Fairey Gannet

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TheGreenGoblin
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Fairey Gannet

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Dec 05, 2019 1:54 pm

I have always been fascinated by the Fairey Gannet having only ever seen the example in the Duxford museum. The concept of the contra rotating props using the hugely powerful double Mamba engine approach, being the most intriguing aspect of this unique, and by all accounts very versatile aircraft, that continued in service in its anti-submarine reconnaissance and surveillance role until 1978. The fact that the UK still doesn't have an operational aircraft pending the arrival of the US supplied P-8 Poseidon with a similar capacity to perform that critical role, speaks volumes about the utility of this odd looking but supremely versatile aircraft.



I didn't realise that the Germans had operated it in the early 1960's.

Fairey Gannet.JPG
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Re: Fairey Gannet

#2 Post by ian16th » Thu Dec 05, 2019 2:14 pm

The French had similar ideas:

Breguet Alize
Alize.jpg
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I saw them doing some trials at Istres.

It used the RR Dart.
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Re: Fairey Gannet

#3 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Dec 05, 2019 2:17 pm

Sadly the attempt to get the one remaining airworthy Gannet back to the United Kingdom as highlighted in the video clip in the first post fell foul of engine problems and then skullduggery.

Gannet Survivor



Ruined by the RAF march music in the background. Should have been FAA music if anything anyway.
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Re: Fairey Gannet

#4 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Dec 05, 2019 2:26 pm

ian16th wrote:
Thu Dec 05, 2019 2:14 pm
The French had similar ideas:

Breguet Alize

I saw them doing some trials at Istres.

It used the RR Dart.
Zose cheeky French chappies doing the Monty Python thing again...

"He has already got one"

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Re: Fairey Gannet

#5 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Dec 05, 2019 2:40 pm

More details about Janet from Mr Odone who is still flying her.

More on Janet the Gannet

For full details of the legal imbroglio read the links above. I am not taking sides. More detail on all that at the place they call TOP.

The legal arguments can be found here...

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2014/1694.html
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Re: Fairey Gannet

#6 Post by G-CPTN » Thu Dec 05, 2019 3:11 pm

Yes, the Gannet is probably my second favourite aircraft (after the Lancaster) - followed by the DH110 Sea Vixen.
I remember being surprised how large the Gannet is.

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Re: Fairey Gannet

#7 Post by ian16th » Thu Dec 05, 2019 3:26 pm

G-CPTN wrote:
Thu Dec 05, 2019 3:11 pm
I remember being surprised how large the Gannet is.

Yep!

Marshalled a few. Them were big sods.
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Re: Fairey Gannet

#8 Post by FD2 » Thu Dec 05, 2019 7:14 pm

Also had a short wing version:

Gannet shortwing version.jpg
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I think that it was caused (in the ASW version here) doing an over-vigorous attack on a submarine and breaking the two outer sections of wings off. It still got them home, though he may have made a faster than usual approach on finals!

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Re: Fairey Gannet

#9 Post by CharlieOneSix » Thu Dec 05, 2019 8:15 pm

My only cat launch and fixed wing landing on a carrier was in Ark’s COD Gannet. Both experiences confirmed to me that being streamed rotary wing was a good decision!
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Re: Fairey Gannet

#10 Post by Pontius Navigator » Thu Dec 05, 2019 8:55 pm

To increase on station endurance one engine could be shut down. One senior RAF officer suggested that the AEW Shackleton could, like the Gannet shut down half its engines and just cruise on 4. It had to be pointed out . . .

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Re: Fairey Gannet

#11 Post by k3k3 » Fri Dec 06, 2019 3:10 pm

Replace the Griffons with Double Mamba's and Bob's your uncle.

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Re: Fairey Gannet

#12 Post by 1DC » Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:25 pm

They were noisy buggar's. During the Zanzibar revolution, in the early sixties I was anchored behind an aircraft carrier (Hermes,I think) in Mombasa harbour and they spent most of the night working on Gannets and running up the engines. I was surprised that they could make so much noise..

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Re: Fairey Gannet

#13 Post by barkingmad » Wed Dec 11, 2019 5:17 pm

The then Lt Dave Moojen (post #1 video) patiently and with good humour tolerated my efforts to move the Griffon engined Perpetual Motion Machine around the skies from Sept to Nov 1975 out of Lossie. A great guy with whom to fly, is he still out there?

:-\

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Re: Fairey Gannet

#14 Post by G-CPTN » Wed Dec 11, 2019 5:44 pm


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Re: Fairey Gannet

#15 Post by FD2 » Wed Dec 11, 2019 7:07 pm

It was a little more dangerous back then. My instructor at Church Fenton on Chipmunks, Tony Trudgett, went back to Gannets and was killed, as was our senior pilot, Tony Light, who was later killed at Lossie when only flaps on one wing lowered on finals. Top blokes and sorely missed.

