"Send Her Victorious..." Royal Navy Aircraft of the 1960's Author: David Manley Pic: Supermarine Attackers of 800 Sqn. Fleet Air Arm

The Royal Navy entered the jet age on December 3rd 1945 when a deHavilland Vampire made the first jet landing on board HMS Ocean. The first operational naval jet fighter was the Supermarine Attacker,which went to sea on HMS Eagle with 800 Sqn. Fleet Air Arm (FAA) in September 1952. The Attacker was not a successful design, a contributory factor being its use of a tail wheel undercarriage arrangement rather than the nosewheel arrangement which was to become standard. Despite being available, no Attackers were used by the in the Korean War. The Attacker began to be replaced by the Sea Hawk in 1954, but was retained by Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) units until 1957 and by the Pakistani air force until the type was replaced by F-86 Sabres in the early 60's.

The Sea Hawk fighter bomber was a much more successful design, although sometimes described as demanding to fly. It was operated by 13 front line FAA squadrons, by three Australian squadrons from the HMAS Melbourne, and also by the Indian, German and Dutch navies (the latter modifying the aircraft to carry two Sidewinder missiles - as an aside the Dutch Navy squadrons were formed by the Fleet Air Arm during WW2 and continue to use their RN-derived squadron numbers today). Six Sea Hawk squadrons were involved in Operation Musketeer, the Suez Campaign, in late 1956. Pic: FAA Hawker Sea Hawk

Operating alongside the Sea Hawk was the Sea Venom. The original land based Venom saw extensive service over Aden and Oman as a ground attack fighter in the various wars which characterised the region at that time, but the Navy employed a marinised night fighter as an all weather interceptor as well as a bomber. The Sea Venom had been retired by the mid-1960s, but was used by the Royal Australian Navy until the early 70's and was built under licence (as the Aquilon) by the French, who used the type until 1965.

The next pairing of aircraft in RN service were the Sea Vixen and the Scimitar. The Sea Vixen was an all weather fighter, operational from 1959 to 1973. A feature of the Sea Vixen was the observer's position, which was deep within the aircraft. To the uninitiated the 'plane appeared to be a single seater, with only a small window in the fuselage upper surface giving away the presence of the observer within.

Pic: Fleet Air Arm de Haviland Sea Vixen

The Scimitar was a strike fighter operational between 1958 and 1966. Designed to carry a bomb or rocket load it was modified in 1962 to carry Bullpup ASMs and Sidewinder missiles. Both types saw action in the Indonesian confrontation of the early 60's.

Pic: Fleet Air Arm Supermarine Scimitar

The last pairing were the Phantom and Buccaneer.The former was the F-4K variant of the Phantom, and 52 aircraft were operated from the late 60's until 1978 when the last fixed wing carrier, HMS Ark Royal, was decommissioned. For various political reasons the original US engines were replaced with Rolls Royce Speys, a change which whilst on paper produced avery highly powered aircraft, resulted in a plane with worse flight characteristics than the original F4. However, with 4 Sparrow and 4 Sidewinder air to air missiles the Fleet still had a potent air defence fighter. FAA McDonnel Phantom FG1 being launched from HMS Ark Royal

The Buccaneer was a two seat low level strike aircraft, regarded by many as the best of its type, and certainly superior to its American carrier-borne equivalents (rumours persist that the USN was keen to purchase the Buccaneer instead of the A-6 Intruder). The first version , the S1 was underpowered, but the S2 set new standards for low level performance and was adopted by the RAF and the South African Air Force. Again, the Buccaneer was operational with the RN until 1978 when the remaining aircraft were passed to the RAF for maritime strike duties, and then for general ground attack missions (seeing active service for the final time in the 1991 Gulf War).

Pic: Fleet Air Arm Blackburn Bucaneer

If you want to discuss "Send Her Victorious" (or any other Modern air wargames issues) join the AirWarSoc.org Yahoo group by clicking the link below...

Click to subscribe to the AirWarSoc.org List