddballs are where Farman’s true genius finally blossomed, achieving the rare distinction of producing aircraft that managed to look ugly from every conceivable angle, except – possibly – from the inside. Available with anything from two to four engines, depending on how little confidence you had in them, and occasionally with an extra pair of stubby little wings to put them on, the overall effect is of airliners designed by someone who only had hearsay to go by.
Defying engineering convention – and in an echo of the Blackburn Blackburn, which was perfectly decent at its role – the 120 and related freaks looked wrong and flew right. They were award winning aircraft in their day, being given half a million francs in the 1923 Grand Prix des Avions de Transports. Possibly under the condition they just took them away. Quickly.
Incidentally the Jabiru is named after a type of stork. I don’t even want to think about the babies.
The F.170 Jabiru
Having tried all number of engines, Farman tried taking the 120 family and just putting one, albeit massive, prop at the front. They then made a mockery of the stork nickname and cut its legs off. The result looks – from the front at least – like a typical modern light aircraft that has badly overdone the Christmas celebrations. Despite this a NACA report was broadly favourable, reporting that the 170 was “practically independent of possible errors in piloting”. It’s not clear why this is a good thing – it appears to mean that if the pilot screws up it’s his own fault, still, that would sound pretty good in the marketing material.
The Hydroglisseur
Now I know this isn’t technically a plane, but let’s be honest – all the best planes secretly want to be boats. Think of the purposeful majesty of the Sunderland, the extravagant lunacy of ekranoplans, or the staggering performance of the Shinmaywa US-2, a plane that apparently flies using the power of cheat codes alone. And in the 1920s Farman cut straight to the chase with the Hydroglisseur.
Seemingly the result of trying to fly a seaplane through a bridge that was a lot narrower than expected, this Farman airboat was allegedly capable of nearly 70 knots. That’s pretty rapid when your firm-buttocked le cul is two inches above the water, although the name “Le Ricocheur” – the bouncer – suggests that either the directional control or ride comfort might not have been all that it was cracked up to be. Or just that you weren’t coming on board if you were wearing trainers.
As with many Farman ventures the market was less enthusiastic, and by the end of the decade they’d reverted to being a pure aeroplane manufacturer. Oh, and they also tried cars, though that idea sank without a trace too.
The F.180 Oiseau Bleu (Bluebird) ‘1927’
The Bluebird was conceived for a non-stop crossing between Paris and New York, an attempt that was quietly shelved after somebody finally noticed the 650-mile range and spent an educational, if somewhat chastening, afternoon staring at an atlas in disbelief. Still at least it was only spirits that ended up dampened, and the three 180s that were completed seem to have performed perfectly adequately shuttling between European capitals. For a Farman design the 180 was relatively good-looking, although the latent desire for oddity did lead them to compensate with a tandem power unit in the upper wing, a pusher prop adding its effort to the more conventional one in an effort to gain more power with less drag.
The F.190 & F.280
I don’t care how good and popular the 190 (below) was. It still looks like something has sat on it.
A development using the same wing was the F.280, which was intended as a mail courier. There are only really two requirements of a mail plane: it ought to be quick, and it ought to be able to carry lots of mail. To a degree these aims are contradictory, and in the case of the 280 Farman compromised by attempting neither of them. Despite being blessed with no fewer than three engines, the top speed never exceeded 230km/h despite being reengined twice, and the two examples were quietly and unceremoniously dumped by the newly formed Air France.
NOW AVAILABLE: The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes, a gorgeous heavily illustrated – and often irreverent- coffee-table book covering the history of aviation 1914 – the present.
CREDIT: Stuart Bertie Photography
The other stuff…
The Farman brother on a tandem.
Farman’s output trailed off somewhat in the 1930s, presumably due to the headwinds and political pressures that led to the nationalisation and rationalisation of the French aircraft industry in 1936. This denied us the opportunity of seeing what Farman could have achieved in the age of the jet engine, which to judge by their earlier experimental aircraft is a massive loss to the history of flight.
Blessed with an outsized wing that implies Farman’s main ambition was to blot the sun out completely, the F.1000 series was designed to investigate the difficulties of high altitude flight.
Slightly safer was the F.1020, built to investigate what would happen if Farman put all the spare curves they’d been saving from their remorselessly angular wings into one half-pancake. Apparently it was nearly impossible to spin, though without any other qualities to recommend it. Similarly unimpressive was the F.370’s monocycle landing gear, although its racing career was cut short due engine overheating – likely a consequence of packaging everything tightly to minimise drag.
F.370
The difficulties of high altitude flight were as nothing compared to the difficulties of Farman’s idiosyncratic design decisions. Wishing to make the pressurised cockpit as airtight as possible, Farman fitted just two side windows. For landing, when a view ahead is generally considered helpful, the pilot would open a hatch, raise the rudder pedals vertically, plug in a second stick (or possibly just attach it to the one below – logic has long since left the building) and then sit on top of the fuselage to fly the plane. And yes, this did all go badly wrong and kill the test pilot.
The F.1010, on the other hand, answered a dangerous question that nobody was asking – namely “what happens if you squeeze the barrel of the 33-mm cannon between the engine cylinders and fire it through the spinner of the propeller?”. Despite the excitement of the premise it turned out the main thing that happened was you spent ages working out how to make it possible to manoeuvre a plane that’s now 10% cannon by weight. You give up, that’s how.
The French Blackburn?
Even Blackburn weren’t the equivalent of the internet’s “Blackburn” – a practical joke played upon an unwitting world of aviation, whose unsuccessful designs are best viewed in the dark. You don’t build thousands of planes without some of them doing at least part of what was asked of them. But you want a moment of genius that caps years of underwhelming, slightly funny looking designs? The Farman III does the Buccaneer thing – being the golden child of a cursed family – it just does it at the other end of the story. The various iterations of the Jabiru are aesthetically the equivalent of the Blackburn Blackburn, and even suffer by being judged by the cover in a similar way. Want a Blackburd? Well, god help you, but the Goliath could haul a great big torpedo around and could even drop it without the undercarriage having to fall off. Okay, so there’s no Roc, but if any manufacturer was daft enough to take on the challenge of making it half-work.
I should probably add at this point that Henri Farman’s dad was an Essex-boy and his mum was born in Kent, and despite being born in Paris, Henri did not adopt a French nationality until 1937. Perhaps at least some of the company’s incompetence was British in origin, indeed perhaps Farman was a British ‘Blackburn’.
*in the original sense of “I wonder what the hell they were thinking?”
Been umming and ahing about whether to support The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes Vol 2? Now’s the time to be a hero, pre-order your signed first edition here.
Over 21,000 Axis aircraft were claimed destroyed in flight by the Army Air Force of the United States in 1941-1945.The vast majority of these were by the top 5 aircraft in this list.Mired in the morass of war and the chaos of counterclaims, the exact numbers are up for debate. And obviously these are confirmed victory claims – not confirmed enemy losses. Though sporting words like ‘score’ and ‘victories’ may put us in a coolly comparative or even recreational frame of mind, it must be remembered that any score was marked in gore and grief.
FUNDING IS VERY LOW FOR THIS SITE
Thank you for reading Hush-Kit. Our site is absolutely free. If you’ve enjoyed an article you can donate here. Hush-Kit depends on your donations to keep going, and funding is currently very low. If you love this aircraft history and news then do support us, we may need to pause service if we can’t increase funding levels.
15. Seversky P-35 (1935) ‘Thundercrap’
Number of aerial victories: 1 or zero
Despite featuring most of the latest technologies, the first modern monoplane fighter of USAAC had rather pedestrian performance for its time. It was markedly inferior in almost all measurable qualities to the most potent fighter of 1935, the Messerschmitt Bf 109. The P-35 was operated by the Far East Air Force (FEAF) a part of the United States Army in the Philippines (then a colonial territory or protectorate) formed a few weeks prior to the US entry into World War II in 1941. Despite having taken its first flight three months later, the P-35 was far inferior to the best fighter of its time, the Messerschmitt Bf 109. It was the first USAAC single-seat all-metal fighter with retractable landing gear and an enclosed cockpit, but despite these modern features by 1941, the War would reveal the P-35 to be horrifically obsolete. Unlucky pilots of the 34th and 21st Fighter Squadrons of the 4th Composite Group were based at Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines.
