Fairey Spearfish

The Fairey Spearfish was a 1940s British torpedo bomber designed and built by Fairey Aviation for the Fleet Air Arm. It was one of the largest single-engine aircraft to ever operate from a British aircraft carrier.

Design and development
The Spearfish was designed by Fairey Aviation to Admiralty Specification O.5/43. Having learned the lessons of the Barracuda, the Spearfish had a much more powerful engine and an integral ASV anti-submarine radar (the external installation on the Barracuda caused problems with longitudinal stability). Problems with the Bristol Centaurus engine delayed the first flight until 5 July 1945.

Only four more aircraft were built, two at Fairey's Hayes factory and two at their Stockport plant, during 1945/47. After the end of the war and with the proposal for a more advanced turboprop anti-submarine aircraft (which became the Gannet), further work on the project was stopped and orders for 152 production aircraft cancelled.

The Admiralty did not accept the Spearfish for operational use. One aircraft was used by the Royal Navy Carrier Trials Unit at Ford, Sussex, until mid 1952 and another was modified by Napier at Luton for research into methods of obtaining artificial ice accretion.

The aircraft was said to have such heavy controls that in bad weather a pilot circling a carrier while waiting to land was forced to fly such a wide circuit that he could not keep the carrier in sight.

In a follow-up to meet Specification 0.21/44 for a two-seat strike fighter, the Spearfish was re-designed to accommodate a twin-coupled Merlin engine and contra-rotating propellers. A variety of other engines were considered, and although a production order was placed for three examples in 1944, the programme was eventually shelved, remaining as an unfulfilled paper project.

Operators

 * Royal Navy, Fleet Air Arm
 * Royal Navy, Fleet Air Arm