N752XT Fairey Gannet (Merged)

[imagedktr]

Hi there , I am unsure if this is in the right place on this forum but will ask anyway.
I am currently building a 1/5 scale Fairey gannet complete with folding wings , contra prop working radome etc etc..
This model Will fly but I am after information on it to get the scale details correct. I am desperatly seeking pictures of the outer wing fold mechanism as hey seem very hard to come by. I have pics of the inner one aplenty but the outer one eludes me. I have emailed Duxford and other places that have a Gannet but non of them can help .
CAN YOU ?
If you can say so and I will give you my email to send pics to.

Thanks chaps.

Shane .

BTW I am ex RN so do have a personal Interest :ok:

[7of9]

Have you tried Elvinton near York, they have this one there.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b106/kirksandall/ElvingtonAirShow20.jpg


http://www.yorkshireairmuseum.co.uk/collections/aircraft/post_wwII_aircraft_info.asp?id=48

Hope this helps

Trev:ok: :ok:

[really not]

You can also try the guys at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, RNAS YEOVILTON Yeovil http://www.fleetairarm.com. They should have access to the drawings/ paperwork. Also give 849 NAS RNAS Culdrose a call as the AEW Gannet was/ is their baby.

[imagedktr]

Thanks chaps :ok:

I have emailed the museum and also culdrose so will await any replies from them with interest :ok:

many thanks again

Shane

[Newforest]

The below link has a good photo of the plane although some of the other info. on the page is out of date. This plane was originally G-APYO and should be on its way back to the U.K. It is reported as being owned by 'Shannen Hendricks' who is he?
http://www.ipmstoronto.com/articles/aircraft/gannet/Index.htm

[BEagle]

"Whilst the Navy were frantically searching for some lost Harrier spares in one of the back hangars at Yeovilton they found a Gannet ECM6 hidden there. Wheeled it out, and a veteran fitter remembered how to start it up. Of course all the Sea Harrier jocks wanted to fly it but nobody was current. Wisely the RN sent an envoy to the Sir Francis Drake Rest Home for Tired Naval Airmen and rustled up a full crew. Whilst these old chaps were practising, a secret phone call went to the Canadian Armed Forces and a couple Chinooks were dispatched on a search mission up the northern BC coastline.

They found what they were looking for on a beach - a pair of Edo floats of C-47 size.

A few bottles of whisky changed hands and the Edos were helicoptered out. Shorts of Belfast took delivery and added a considerable stretch (the Edo design is very modular) and these things were duly fitted on massive pylons in place of the main gears of the Gannet. Flotation tests were not promising. Despit the massive size of the floats they were two thirds submerged with a full fuel load! It became necessary to operate with a light fuel load to get off the water at all and refuelling had to be carried out at a minimum of 10,000 feet because there wasn't enough power to maintain height with all the extra weight and drag. By the time the Gannet had sunk to 5,000 there was enough fuel burn to maintain height. All this was, as you know, done in a fantastic hurry.

Too late, even so, to be shipped down to the Falklands the Gannet had to be flown down there and the intrepid crew were all "on" for this. Several refuelling pick ups were made, but its a long way even to Ascension Island and the crew got sleepy.

Then they got lost, were running out of fuel, and were in real trouble. Mercifully they found a Navy ship and made a very rough landing in the big seas that were running. Both floats were ripped off but the Gannet floated (it was designed for good ditching) while they were rescued. The Navy then declared the Gannet a practise target/danger to shipping and after some 40 rounds managed to hit it and sink it."

Well, first I've ever heard of such a story. Is there any truth in it? Somehow I doubt it.

Although it was rumoured that some interest was expressed in the Gannet sitting quietly in a hangar at Leuchars....... Is it still there?

[Davaar]

QUOTE
.....the Gannet would float for a couple of minutes whilst the crew got out.
UNQUOTE

Not about the Gannet, really, but its cousin the Firefly.The tale was that the Firefly would float for about four seconds after ditching. Probably. OK, then, maybe.

Colleague had his engine quit over the Channel, with bad effect on flying qualities.

Distress call. Ditched. Chopper retrieved him from the bosom of the deep.

Q: "So, J***, how about the four seconds? How did all that work? Tell us about that."

A: "Sure! Long before that four seconds had elapsed I was out of that Firefly, I had run a hundred yards across the og, I had inflated the dinghy, climbed in, and was sitting there watching it settle".