Slow, lightly armed with neither sufficient cockpit armour or self-sealing tanks the P-35 was nether-the-less the frontline of defence for the Philippines. As the Japanese invasion began, this lack-lustre monoplane would face the formidable Mitsubishi Zero with predictably dire results. The P-35 force was smashed to pieces on the ground and in the air. Some sources cite a single aerial victory in the defence against Japan, whereas other put the figure as zero. The US was seemingly slow to realise the importance of armour, and the absence of armoured fuel tanks, or any meaningful armour, made the P-35 particularly vulnerable. Some reports credit the P-35 with one kill, others with none. This bitter lesson in survivability was certainly taken onboard by the manufacturer, who under a new name were then developing the astonishingly tough P-47 Thunderbolt.
Intriguingly, both the USAAC and the Japanese Navy had operated the type. In what was seen by many as a ‘dick-move’, the US company Seversky (later Republic) secretly sold 20 2PA-B3s to the Japanese Navy in 1938. Used in the the Second Sino-Japanese War, this two-seat variant of the P-35 was known as the Navy Type S Two-Seat Fighter or A8V1 (Allied codename ‘Dick’).
This is clearly not the place to mention it served with the Swedish air force, but as it looked so beautiful in Swedish colours (colors) I am compelled to share a photo.
CREDIT: Alan Wilson/Wiki
14. de Havilland Mosquito ‘Wooden Oner’
Number of aerial victories: 1
An aircraft that managed a single kill in US colours was the magnificent de Havilland Mosquito. The story of it losing a performance trial against the P-61 Black Widow in front of American General Carl Spaatz is somewhat controversial, with some saying the RAF rigged the Mosquito to lose as it didn’t want hand over its brilliant night fighter to the US in large names. Others note that a second trial also saw the P-61 prove superior. Regardless, the exceptional Mosquito did little air-to-air fighting with the two Night Fighter Squadrons (416th and 425th) it served with from 1944.
13. Douglas P-70 ‘Nighthawks in the death diner’
Number of aerial victories:2
Radars were essential equipment for night fighters, but the US had none of its own. As an interim measure Douglas P-70 Havoc, a cumbersome A-20 bomber fitted with a U.S. version of the British Mk IV radar. The type was unfit for purpose, and largely used for training, but managed to notch up two victories before standing aside for the far superior Beaufighter
Which leads us to the Douglas P-70 Havoc/Nighthawk/Boston/A-20/A-20B/ DB-7 – which had many more names than victories; the P-70 Nighthawk served as a night fighter and managed all of two victories.
12. Boeing YB-40 (1942) ‘Flying Fortmess’ – 3 victories
Number of aerial victories:3
This fighter is, as you have no doubt spotted, a B-17. Imagine ‘mixing it’ with the 109s in this. In 1942 the Eighth Air force thought they might create an effective escort by slinging a massive amount of guns into a bomb-free Flying Fortress. No aircraft has ever flown with such a formidable defensive armament. Unfortunately this made the aircraft so draggy and heavy that it couldn’t keep up with the bombers it was supposed to be protecting.
11. Boeing P-26 Peashooter (1932) ‘Jesus versus the Zeroes’
Number of aerial victories: 4
The P-26 deserves an honourable mention for this tiny, trail-blazing monoplane fighter of the 1930s fought tenaciously for the Chinese Air Force in the Sino-Japanese War with John Buffalo Huang and John Wong Panyang both using the type on the way to acedom. Almost all the P-26s had been decommissioned by Pearl Harbor but there was a squadron left on the Philippines commanded by Jesus A.Villamor, which valiantly fought a massed formation of Zeros and a G3M. They shot four aircraft down and Villamor was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and Oak leaves cluster. A magnificent way for a historic plane to bow out, as the aircraft would soon after be burned to prevent capture.
10. Curtiss P-36 Hawk ‘Curtis may field overly conservative fighters’
Number of aerial victories: 6
Flying 23 days before the Messerschmitt Bf 109, Curtiss were pretty quick into the game of modern fighters with all the mod-cons. Here was a high-performance stressed-metal monoplanes with retractable undercarriages. If anything they were perhaps a little early, arriving before the great Merlin engine was readily available. Our number 10 entry Curtiss P-36 Hawk scores only in single figures. The Hawk proved an excellent fighter for the French – but managed just 6 victories for the US, all during the Pearl Harbor attack, before it quickly stood aside for the superior P-40.
9. Bristol Beaufighter‘The Bristol Bastard’
Number of aerial victories:31
When the USAAF formed its first radar-equipped night fighter squadron in January 1943, the only American aircraft available was the rather unsuitable Douglas P-70, a cumbersome A-20 bomber fitted with the U.S. version of the Mk IV radar. The P-70 proved lacklustre, but there was no suitable indigenous design to replace it. Buying British was the solution, and the US adopted the most successful British twin-engined fighter of all time, Thus the first USAAF night fighter squadrons went to war in the Bristol Beaufighter. It proved excellent as a night fighter during the first US deployment in North Africa, Sicily and Italy but was phased out when US night fighter models became available, notably the P-61 Black Widow.
A former RAAF Beaufighter painted to represent the aircraft of 415 Nightfighter squadron pilot (and noted college sportsman) Captain Harold Augspurger at the National Museum of the USAF.
NOW AVAILABLE: The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes, a gorgeous heavily illustrated – and often irreverent- coffee-table book covering the history of aviation 1914 – the present.
Aces: Eugene Axtell 5, Herman Elliott 5, Paul Smith 5
The first purpose-designed night fighter was the Black Widow, a sinister deathly cathedral of a warplane. Towering above just about anything, fully loaded it was around six tons heavier than a similarly maxed-out Mosquito. The biggest and heaviest true fighter of the War carried an arsenal of four 20-mm cannon, and for the first time since the legendary Boulton Paul Defiant, a four-machine gun turret behind the pilot. But, unlike that of the Defiant, this turret was low-drag, remote-controlled and could fire forwards. The Black Widow scored victories in the West and the Pacific, and created three aces. One of its most notable missions was to fly acrobatics over a prisoner-of-war camp on the island of Luzon, Philippines where hundreds of US prisoners awaited execution – this distracted the guards while a force of US Rangers got into place for a successful seizure of the camp, saving hundreds (this event is depicted in the 2005 film The Great Raid but in the absence of an airworthy P-61, the film has to make do with a Lockheed Hudson instead).
7. Bell P-39 / P-400 Airacobra ‘The Cursed Bell-end’
Number of aerial victories:320.5
Aces: Bill Fiedler 5; Tommy Lynch 3 (of 20); George Welch 3 (of 16)
The unconventional Airacobra, with its engine mounted behind the pilot, found a desperately unreceptive audience when trialled with the RAF, who promptly sent the aircraft on to the Soviet Union for evaluation. The USAAF weren’t too impressed either and nor were its pilots. A slightly upgraded version called the P-400 became the butt of a joke that it was ‘a P-40 with a Zero on its tail’. In North Africa, the type was primarily used for ground attack, and suffered heavy losses while scarcely scoring. Yet the joke was on the RAF (and USAAF) when the Soviets decided to use it instead of the Spitfire and eventually took delivery of over 4,700. The low-level performance and the large cannon in the propellor hub were ideal for the air battle on the Eastern Front, and the Airacobra is credited with about 6000 claims. Bearing in mind Luftwaffe losses were lower on the Eastern Front than even North Africa and the Med in 1943-44, this is very likely to reflect a very high overclaim factor. Only one pilot aced for the USAAF, Bill Weidler, although a couple of major aces scored with it, including the Pearl Harbour hero, George Welch.
