Sunday, September 13, 2015

A Supermarine Walrus aircraft being catapulted from HMS Mauritius and a second from the HMS Bermuda


The Supermarine Walrus was a British single-engine amphibious biplane reconnaissance aircraft designed by R. J. Mitchell and first flown in 1933. It was operated by the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) and also served with the Royal Air Force (RAF), Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) and Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF). It was the first British squadron-service aircraft to incorporate a fully retractable main undercarriage, completely enclosed crew accommodation, and an all-metal fuselage.
Designed for use as a fleet spotter to be catapult launched from cruisers or battleships, the Walrus was later employed in a variety of other roles, most notably as a rescue aircraft for downed aircrew. It continued in service throughout the Second World War.

9 comments:

  1. Re-puropsed as a fishing plane to hit those remote lakes, the Walrus would be PERFECT.

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    1. Good idea! We could paint it in camo and disappear into the backcountry.

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    2. I like the old WWI German diamond dazzle aircraft camo scheme.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    4. How tough would it be to put something like that together today? Think forward and rear engines with counterrotating props, and maybe longer range?

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    5. I'm sure there is some tricky engineering involved, but hey, that's the fun of the challenge!

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    6. There is (expensive) software that will figure stress and wing/fuselage loading, which is the big concern.

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    7. Or you can simply buy something that will do (while never being close to that cool).

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  2. I really appreciate your professional approach. These are pieces of very useful information that will be of great use for me in future.

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