[India Four Two]

Reading the fanciful story about the Gannet on floats and the reference to C47 floats, I thought that surely Twin Otter floats would do. So I looked up the weight - 14,000 lb empty! What was it made of - steel and depleted uranium??? :eek: It would have needed the C47 floats after all, unless you didn't worry about reserve bouyancy.

Here's a site about a DC-3 on amphibs: http://www.dc3history.org/floats.htm

I see the floats are 42' long - 1' shorter than the Gannet!

[Agaricus bisporus]

India, don't know if you've ever been up close to a Gannet - It is a HUGE aeroplane, the cockpit is about as far up as that of a 737 and being a naval type it seems machined out of solid billets. It may look like a biddy little single but this is a monster with tits on!

When they did some tests on one (Dowty, contra rotating noise tests??) at Culdrose in the early '80s the speed of taxiing and high speed wing folds were something to see. And the noise! Jeesus! Earsplitting!

Bring one back!!!

[fradu]

Would the Leuchars machine you refer to be the one at Prestwick/HMS Gannet?
It was up for disposal a few months back, but I did hear that its location put a few people off from buying it due to its size and the potential problems in moving it by road.

N752XT - bring her home!

[Footless Halls]

Nice try the Falklands story. But it does remind me of a couple of silly little tales - maybe someone can fill in the gaps?

In '82 at the height of the fighting a friend whose father had flown Gannets in the FAA told my friends and I that 'father was approached and asked how he felt about the feasibility of a Gannet being flown from one of the carriers. He said it probably couldn't be done but he volunteered to have a go... without a catapult'.

My circle of friends were in awe of this until another friend said that HIS father, also ex-FAA, said that Gannets weren't catapulted. So can some kind veteran tell me: was the Gannet catapulted or not? I rather assumed it would have been. I was too naïve in those days to ask about the ski-ramp on Hermes and Invincible, which I imagine would have interfered with the smooth departure of an un-catapulted Gannet...

The same (possibly unreliable) friend told me that the old Bulwark, already an engineless hulk, was comandeered from the breakers yard and was being prepared to be towed South as a 'static' aircraft carrier in the event that Hermes or Invincible were sunk. Again, any truth?

[John Eacott]

Here's one: the only FW that slowed down off the end of the Cat :p

http://www.helicopterservice.com.au/gallery/gannet/AEW3_073_off_Eagle_bow_cat,_very_leisurely!.jpg

[India Four Two]

India, don't know if you've ever been up close to a Gannet No, I never saw one on the ground, but I used to see them in the circuit when I lived near White Waltham in the 60s. I agree about the noise, although for noise at a distance, you couldn't beat the Rotodyne.

it seems machined out of solid billets So another naval aircraft in the Grumman Ironworks tradition?

[Schiller]

The Gannet was normally catapulted off, but it was able to do a free take-off from the deck.
It never had AAR capability, so the story about the ECM6 on floats looks like a load of rubbish.

[G-APDK]

The aircraft in the original question N752XT is formally G-APYO (not G-AYPO as reported as this is a Super Cub) and it is still grounded in Goose Bay Canada. I understand that if a replacement engine can be found it will be ferried across the Atlantic this summer

[John Eacott]

Imaged,

Are these the sort of photos that you are after? I have higher res versions if they are, let me know.


http://www.helicopterservice.com.au/photos/pprune/AEW3%20dawn%20photo%20Ark%20Royal%2001.jpg


http://www.helicopterservice.com.au/photos/pprune/Gannet.jpg

[India Four Two]

Distant view of the starboard outer wing fold here (the port wing is unfolded in the picture) http://www.bredow-web.de/Luftwaffenmuseum/Transport/FAIREY-GANNET/fairey-gannet.html

and a good close-up of the inner wing fold.

[DH106]

I once clambered up and sat in the ex. Sandtoft (now at Elvington, York I believe) Gannet back in the 90's and was amazed to find that the aileron controls seemed to remain connected with the wings folded !! Amazing engineering :-)

[Chris Royle]

There is a Gannet (a Mk 4 I think) at White Waltham (ex Fairey's airfield). In rather poor condition, but wings are in the folded position (or were).
Get permission from Airfield manager or operations manager before venturing on the field. See http://www.wlac.co.uk/ for contact details.
Good luck with the model.
Chris

[Onetap]

One serving as a gate guardian in the car park at Flambards amusement park, Helston, Cornwall, so you don't have to pay to see it. Next door to RNAS Culdrose, they have quite a few retired aircraft. Wings extended, IIRC.

http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/gannet/survivorspics3.html

[tubby linton]

I think I saw in an article in an old copy of Aeroplane monthly a reference to two crated Gannets being found in 1982.