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Re: Fairey Gannet

#16 Post by CharlieOneSix » Wed Dec 11, 2019 11:37 pm

barkingmad wrote:
Wed Dec 11, 2019 5:17 pm
The then Lt Dave Moojen (post #1 video) patiently and with good humour tolerated my efforts to move the Griffon engined Perpetual Motion Machine around the skies from Sept to Nov 1975 out of Lossie. A great guy with whom to fly, is he still out there?

:-\
Although I only knew him by sight I wouldn't have recognised Dave Moojen from that photo.....but it was taken 30 odd years after I last saw him. He's in the UK and a member of the Fleet Air Arm Officers' Association so could be tracked down with an email to them at admin@fleetairarmoa.org . Sorry, rules is rules so I can't pass on his details to you.

Two Gannet incidents stick in my mind - one at a Culdrose Air Day in the late 60's when 'Bomber' Brown couldn't get the undercarriage down on an AEW3 and he did a very smooth landing on the radome.
Fairey Gannet AEW3.jpg
The other I think I have mentioned somewhere here in the past was when a Gannet broke its noseleg off when landing at night on Ark Royal's pitching deck on the Beira Patrol in '66 and the hook missed the wires as a result. I was night planeguard in a Wessex when the Gannet went up the deck in a shower of sparks. The Gannet tail light drew a perfect curve in the night sky as the aircraft went off the bows into the sea. All three crew got out okay - my only night rescue.

When 849 Squadron were at Brawdy, the late Pete Frame was flying the COD Gannet on his own during some night continuation training and as it was a calm moonlit night he decided to try some night aerobatics! Just a shame the night was still, as the sound of Double Mambas being hurled around the sky carried to the ears of Commander Air on an evening walk...
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Re: Fairey Gannet

#17 Post by barkingmad » Thu Dec 12, 2019 9:18 am

CharlieOneSix, many thanks for the ref to the Association and reassuring info.

I appreciate the rules on passing data, I’d be hacked off if mine got passed along without an ok. No pun intended!

Will try to contact via them though the festive season may slow things down. :-bd

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Re: Fairey Gannet

#18 Post by FD2 » Fri Dec 13, 2019 1:54 am

Thanks for reminding me C16. Ken Patrick and Pete Frame, both Gannets, were also instructors on the HSP unit at Church Fenton. Great guys - I last saw Pete in Kirkwall and we had a few beers together at the big hotel there. He was flying the HS125 for a company called MAM. I heard things went badly wrong for him abroad later. In case it sounds one sided we also had some great RAF instructors on the unit. :-bd

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Re: Fairey Gannet

#19 Post by CharlieOneSix » Fri Dec 13, 2019 9:36 am

FD2 wrote:
Fri Dec 13, 2019 1:54 am
.... In case it sounds one sided we also had some great RAF instructors on the unit. :-bd
In 1964 the HSP Chipmunks were based at Linton-on-Ouse. All the instructors on the Chipmunk, bar one, were RAF and excellent. I tried to track down my instructor, Jerry Baxter, ex-Hunters, a few years ago but failed. I would like to have thanked him. If it hadn't been for his patience - though sometimes in frustration he whacked me on my bonedome when I cocked up - I doubt whether I would have had an aviation career.

Re Pete Frame, I was on a DO's course with him at Victory and then caught up with him again on Ark when he was the COD pilot. It was with him that I experienced my only cat shot and arrested landing.

A young Pete - from our DO's Course photo:
frame.jpg
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Re: Fairey Gannet

#20 Post by FD2 » Fri Dec 13, 2019 9:31 pm

Isn't that a coincidence C16? - he was on an NBCD course in Victory with a group of us about 1969. We found that because of a mess dinner we couldn't get drinks in the Wardroom the night we arrived for the course. Pete reversed his stiff collar, put his mess undress waistcoat on back to front and went and ordered about ten pints, which would be ferried down to one of the cabins in stages. He was spotted by a padre, who sneaked to a Lt Cdr, who suddenly appeared at the cabin door and told us we were in the *****. We, very junior officers, blanched at getting hauled up in front of the Commander, before the chap burst out laughing and said what a good joke it was. Apparently the ruse had failed because the waistcoat had a shiny back and Pete claimed to be from the wrong 'persuasion' as it should have been matte. A great Geordie character.

Ron Pavely was my very patient RAF instructor for about the first two months, followed later by Flt Lts Jerry? Gibson, Gardiner, Ian? Ray and a few others. Great blokes and what a sense of relief it was to get to the end of the EFT course and be (almost) accepted by them as a (little) better than useless students!

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