A Decent Plane With A Deadly Problem: Fairey Barracuda

There's a project going on in England to build another one out of parts from crashed ones. I really recommend it. They usually have updates every Friday.

I really enjoy your uploads…..I laughed out loud when you said the Barracuda was kind enough to put the pilot to sleep before murdering them. 🤣

I think it’s telling that the U.S.Navy went from the Douglas TBD-1 to the Grumman TBF Avenger, both arguably state-of-the-art designs. The Royal Navy on the other hand in the same period went from the Fairey Swordfish (more state-of-the-ark), an aircraft that achieved much due to heroic crews rather than aircraft performance. The Fairey Albacore might have reduced the crews pneumonia risk, but didn’t advance much else. The Fairey Barracuda, well, I think Capt Eric Brown summed it up rather well, “Folded for stowage the Barracuda looked like the result of a rather nasty accident.” I think the long post-WW2 service of the TBM in a range of roles compared with the rapid extinction of the Barracuda tells you everything you need to know about these aircraft.

As far as the teen series is concerned (F-14,F-15, F-16 and F/A-18) the reason why the 18 is the only 1 of the 4 with the "F/A" designation is at the start it was planned to have 2 distinct versions...a fighter only version (F-18) and an attack only version (A-18) but early in the programme it was decided to merge them together in 1 airframe to keep costs down....hence "F/A".

The way they devise aircraft names, and numbers is fascinating and you should do an entire episode on that. And I actually love Heart.

17:55 Even today radar can't detect submarines. The aircraft using radar in WWII to detect submarines was only detecting these ships on the surface. Early on the days of ASW aircraft the Germans quickly learned to surface only at night. At first the aircraft used lights to find the subs on the surface, because the subs could see the lights from miles away and easily avoid them. Then the planes started keeping the lights off, only turning the lights on when the planes were very close. It was some time before the Geromans realized they were being detected with radar.

My father, while in the RAF saw a model of a Barracuda in a shop window. It had been made by someone who, with a keen eye, had seen a prototype flying over. Security spotted this and it had to be removed. It was, apparently, then on the secret list.

The other design fault was loss of lift caused by opening the canopy so that air came up and out of the cockpit and that airflow detached the upper airflow on the top of the inner wing and that turbulence then interfered with the tail. Fixed with a floor to the cockpit.

Eric Brown in his autobiography "Wings on My Sleeve" describes another issue with the Barracuda which led to a number of pilots being killed during training. This was a sudden nose-drop that occurred when the aircraft turned sharply away from the target after releasing the torpedo at low level, and could result in it diving into the sea. Brown doesn't say what the solution was, but I would guess it was a change in tactics rather than any alteration to the aircraft.

I did learn something today, thank you. That story of the ether poisoning was definitely new to me.

My father serviced Barracudas when he was in the Fleet Air Arm. He said they were horrible aircraft from a maintenance point of view. The undercarriage was complex and not over strong and the height of the engine meant using a ladder or staging for virtually every job. Not always easy on a carrier at sea.

Swordfish, the Terror of Taranto. 🎵🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

You made me laugh so hard 😸 I was whistling the song even before playing the video! BARRACUDA!

Thanks. I must remember the bit about spontaneously spraying hot jets of soporific hydraulic oil at the pilot if I wake up in a pain free haze slumped inside a plunging Barracuda.

In the raid on the Tirpitz the Barracudas failed to penetrate the armoured deck so there was no magazine explosion (like the USS Arizona suffered at Pearl Harbor). Mostly because the armoured deck on the Tirpitz was thicker overall and reinforced above the magazines. But they did wreck pretty much everything above the armoured deck and that put the ship out of action, it never was fully repaired before 617 Dambusters squadron finished it off with Tallboy bombs..

The Merlin 32 was one of the 'cropped' Merlins with a smaller supercharger impeller, max power was achieved at only 610m altitude. That's why the top speed decreased for the Mk II, it had power only when flying low in dense air.

Once again Westland got told to build someone else's aircraft. On names, each company had their own conventions. In this period Avro named theirs for cities (Manchester, Lancaster, York, Lincoln), de Havilland used insects, Fairey used a mix of predatory fishes and seabirds for its carrier aircraft but were pretty random otherwise. A number used a standard often alliterative initial letter, Miles used M, Short Brothers used S, Bristol used B, Handley Page used H as did Hawker, Gloster used G until the Meteor, Vickers used V or W, Westland used W (apart from the Lysander for army reasons).

Really enjoyable, as usual. Aloha! A video about Eric Brown’s opinions on various planes might be interesting…

I really like your videos. It's always neat to learn about a plane I didn't know existed a half hour ago. Thanks and keep up the good work.

I read somewhere that an American naval officer (captain or admiral ?) on seeing the Barracuda remarked " it seems like a great flying machine but, it will never replace the airplane".