6. Supermarine Spitfire ‘The defaming of the Shrew’
Number of aerial victories:379
Aces: Frank Hill (7 kills)
Featuring well up the charts is the plane that is obviously the greatest fighter of all time and which equipped two US fighter groups, the 31st and the 52nd, through late 1943 and 1944 in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. In the air battles following Torch, they were involved in probably the last battle when the Luftwaffe was still at its peak, with Focke Wulf Fw190s, Me109Gs and a host of great aces like Muncheberg, Bar, Reinert and Rudorffer. The new American groups did well, the 135-victory Muncheberg was lost in a collision with a US Spitfire, and several aces were created in the Med campaign before the groups switched to Mustangs in mid-1944.
5. Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress ‘Fort Knocks’
Number of aerial victories:approximately 2500
German training model used to illustarte “flying porcupine” (fliegendes Stachelschwein)
“Against 20 Russians trying to shoot you down, or even 20 Spitfires, it can be exciting – even fun. But to curve in towards 40 Fortresses, all your past sins flash before your eyes,” Hans Philipp, JG1 Kommodore, with 206 victories.
B-17 air gunner aces: Michael Arooth 17 (tail); Donald Crossley 12 (tail); Benjamin Warner (waist) 9; Thomas Dye 8 (ball).
While victories by fighter type have been calculated and published, there’s nothing to go on with regards bombers, who undoubtedly shot down a lot of Luftwaffe and Japanese aircraft. So this is a very crude number.
As Hans Philipp’s quote shows, attacking formations of B-17s, each with 13 50-cal heavy machine guns wasn’t a pleasant proposition for fighters – another Luftwaffe ace famously likened the experience to having sex with a porcupine. However, it became rapidly evident during World War 2 that air gunners are much more prone to overclaiming than fighter pilots, probably to the tune of about seven to ten to one actual claim. One anecdote perfectly illustrates this. On an early B-17 bombing mission escorted by Spitfires, the Spitfire pilots reported that no German fighters were encountered, while several Spitfires had been hit (although all returned) by gunners who claimed 25 fighters shot down. However, there is very little doubt B-17 and B-24 gunners did shoot down a lot of Luftwaffe (and Romanian, Italian and Hungarian) fighters and sensible estimates suggest they were responsible for about 12-15% of all Luftwaffe fighters shot down during the ‘Defence of the Reich’, with escorts claiming the bulk of the rest.
I’ve included just one bomber type on this list – but it is highly likely that others could feature in this top ten – like the B-24 Liberator, the B-25 Mitchell and B-26 Marauder. However, information is scant compared to that for fighters. Interestingly the US Navy classifies 306 victories for the Privateer (the naval version of the Liberator) – only the Hellcat, Wildcat and Corsair scored more highly. There are a few B-17 gunners who qualify as aces – and while he didn’t achieve this status, the most famous air gunner of all was one Clark Gable, who flew several missions in a B-17 as a waist gunner. Another noteworthy air gunner was John P Quinlan (tail gunner) who aced with the Memphis Belle (earning a depiction by Harry Connick Jr.). He also flew as tail gunner in a B-29, claiming three more.
4. Curtiss P-40 Warhawk ‘The Carolina Killer’
Number of aerial victories:2225.5
Aces: Bob Neale 13; John F.Hampshire 13; Bruce Holloway 13; Dave ‘Tex’ Hill 12.25
The one competitive single engine army fighter at the start of the war, its Allison inline engine replacing the Twin Wasp of the surprisingly effective P-36 which was the most effective French fighter in 1940. In fact, the P-40 was the most successful export fighter for the war, performing well for the Soviets, the RAF, South African Air Force, RAAF in North Africa (and the latter in the Pacific), and of course the legendary American Volunteer Group’s Flying Tigers in China. Pearl Harbor famously saw just two P-40 pilots* get in amongst the attacking Japanese – Kenneth Taylor and George Welch, who had been partying until 6 the night before (and wearing part of their tuxedo outfit in the rush to get to their plane). The P-40 also had the best nose art – the Flying Tigers sported the famed shark’s teeth copied from 112 Squadron in the Libyan Desert.
*This apparently is a myth – as many as fourteen US aircraft may have got into the air, while Welch and Taylor were able to do two sorties, scoring at least four victories.
3. Lockheed P-38 Lightning‘Hits from the Bong’
Number of aerial victories:3785
Top aces – Richard Bong 40, Tommy Maguire 38; Charles MacDonald 27
Like the British Mosquito, the Lightning was a light low-drag twin-engine aircraft of extremely high performance. Once you’ve decided to go twin-engined, and wish to include the bulky US exhaust-driven turbo-superchargers of the day, each engine pretty much needs a fuselage of its own. A twin-boom arrangement was far simpler than the only other option, the push-pull configuration later adopted by the Do 335. The slightly earlier Dutch Fokker G1 had successfully adopted the same twin-boom solution.
This was the first design in what would become known as Lockheed’s Skunk works, a lean hived-off secretive design practice which would later produce the SR-71. As a fighter the P-38 was upgraded throughout the war but found its place in the battles around New Guinea and the Philippines, where the top two US air aces of all time, Richard Bong and Tommy Maguire flew it to great effect. Both sadly would die shortly before the end of the conflict. However, it was less effective in the western theatre, where it struggled against Focke-Wulf Fw 190s in particular and would be by and large replaced by the P-51. It was used extensively in the Mediterranean campaign, where it got to run up high totals against the Luftwaffe and Regia air transport fleet during the Axis evacuation of Tunisia while RAF Spitfires ‘deloused’ the escort fighters.
2. Republic P-47 Thunderbolt ‘Jugular vane’
Number of aerial victories:3795
Top aces – Francis Gabreski 28; Robert S.Johnson 27; Dave Schilling 22.5; Neel Kearby 22
The greatest fighter ever designed by a Georgian was the titanic Thunderbolt. There is a loud school of aviation historians that regard this agile behemoth as the best fighter of all time. It has a strong claim, not as the best fighter, but the best fighter-bomber. Its toughness was a vital commodity when flying through flak where water-cooled fighters like the Mustang and Spitfire were more vulnerable (though it should be noted that even radial fighters have a potential weak-spot in the oil cooler system). Seversky, renamed Republic, in 1939, learnt a lesson from the failures of their earlier rather fragile fighters. They identified speed and a tough battle-resistant construction as essential for survivability, and so created a vast flying bruiser able to soak-up brutal ill-treatment and return home.
The decision to use a turbocharger instead of supercharger, and the routing of the ducting for it for optimal performance of it dictated the large tubby appearance, much of the airframe essentially becoming a turbocompressor housing.
The survivability of the P-47 meant that only one of its top ten aces, Neel Keerby, failed to survive the war. Kearby was the top P-47 ace in the Pacific and was shot down by an Oscar.
1. North American P-51 Mustang‘Fangs of the ‘Stang’
Number of aerial victories:5944
Top aces – George Preddy 23.83 (of 26.83); John C.Meyer 25.5
We looked into why the Mustang was so brilliant here. It served in all four theatres of war, but the decisive aspect in its ranking in this list was the fighting over Northern Europe, where it scored 4,239 victories. Note the figure here includes victories scored by the A-36 ground attack version of Mustang, which was essentially a P-51A with airbrakes. This takes its overall score (including RAF) to 6,209, about 130 behind the Spitfire. The quality of the P-51 meant that it amassed a huge number of victories despite the relatively modest scoring of its aces – just three, George Preddy, John C.Meyer and John Voll scored over 20. One Mustang ace, Kenneth Dahlberg, would find infamy later as a Republican apparatchik named in the Watergate scandal.
NOW AVAILABLE: The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes, a gorgeous heavily illustrated – and often irreverent- coffee-table book covering the history of aviation 1914 – the present.
If you have enjoyed The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes there is 2 things you can do to share your love:
NOW AVAILABLE: The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes, a gorgeous heavily illustrated – and often irreverent- coffee-table book covering the history of aviation 1914-the present.
