FLYING NAVY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 February 1941, Page 6

FLYING NAVY

ANTICIPATION OF ENEMY

MOVE

RECEPTION PREPARED FOR STUKAS. MF. DIT ERRA N E A N CAMPAIGN. Reference has been made in the last few days to the appearance of German Stuka dive-bombers on the Mediterranean for the purpose of attacking warships and convoys. , Italian announcers declared that the Stukas would bo too fast for the aircraft used by the “living Navy"; but it is clear from the British official announcements that the enemy’s move was ■anticipated by the appearance with the Navy of new machines —the Blackburn Roc and the Fairey Fulmar —both faster and more powerful than the planes they have displaced. Aircraft-carrier landing limitations tvo-c chiefly responsible for the retention in the Naval air arm of the slow, easily manoeuvrable, but now largely obsolete biplane fighter. The biplane as a torpedo-dropping bomber, as a "spotter” to help direct warships’ gunfire, and as a reconnaissance machine still survives in the Flee; Air Arm's Swordfish, in its successor the Fairey Albacore, and in the still formidable land Gladiator now handed over to the Navy in large numbers and equipped for deck landing.

These tnaids-of-all-work. Swordfish. Albacore and Skua, do not hurl their 1.5001 b of torpedo at a target so much as they hurl themselves. They descend to about 4.000 feet, then powerdive almost vertically to a few hundred feet from their target at which point the torpedo is released. They are still more than a match for enemy naval dive-bombers They have already done admirable work against Mussolini’s cotton-wool Hoot whet,ever it has shown itself outside its harbours.

Before the Germans moved into Italy wit i their faster planes, the British Navy had armed itself with new planes which, will be to the Navy what the Spitfires and Hurricanes have been to Britain at home.

Ihe Fairey Fulmar is larger than the Hurricane but otherwise looks like it. Though ns speed is not disclosed, the Fulmar is faster than anything previously used in naval work. It can kind at much less than 60 miles an hour on the 700 feet of deck length Offered by the aircraft carrier. The Spitfire at 60 miles an hour requires a 900 feet run for landing. It is heavily armed.

A few months older than the Fulmat. the Blackburn Roc is u 2-seater lighter with wing-guns and a moveable gun-turret amidships. Both are monoplanes. like the earlier Blackburn Skua which has proved so effective in action.

Tao appearance of these new machines shows that the Fleet Air Arm has kept ahead of the enemy's moves. No one in the historic War Room at the Admiralty will watch the performance of these planes with greater interest than the Fifth Sea Lord Vice Admiral Guy C. C. Royle. Chief of the h leet Air Arm. Like the names of the Fleet Air Arm’s planes, he is almost unknown to the public; but Mr Churchill Will vouch for him. He is one of the Prime Minister's own appointment;;