Leave a nice Amazon review (this is EXTREMELY helpful)
If you like books, and you do, The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes is now on general release and is bloody lovely. A big glossy feast of irreverent humour, delectable facts, thrilling combat pilot interviews, VERY obscure aircraft types, and MUCH more. You can order it here.
You can make The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes Vol 2 happen here.
FOOTNOTE
10A. Republic P-43 Lancer
(6)
With leaky wing fuel tanks, an unreliable turbo supercharger and less than stellar manoeuvrability it would be easy to write off this ‘missing link’ – or perhaps cul de sac – in the long painful evolution that would culminate in the P-47. Another factor that counted against it: the US was generally slower than Britain to incorporate self-sealing fuel tanks or sufficient armour in fighters, and the P-43 was no exception. In air combat its fuel tanks proved considerably more vulnerable than those of the P-40. It was generally considered obsolete a year after its 1940 service entry. It did however boast good roll rate, and an exceptionally high service ceiling making the only available USAAF type able to effectively meet the ‘Dinah’ at height prior to the P-38. It served in relatively small numbers, and someone managed six kills before it was pushed aside by better machines.
Devilishly tough and well researched. Much of the online quizzes are pretty ropey, so lovely to have a quiz book made with such attention to detail and subject knowledge. In fact, that this encourages socialisation, as opposed to solo time online, is to be applauded. The love of nomenclature and sub-variant identification will not be to everyone’s taste, and it leans a little dry at times, though this is offset by many wonderful photographs (especially the lovely image of the Supermarine Attacker). That it combines civil and military is interesting, considering as they are often a different audience, and makes you wonder how smaller volumes separated into military and civil would have sold. Can’t wait to try going head-to-head on this quiz against another plane-bore!
Not a new book but one worth mentioning, this interesting book covers Soviet aces who flew Western-provided fighters. As such it is intriguing parallel universe for those used to Euro- or US-centric histories of World War 2 air combat. Spitfires, Hurricanes, P-40s, Airacobras and Thunderbolts formed the bulk of the land-lease fighters, and it reveals how they performed in the dirty, often cold and low-level conditions that typified the Soviet air war. Much has been made over the last twenty years of how the Soviets generally preferred the Airacobra to the Spitfire in World War II, and this book adds more to the story.
Extremely fine, and appropriately grubby, profile artworks by Jim Laurier are what first impresses the reader. For a reference work this is excellent, those more interested in the human story may require a longer work.
The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes is a completely unique form of literary art! Fantastic photos and rich illustrations abound. They are accompanied by a deeply researched and hilariously irreverent text. Many subjects are covered. From ‘best’ and ‘worst’ listings (with detailed documentation to justify the listings) to rare aviation art of lost projects and concepts, this book deftly explores both familiar and esoteric subjects. One of my personal favorites is the Freudian analysis of night fighter designs. Hilarious and thought provoking! Joe Coles has created a thoroughly unique book on warplanes. From Great War ( World War I) combatants to World War II legends and losers to the most modern 2022 superfighters, The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes provides an immersive experience in the things that make warplanes so fascinating!
This is a welcome relief from the many turgid military aviation books. Adrian is a confident clear writer covering a potentially ghoulish subject with sensitivity and panache, while consciously avoiding many of the cliches often encountered in books on Japanese air power. The dreadful slide from volunteer to forced (by social coercion as much as anything) kamikaze pilots is covered in a fascinating and human way by a capable writer and excellent researcher.
Barely known outside of South Africa, Petri van Zyl test flew the rarest attack helicopter in the world, the extremely capable Rooivalk. We talked to him to find out more about the continent’s first purpose-designed attack helicopter.
What is the best thing about it?
The best thing about the Rooivalk, was the incredibly low workload that the pilot had in flying the helicopter. The handling qualities and the performance of the aircraft was superior to anything I have flown up to that stage giving the pilot a stress-free environment to concentrate on the mission and not battle the aircraft into accurate flying. On top of that, all systems were designed to manage the aircraft by itself leaving the pilot free to concentrate on the mission elements.
My first contact with the Rooivalk was when I became part of the development team as a Test Pilot on the project, around the time of the first flight of the EDM model. The basic airframe was thus already developed using the XDM version. The EDM version had undergone a major weight reduction exercise as well as a full avionic update to represent the production models and still needed lots of development test flights to tweak, change and qualify all the new systems. My first flight was on the XDM model though and I was super impressed with the low-workload and vibration-free environment of the helicopter coupled with its brute power and performance, even at 10,000 feet density altitude. I could not stop smiling for a week.
I started on the project as a developmental test pilot and my biggest role was to develop and qualify the helmet mounted display systems with NVG, the digital autopilot as well as the weapons systems. In the latter part of the project, I was the Chief test pilot concerned with the qualification test flying of the whole aircraft and systems.
What is the worst thing about it?
It gets very hot in the cockpit when the air conditioner fails.
In your opinion how does it compare with other attack helicopters, such as the Apache?
It is a difficult question to answer as I have never flown an Apache. I can thus only say that the Apache has been proven in various operational scenarios and proved to be an excellent attack heli. Rooivalk has been exposed to limited operational duty but proved itself from the first moment to be up to the challenge.
What was the biggest challenge to the programme?
The programme was hampered by a lot of politics and I have never seen a programme survive such opposition, with so many stops and starts and still survive. The helicopter was developed in a time when the politics in South Africa changed totally and the new government unfortunately did not put all its weight behind the programme until it was too late to rescue. Internationally, it had to deal with a lot of challenges as it used engines and blades and other stuff from international suppliers. This came with the sanction that in certain markets it could not compete with products of those countries. Potential customers always feared that those companies would not support the product after sales.
How would you rate the cockpit? Is there a helmet display/cueing system?
The cockpit of the Rooivalk is brilliantly designed around the pilot and weapon system operator. Incredible detail planning went into it and the end product was almost and extension of the pilot’s body. Visibility out of it is incredible and the machine was optimised for the low-level nap-of-the-earth (NOE) environment. It was the launch customer for the bi-ocular Helmet Mounted Display system, which was perfected by some brilliant engineers in South Africa.
How you rate the aircraft in the following categories: A. Man Machine interface – I believe the acceptable term these days is Human Machine Interface (HMI). I have never seen a programme put in more time and effort into the HMI design than on this programme. Like I said, the HMI on this machine was an extension of the pilot’s body.
B. Combat effectiveness – I have never taken the Rooivalk into combat so I cannot comment from personal experience. But its successes with the United Nations in the DRC speaks for itself. The biggest advantage of the Rooivalk is that it can be supported in remote conditions with very little ground support. The helicopter is designed to operate in dusty, hot and remote locations and support by less than a handful of ground crew.
C. Reliability – The reliability of the helicopter has never been in doubt. It was based on the Oryx Helicopter which has proven itself over and over in extreme conditions and is maintaining the same reliability.
D. Performance – Designed for South African conditions, the design factor was for performance at a density altitude of 8000 feet plus. The performance of the two Makila 1k2 engines are simply super and it has adequate performance at this altitude even at maximum all up mass. The aircraft cruises easily at 130 KIAS with full armament even in hot and high conditions.
E. Climb rate – The climb rate starts of at around 2600 feet /min at sea level. The aircraft has adequate climb rate throughout the operational configurations. It has a service ceiling of 20 000 feet which was easily attained during certification testing.
F. Agility – Anyone that has ever seen an air display of the Rooivalk helicopter will be witness to the super agility of the helicopter. Although it is not fitted with a rigid rotor system, we performed loops, rolls and all the necessary combat manouvres with her. The incredible handling qualities of the aircraft are mainly due to the 50 knot sideways and rearward envelope which it handles with extreme ease and the incredible digital artificial flight control system. During envelope expansion the helicopter has been flown to figures in excess of twice the rearward limits to prove the stability and controllability. It is just an absolute pleasure to fly the machine and I personally have never flown another helicopter even closely in the same class.
G. Armour/survivability – Rooivalk does not carry any armour except for the seats. The design drivers of the survivability of the aircraft were:
“Do not be seen, if seen, do not be hit, if hit, do not crash, if you have to crash, survive the crash.”
The helicopter had two major crashes in the early years during flight testing. During both crashes, the crew walked away unharmed. This was an indication of the exceptional survival design.
H. Situational awareness – The helicopter is almost totally free of vibration feel inside the cockpit. This in itself already lowers the workload on the pilot tremendously. Combining this to the excellent performance, handing qualities and HMI and the pilot is free to concentrate on the mission whilst flying the helicopter is stress free and the pilot can fully concentrate to what is going on around him.
What was the aircraft originally created to do- and is it capable of doing that today? The helicopter was designed as an attack helicopter and it is being applied in that role today.
What is the aircraft’s current status? The Rooivalk is fully operational in the SAAF
Why did SA not buy an off-the-shelf foreign system? The development of Rooivalk started in the 1980s under the sanction years when off the shelf systems were not available to South Africa. When the markets opened up in 1994, the aircraft was already so far developed that it would have been a stupid decision to go after something else. In any case, most of the off the shelf items would not be compliant to the desired user specification for the South African environment.
Is the aircraft related to the Puma, if so how? Denel developed the Oryx helicopter based of the S1 Super Puma. The Oryx thus were related to the Puma. The development of the Rooivalk from the same manufacturer thus maintained the same type of blades and engines. But that is as far as the relationship stretches.
What are its likely roles and threats in a war situation? Would you be confident taking it to war? The Rooivalk can take on all the roles required of an attack helicopter. It is busy proving itself with the United Nations as a firm favourite.
Guy Plopsky is the author of a number of articles on air power and Russian military affairs. He holds an MA in International Affairs and Strategic Studies from Tamkang University Taiwan.
Here I will share some thoughts on the significance of the damage and implications for the war of the attacks on Russian airbases. These don’t cover the recent (second) attack on Engels, as very little about it is currently known, and anything that could be said would be pure speculation. This also doesn’t cover what Ukraine may have used to carry out the attacks – I am not very familiar with Ukrainian unmanned capabilities and so would rather not speculate on that.
Post-strike satellite imagery suggests that at least two Russian aircraft were damaged in the attacks, both likely belonging to the VKS’ 22nd Guard Heavy Bomber Aviation Division: a Tu-22M3 long-range bomber at Dyagilevo and a Tu-95MS strategic missile carrier at Engels. Photos from Dyagilevo that were uploaded on the internet following the attack clearly show damage to the Tu-22M3’s stabilators and engine nozzles. As for the Tu-95MS, no photos from Engels are available, so it is difficult to assess the extent of the damage; however, satellite imagery of the base shows a large area near the aircraft covered in firefighting foam.
The attack on Kursk-Khalino caused an “oil tanker” to catch on fire (presumably a fuel storage tank). It appears that no other damage was caused to the base. Kahlino is actively used by Russian aircraft taking part in operations against Ukraine, including by VKS Su-30SM fighters assigned to the 105th Mixed Aviation Division’s 14th Fighter Aviation Regiment based there. Videos released by the Russian Defense Ministry also show a detachment of Su-35S mutirole fighters forward-deployed at the base. These appear to belong to the 159th Fighter Aviation Regiment (based in Besovets, Republic of Karelia). A detachment of Su-25-series ground attack aircraft is also known to have been deployed at the base (possibly still is).
Effects
On the whole, the effect of these attacks on Russia’s warfighting capability is negligible. The VKS operates a relatively large fleet of both Tu-22M3 and Tu-95MS bombers, and the damage caused to its air base infrastructure does not impede operations from these bases. That said, the attacks represent a huge blow to the Russians from a propaganda/morale point of view for a number of reasons:
– Firstly: Ukraine has demonstrated that it can hit targets quite deep in Russian territory – something the Russians (or at least the Russian public) may have not deemed possible. Essentially, by carrying out these attacks, Ukraine sent a clear message to the Russian military: “even far from the frontlines, you are not safe.”
– Secondly, Engels isn’t just any air base – its one of two Russian strategic bomber bases. The Tu-95MS strategic missile carrier that Ukraine damaged at Engels is not only a conventional warfighting asset, but also a part of Russia’s strategic nuclear force. Russian strategic nuclear forces are revered by many in Russia. They are viewed as a symbol of Russian power. By attacking Engels and damaging a Tu-95MS (even if it will likely be repaired and returned to service at some point in the future) Ukraine struck another major blow to Russian military prestige.
– With regard to the above, while little remains known about how these attacks were carried out (for example, how many drones were launched against the bases, etc.), they have once again led to many criticisms in Russia of Russian air defense capabilities. To be fair, the Russians have strengthened air defenses around some potential targets (including air bases) closer to Ukraine and, generally speaking, have reportedly become much more effective at intercepting Ukrainian drones. Furthermore, Russia simply lacks enough air defense assets to cover a very large number of military and other high-value targets across the country. That said, the attacks have once again brought to light questions about the effectiveness of Russian air defense equipment. In this regard, while Engels is relatively far from Ukraine, there are two S-400 sites manned by the 76th Air Defense Division’s 511th SAM Regiment that are deployed relatively close to the base; one is only about 7km away, the other a little over 20km. Why were they unable to defend the base? There could be a number of reasons. Surprise may have played an important role as the Russians possibly did not expect that the Ukrainians could carry out an attack using drones this far from Ukraine.
– Lastly, the attacks no doubt served as a big morale booster for the Ukrainians, especially the attacks on Engels and Dyagilevo, given that Russian bombers have been launching missiles at Ukrainian cities. In this regard, the attacks also once again demonstrated to the Ukrainian people and to the world that their military is trying its best to protect its people from the Russian onslaught.
The prospect of facing the most potent Russian fighters in a sluggish converted bomberwas a sobering prospect, but as former Tornado F3 pilot Jon Dunn explains, there were reasons to be confident.
Thank you for reading Hush-Kit. Our site is absolutely free. If you’ve enjoyed an article you can donate here.
Did Tornado F3 crews think it was likely they would have faced Soviet/Russian escort fighters in the event of war? And if so, how do they feel about the possibility?
Quite likely. Not too worried about it really, our situational awareness and weapons were generally better. So long as the rules of engagement were there to allow a Beyond Visual Range engagement – which in a shooting war there would be. The tactics, doctrine and surveillance assets along with our C3I (Command, Control, Communications and Information) would give us the ability to effectively engage a threat at range and negate the superior manoeuvrability of the modern fighter threat. But, as Uncle Joe says ‘Quantity has a quality all of its own’.
Is this in AMRAAM days? As I understand in Sky Flash times you would have likely be outraged by enhanced range R-27s
Well to a certain extent both, but you are right. The trick was the Situational Awareness – and with the radar coverage and Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS), even Skyflash could make you pretty potent. But you would have had to be careful. The AA-10 series had a few fairly potent models which made engaging them a non trivial task.
Were you more wary of MiG-31s or Su-27s?
Su-27s, has they had more fuel. Longer range. More endurance. It is the whole weapons system that you have to consider and that includes sensors, weapons, airframes, aircrew and support. Often the AA-10 (R-27)was the longest range weapon there if coupled to an AA-12 (R-77) threat it made for a concerning potential. However, if that is coupled to an aircraft with a poor radar or operated by aircrew who were unaware of the Radar Warner or a radar Warner that wasn’t accurate enough then the whole system is less potent.
What are your thoughts on the air war in Ukraine from the perspective of someone who trained against the Russian threat?
The air war in Ukraine is far more complex than old style Soviet aircraft coming across the North Sea. There is the combined element with artillery operations and a potent surface to air missile threat.
Does part of you wish to be there?
Yes. As an Air Defender who served while Iraq and Afghanistan were absorbing the bulk of the UK Military focus it was dispiriting to be sitting at home or in the Falklands on QRA because there was no air threat.
If you had to choose the ten best fighter (or fighter interceptors) currently in service how would you rank them and why?
10? Chuffing hell!
F-22 has to be the top of the tree, the bench mark for what everyone wants to beat. The SA provided by the sensor suite and the weapons systems are unparalleled
2. F-15 because of its longevity and it actually has a proven track record.
3. Su-27 because of its payload, you can’t beat being able to take a lot of rockets places
8. Gripen because the Swedes always made lovely aircraft
9. Rafale because the French have always made good aircraft and coupled them with potent weapons
10. J-20 because the Chinese are missing and I don’t know much about it
What was your relationship like with your pilot/Nav in the F3? Were aircrew paired or did they fly with different people? Did any not get on with each other? We tended to be paired for big exercises or Ops but generally you just flew with anyone. Mostly people got on, though there were a few who were difficult to work with and typically everyone found the same people hard to work with.
Complete this phrase…two-seat aircraft are better than single-seat aircraft because… there is somebody to talk to.
Does an aircraft in a museum seem ‘alive’ to you? How do you feel seeing an F3 in a museum?
I get a bit choked up seeing them in museums. I loved flying it and will always be proud of having done so. Was it a good aircraft for the job it was supposed to be doing? No, but it was what it was. I took my children to East Fortune and was opening panels showing them the gun and other bits and pieces, I am fairly certain the museum were less than happy with me.
Tell me something I don’t know about the F3
Mostly we taxied with the wings swept. That meant there was better clearance. At Leeming, there was a very narrow exit to the 25 Sqn Hardened Air Shelter site and you had to swing the wings forward quite close to the runway. My friend taxied out for a night sortie and they decided that they would skip the first two of the pre take-off checks and complete the rest while waiting inside the HAS site (wings 25 degrees sweep, flaps take off). They then got a bit of a rushed take-off clearance and tried to take off with the wings swept. At 169 knots Bill pulled the stick back and not much happened. Rapidly running out of runway and too fast to stop he looked around and slammed the wings forward and popped the flap. He said it didn’t half leap airborne at over 200 knots as the flaps bit, and the piano keys at the far end slipped under the nose.
Which do you find more attractive, the F3 or the Typhoon, and why?
Typhoon, does the job it was designed to do. Not a bomber turned into a fighter.
What was the most challenging opponent you faced in exercises, why?
Swiss F-18s because we turned up thinking they were still flying Hunters and F-5s so got quite a shock when they were F-18-equipped and bloody good
What did the F3 force think of F-15s and vice versa?
Most F3 guys simply wanted to have an F-15, be that a C model or an E model, as both were just superb. I don’t think the F-15 guys thought about us but if they did they probably wondered why we were trying to do an Air Defence job with a bomber.
Describe your most memorable flight/mission?
Flying to Red Flag, Azores to Bermuda. Diverted to Halifax in January. We landed on a snow covered runway and very nearly ejected because when we used thrust reverse we disappeared in our own little ‘white out’.
Which aircraft would you most like to fly, and why? F-35. The sensor fusions, the power, hovering, stealth, weapons – all sorts of reasons. Just a really sweet ride.
Follow Hush-Kit on Twitter for aviation news, history and satire.
NOW AVAILABLE: The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes, a gorgeous heavily illustrated – and often irreverent- coffee-table book covering the history of aviation 1914 – the present.
If you have enjoyed The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes there is 2 things you can do to share your love:
NOW AVAILABLE: The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes, a gorgeous heavily illustrated – and often irreverent- coffee-table book covering the history of aviation 1914-the present.
Leave a nice Amazon review (this is EXTREMELY helpful)
Thank you for reading Hush-Kit. Our site is absolutely free. If you’ve enjoyed an article you can donate here. Hush-Kit depends on your donations to keep going, and funding is currently very low. If you love this madness then do support us, we may need to pause service if we can’t increase funding levels.
If you like books, and you do, The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes is now on general release and is bloody lovely. A big glossy feast of irreverent humour, delectable facts, thrilling combat pilot interviews, VERY obscure aircraft types, and MUCH more. You can order it here.
You can make The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes Vol 2 happen here.
Whiteness. Unforgiving whiteness…though I’m not sure which colour could forgive – perhaps burgundy?
Winter is hard for any military, with harsh weather, freezing temperatures and impeded mobility. It can change the whole backdrop – where once lush painted greens, dark browns and dusty khakis may once have provided some level of camouflage on the battlefield, suddenly they become shining beacons against what may be a world that has become entirely white. Aircraft are no exception to this, and camouflage has traditionally been just as vital in combat in the air as on the ground, where a moment’s loss of sight in a dogfight can mean death or a few miles less spotting distance can mean you get back home alive. The ability to hide an aeroplane or helicopter against the ground or sky has proven to be vitally important over the decades. As the northern hemisphere finds itself plunged into the depths of coldness and with Jolly Saint Nick already warming himself up for the world’s longest cargo flight we thought it was time to rate those schemes that let us know that winter is indeed coming (it’s still 2018 right? That reference still flies I’m sure?). Sam Wise reports.
Vehicle camouflage was developed later than soldier’s camouflage clothing, which itself arrived later than hunter’s camouflage. One of the known earliest known adopters of hunter’s camouflage were several tribes in what is today Mali, who are believed to have used bògòlanfini or bogolan ‘mud-dyed’ fabric to colour match their backgrounds during hunts for several hundred years. Soldiers improvised camouflage in the battlefield from the at least the early 20th century, but it probably wasn’t until the 1920s that a form of disruptive military camouflage entered mass production with Italian M1929. Multi-coloured aircraft camouflage paint schemes, sometimes conceptually developed by artists and camoufleurs, saw widespread use in World War I.
By World War II there were well established conventions of aircraft camouflage, but many of these temperate schemes proved extremely conspicuous in snowy conditions. Winter often required a different scheme for warplanes, here are my top 10 winter or snow schemes.
10. Soviet World War II schemes
The Eastern Front of the Second World War was brutal for both sides. The famous steppe winter saw what the Nazi German regime had hoped – and assumed – would be a quickly-executed summer offensive bog down and take a devastating toll on the invading forces. With aerial combat on the eastern front taking place at much lower altitudes than on the other side of Europe it was even more important to ensure the aircraft didn’t stand out against the now-white ground. In many cases, rather than putting their aircraft through a whole repainting process, which would then have to be undone again once the thaw set in, both sides applied a whitewash over the aeroplane’s existing paintjob (which often began to show through again soon after as the water-soluble wash began to wear off, especially on the front parts of the plane).
The scientifically-developed wash added weight and increased drag, but that was a trade off against survivability. It’s common to see photos of Soviet aircraft with only partial wash applied, usually around the rear portions of the airframe. This probably derives from the knowledge that at the front much of it would wear off anyway, as well as the fact that the most frequently accessed parts of the plane for maintenance were located at the front – as panels were opened and replaced, reapplying the wash every time would increase the time until the aircraft was ready again, and the applied white at the rear served the break the aircraft shape up well enough notwithstanding the bright red bort numbers, stars and (occasionally) patriotic slogans. It may have also helped limit the loss of speed from increased drag.
9. Japan Ground Self Defence Force helicopters
Photo [March 2017]: akihiro via Twitter @dragon192
One of the main goals camouflage can aim to achieve is shape disruption – break up the shape of an aircraft so that it’s less easily identified by the human eye. Our first rotary-wing entry on this list we turn to the Japan Ground Self Defence Force. Many of the JGSDF’s helicopters are already painted in a very enjoyable two-tone camo, but for winter training exercises every JGSDF unit will apply snow camo to a small number of their aircraft, usually by, apparently, applying a whitewash over the lighter brown sections of the camo (if present). Maybe the most exciting example of this is the service’s AH-1S Cobras, just because, you know, Cobras. Camouflaged attack helicopters are always cool, and the winter scheme gives them a real menacing look.
The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes, “aviation book of the year” can be purchased here.
8. Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II
The Warthog (let’s be real, no one’s calling it the Thunderbolt II, are they?) is one of the most iconic western aeroplanes of the Cold War, and even today carries a myth and legend that has proven exciting for some and frustrating for others. It is unique in appearance, standing out on any lineup of USAF jets and built around the world-famous GAU-8 Avenger that produces the sound that shall not be written out here. Once closely associated with the central European plains on which it was originally conceived to be fighting and tank-busting and more recently the stuff of legends for its Close Air Support services in Afghanistan and the Middle East, one environment it has never really been pegged with is the snow.
However, as early as 1982 the USAF were experimenting with winter schemes on the ‘Hawg, painting airframe 80-221 in a black and white camouflage for the…questionably-named Exercise Cool Snow Hog in Alaska. It was never adopted operationally, though, and the aircraft was repainted into its operational scheme after not too long.
7. Junker Ju 87 ‘Stuka‘
Back to the eastern front again and an aircraft that has some fascinating snow schemes applied – the Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber which proved so effective in the early years of the war. Aside from the aforementioned all-over wash, variants included a broken, patchy white-on-green that serves to break the aeroplane’s shape up and imitate vegetation among the snow, spots of white over the base camo. Perhaps the most eye-catching version was one that featured painted on ‘worms’ of white all over the plane, in clear plagiarism of Jackon Pollock’s style. In addition to the winter camo, some Stukas were also fitted with skis to better adapt to the snowy conditions, which is cool because skis on planes is always pretty rad.
6. F-16 Aggressor camouflage
One of the most defining characteristics of any modern fighter aircraft is that it’s grey. Battleship grey, light grey, dark grey, but almost interminably grey. So when an exception comes along we have to give it its dues, and one of the best sources for those exceptions is the aggressor units of the US Air Force. The scheme is based on multi-layered polygonal Russian scheme (informally referred to as a splinter) applied to Su-35s
For winter camos we look to the 18th Aggressor Squadron at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska who fly F-16C/Ds. While blacks and whites aren’t technically that much of a departure from the traditional Viper scheme, they do look pretty good in both the ‘traditional’ and splinter forms, serving to act as imitation enemy aircraft among the snowy landscapes of the northernmost US state. Among the mountains and glaciers this disruptive scheme would help the blend the aircraft’s shape into the rocky picture beneath it. This scheme has been replicated elsewhere with variations on civilian aggressor A-4 Skyhawks and even, weirdly, MiG-17s…
Well, this one sort of makes it onto the list because it’s so mental, but whether or not it’s actually a snow camo is up for debate. This experimental splinter camo was developed by the Czech Air Force’s Letecký zkušební odbor (Flying Test Department – LZO) in the nineties and applied to MiG-21MF 7701 which carried the scheme even after it was passed over for operational use. This airframe made it as far as RAF Fairford (in summer) for airshows, and remains stored today at the Museum of Air and Ground Technology in Vyškov. One of the more peculiar and rare aspects of this is that the radar cone and dielectric panels of the aircraft, which are normally painted in dark green on MiG-21s regardless of the livery used, are also painted over in this scheme. Combined with the low-vis roundel this gives the jet an absolute uniformity of appearance that’s quite unusual with Soviet aircraft.
4. SEPECAT Jaguar RAF
After giving up bright red, the British military has often made excellent choices regarding camouflage. An early adopter of the effective khaki colour for ground forces, it then went for the superb DPM from the 1960s. The story of British aircraft camouflage is generally positive, with the exception of painting night fighters black. The RAF reconnaissance Spitfire’s Recce Pink was considered especially effective.
One of the Cold War’s most perceived-to-be vulnerable fronts was NATO’s northern flank on Norway’s 200km border with Russia. The fear of a Soviet invasion from the arctic, with many bases and powerful assets based on the Kola Peninsula, meant that NATO frequently exercised (and continue to do so) in northern Norway to prepare for warfare in winter conditions. The RAF in particular frequently deployed to Norwegian bases, and very often applied makeshift snow camouflage to their aircraft travelling there, including on the SEPECAT Jaguar which would deploy to northern Norway, including Bardufoss within the Arctic Circle, to perform ground attack and tactical reconnaissance missions.
In the event of the Cold War bursting into flames, three RAF Jaguar fighter-bomber squadrons would have been dispatched to Scandinavia to bolster the defence of NATO’s vulnerable northern flank. Two squadrons would be sent to perform the ground attack mission, and the third – 41 Squadron – would deploy to the harsh climate of Bardufoss. Bardufoss, in Norway, is within the arctic circle and as well as surviving the snow and wind, RAF Jaguars would be flying the perilous tactical reconnaissance mission.
The Jaguar being relatively simple, was easier than other types to deploy at short notice, a skill in which the Jaguar force become adept. The Jaguar’s hefty undercarriage and large wheels would serve it well on the icy runways of Bardufoss, and its normal lack of thrust was less of an issue in the cold dense air.
Not only did you see whitewash applied over the greens on the Jag’s regular camo, such as with other examples on this list, but also more imaginative bespoke schemes, including some proper leopard-print affairs and a beautiful blue and white spotted scheme. The weirdest one by far would have to be a sort of conjoining rings of white applied all over the aircraft, overlapping even onto the RAF roundel.
3. Finnish Buffalo
The Brewster Buffalo was one of the Second World War’s unlikeliest successes. Obsolete in US service by the time the country entered the war and suffering heavy losses in British and Dutch hands by the Imperial Japanese Navy’s A6M Zeros, it weirdly enough proved to be a formidable opponent in Finnish hands during the Continuation War against the USSR (despite some being combat ready by the time it ended, the type never saw combat in the immediately preceding Winter War).
Technically the B-239E and known simply as the Brewster by the Finns, it proved itself more than a match for most Soviet types it faced, racking up some incredible victory ratios. Finland’s cooler weather aided the Brewster’s reliability and it earnt a popular reputation in the country. Unsurprisingly, it was applied with several different winter schemes to suit the country’s climate, including a fantastic leopard-print white application.
2. Westland Sea King
Long Live the King! The Westland Sea King is an utterly iconic type in the UK, a proper beast of a helicopter and a helicopter still seeing service across the world – with Ukraine becoming the latest operator of the nearly 53 year old type! The Royal Navy’s famous “Junglies”, the discerning Royal Marine Commando’s transport of choice, were expected to serve in almost any environment including, of course, wintery warfare.
To that end, a number of airframes were painted in a tiger stripe snow camouflage, perfect for frozen operations but also looking pretty great on the King as well with one airframe, ZF115, wearing the scheme right up until the type was retired. Others in the scheme also took part in the Balkans under the Implementation Force (IFOR) and Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
HS/BAE Systems Harrier
Staying with the UK but returning to Norway is the RAF’s Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR3s and T4s painted in wraparound black/grey and white camo, often looking a bit worn and rough as all Harriers should do. It’s a combination that just screams Cold War, especially with the early Harrier’s gigantic inflight refuelling probe stuck on the intake and the GR3’s famous porpoise nose. Although slightly less symbolic of an era, the later BAe Harriers in RAF service did also have temporary winter paint applied from time-to-time as well.
Thanks to some of the incredible imagery of Harriers flying over the Norwegian fjords and mountains that the RAF’s ever-prolific photographers blessed us with as well as the undeniable cool-factor of the Harrier in every form it took, it takes the top spot on this list. The shots of Harriers set against snowy fields and forests are just iconic and no fan of military flying can deny how good they look.
Austro-Hungarian ski patrol on Italian front in snow camouflage, 1915-1918.
Sam Wise is an opinionated aviation enthusiast who definitely doesn’t think that TSR2 was the best plane ever. His views of many different subjects can be found at @SamWise24.
The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes, “aviation book of the year” can be purchased here.
Sea Hurricane, one of the few times the RN applied artic camouflage to an aircraft.
Perhaps the very pinnacle of British aero-engineering was the superlative Handley-Page Victor nuclear bomber of 1952. The world’s greatest medium bomber, the Victor was far superior to rival designs. Key to its superiority was its distinctive crescent wing. Considering the excellence of the wing we wondered why this design solution is dead. We turned to Jim Smith to find out.
Hush-Kit asked me about the Victor crescent wing, and why it had not been more widely used. The answer needs a bit of discussion about what was being sought, and the problems of flight at high altitude and high transonic speed.
The unusual Victor wing design is extremely interesting. Like all aircraft wing designs, it must balance the competing needs of required lift, altitude and speed capability, while carrying the powerplants and minimising structural weight – without falling off.
So… why the crescent shape?
This primarily derives from the desire to cruise at high subsonic speed and high altitude over long distances, going right back to the original requirement as a strategic nuclear bomber. This requirement means that it will be helpful to have good internal volume for fuel, in an aerodynamic shape that has low drag at speeds close to the transonic drag rise.
What’s that the transonic drag wave?
The transonic drag rise is the increase in drag of an aerofoil or wing as speed is increased towards the speed of sound. The rise in drag is typically due to the formation of shock waves in the flow as areas of locally supersonic flow develop over the wing. Bear in mind we are aiming for high altitude, so the wing will be having to generate reasonable lift coefficients (a daunting term that simply means the effectiveness of an aircraft wing) in the cruise, and those are generated by suction due to increased local air speed. Hence areas of locally supersonic flow may develop, which may result in the formation of shock waves and increases in drag. The speed at which shock waves first appear in the flow is called the critical Mach number, and it is at around this Mach number that potentially performance-limiting drag rise occurs.
Not only that, the shock waves that form are likely to interfere with the flow over the wing, and badly affect handling. For a conventional, straight-tapered, swept wing (Sabre, for example) at a given incidence, subsonic, the greatest lift coefficient will be at perhaps 70% span, and this area is likely to be where shock waves first appear in the flow as speed is increased. Because a shock wave is essentially a sudden jump in pressure in the flow, it can, and does, greatly affect the flow close to the wing surface in the boundary layer. At high speed and high altitude, this can cause the flow to separate, resulting in a drastic loss of lift, and a phenomenon called transonic pitch up.
All of the above can be delayed by a combination of wing sweep (which reduces local Mach number), and low thickness-chord ratio, which reduces local suction, hence delays formation of shock waves.
Now, to the Victor. The Victor was designed to achieve the same critical Mach number across the whole span of the wing. The wing design has a very large inboard wing chord, with high sweep, and this allows it both to have sufficient depth to accommodate the engines (more on this shortly), while still allowing a high critical Mach number. Outboard, the wing tapers, and reduces significantly in thickness, and moderately in sweep, these two factors resulting in a constant critical Mach number, and no tendency to transonic pitch up. Overall, the result is a max cruise speed of Mach 0.92 at 55,000 ft, which is a fairly remarkable achievement for an aircraft which first flew in 1952.
So why doesn’t every aircraft look like this? Well, there are two short answers to this – one, because they don’t need to, and two, because of the disadvantages of the engine installation. The Victor is a great package, but you don’t really want to bury the engines in the wings if you can avoid it, notwithstanding a certain post-war British fascination with doing just that. If you bury the engines, you will have to redesign the wing if you choose to upgrade the engines – see Victor, Nimrod, Nimrod MRA4 for example, quite apart from the added time and cost of routine maintenance or engine changes. Intake design also turns out to be tricky, because leading edge intakes next to the fuselage will see substantial changes in flow with varying incidence and lift. In addition, there are structural benefits to distributing the engines across the span, due to something called inertia bending moment relief, which results in lower stresses at the wing root, and hence lighter wing structure. However, podded solutions at these high cruise Mach numbers will also be tricky to design, as they may well reduce critical Mach number.
The Naan Bread Triangle, Mr Old Skool and Captain Fantastic
Today’s airliners are among the most efficient aircraft ever made, and this has been achieved by not needing to do some of the things the Victor could do. If you do not need to travel at such a high cruise speed, you can go for structurally-efficient podded engines, and gain a bonus in upgradeability and maintenance costs, as well as lighter wing weights. The wings can be lighter as the weight of an engine on the wings gives relief from wing bending.
Additionally, at lower cruise speeds, and with modern aerofoil design methods, lower sweep and thicker wing sections can be used, and higher local Mach numbers can be tolerated without shock waves causing flow separations. All of this, and the use of new materials, result in lighter and more aerodynamically and structurally efficient wings.
The Victor and the Vulcan both resulted from a desire to cruise fast, high and for long-distances. With the exception of the B-2, the subsonic military transport and bomber aircraft of today are essentially transports, and are designed like transport aircraft. These aircraft are all vulnerable to advanced anti-air weapons, which is why the strategic capability now generally resides with submarines rather than aircraft. The B-2 (and B-21) are pursuing a different survivability route (stealth), which imposes its own constraints and compromises.
Supersonic aircraft tend to punch through the difficult transonic area at low lift coefficient, and are driven to completely different configuration solutions depending on their particular requirements.
Today only one or two business jets operate in the difficult transonic cruise environment, aided by advanced aerofoil design, and generally rear-mounted podded engines with integrated design of the fuselage, wings and engine pods to reduce drag. Respect is due to any aircraft capable of cruising at Mach 0.9+ for long distances, even though the Victor and Vulcan have passed into history.
The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes, featuring choice cuts from this site along with a wealth of new previously unpublished material, world-class illustrations is a thrilling, irreverent, and informative celebration of military aircraft.
The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes features the finest cuts from this site along with exclusive new articles, explosive photography and gorgeous bespoke illustrations. Buy The Hush-Kit Book of Warplaneshere.
Thank you. Our merchandise shop is here and our Twitter account here @Hush_Kit. Sign up for our newsletter here.
This F-35B (STOL) at Fort Worth had a problem. I’m not certain but it appears to me that the pilot couldn’t stop the thrust once it flipped over. The ground ejection was very impressive. pic.twitter.com/uBSASXiWWv
The recent Lockheed-Martin F-35B Lightning II (STOVL variant) accident at Fort Worth (see video) is, of course, subject to detailed investigation. Any speculation, of course, is just that, but there are some possible pointers in the video which may be worthy of comment.
The aircraft performs a low-speed, near-vertical, landing, and touches down with sufficient descent-rate to experience a bounce on landing. Following the bounce, it pitches rapidly nose down, strikes the ground, and falls over onto its side. The engine remains running, and thrust from the deflected rear nozzle drives the aircraft around in a circular motion on the ground. Towards the end of the sequence, the rotation of the aircraft on the ground reverses, suggesting that the fan may have re-engaged. The pilot ejects, and there is no fire.
What could have caused this mishap? The initial pitch down is immediate and quite rapid, suggesting a large thrust imbalance rather than an intentional manoeuvre. This might be caused by a fan system failure, noting that single point failure of the clutch, the gearbox, the drive-shaft, or of the fan itself could cause such a thrust imbalance. Of these, the clutch and gearbox appear most significant, given the apparent re-engagement of the fan, inferred from the reversal of the motion of the aircraft.
ASTOVL aircraft in jet-borne flight are vulnerable to single-point failures of this sort, as are helicopters. The cause of this particular accident should be relatively rapidly identified, given the apparently successful ejection by the pilot, the relatively limited damage to the aircraft, the available video imagery, and the lack of a post-crash fire.
Aspects of particular interest are likely to be the nature and cause of the initial failure; whether there was any adverse interaction between the propulsion control system and the flight control system; whether, and why, the fan re-engaged; and why the engine continued to run throughout the sequence, rather than being shut down automatically or through pilot control.
Creating a supersonic stealthy vertical take-off fighter is an extremely difficult task, and years of studies —and a healthy handful of initialisms and acronyms — paved the path to today’s F-35B. Jim Smith describes his role on the ASTOVL project and the challenges it facedhere.
