The Fairey Seafox was a 1930s

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops ( skirmishe ...

floatplane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, m ...

designed and built by Fairey for the

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wi ...

. It was designed to be catapulted from the deck of a

light cruiser A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to th ...

and served in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. Sixty-six were built, with two finished without floats and used as landplanes.

Design and development

The Fairey Seafox was built to satisfy

Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of Stat ...

Specification S.11/32 for a two-seat spotter-reconnaissance floatplane. The first of two prototypes appeared in

1936 Events January–February * January 20 – George V of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, dies at his Sandringham Estate. The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King E ...

, first flying on 27 May 1936,Taylor 1974, p.285. and the first of the 64 production aircraft were delivered in 1937.Taylor 1974, p.287. The flights were organised as

700 Naval Air Squadron 700 Naval Air Squadron (700 NAS) is an experimental test squadron in the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm. History 700 NAS was originally formed on 21 January 1940 at RNAS Hatston (HMS ''Sparrowhawk'') in Orkney in a plan to centralise the operation ...

of the Fleet Air Arm. The

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

was of all-metal

monocoque Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, ...

construction, the wings being covered with metal on the leading edge, otherwise fabric. It was powered by a 16-cylinder 395 hp (295 kW) air-cooled

Napier Rapier The Napier Rapier was a British 16-cylinder H pattern air-cooled aero engine designed by Frank Halford and built by Napier & Son shortly before World War II. Design and development The Rapier was the first of Napier's H cylinder engines. Th ...

H engine. It cruised at 106 mph (171 km/h), and had a range of 440 mi (710 km). The Seafox handled well but it was criticised for being underpowered, engine cooling was poor and landing speeds were higher than desired.

Operational history

In 1939, a Seafox played a part in the

Battle of the River Plate The Battle of the River Plate was fought in the South Atlantic on 13 December 1939 as the first naval battle of the Second World War. The Kriegsmarine heavy cruiser , commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff, engaged a Royal Navy squadron, command ...

against the German

pocket battleship The ''Deutschland'' class was a series of three ''Panzerschiffe'' (armored ships), a form of heavily armed cruiser, built by the ''Reichsmarine'' officially in accordance with restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. The ships of the cl ...

, by spotting for the naval gunners. Seafoxes operated during the early part of the war from the cruisers , , , , and and the armed merchant cruisers , and . They remained in service until 1943.

Operators

; *

Sturtivant and Ballance 1994, p. 362. **

702 Naval Air Squadron 702 Naval Air Squadron (702 NAS) was a naval squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm. It was based at RNAS Yeovilton in Somerset and earlier at RNAS Portland in Dorset. As a training Squadron it trained all ground and air crew for the sister ...

703 Naval Air Squadron 703 Naval Air Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy was formed as a long-range catapult squadron on 3 March 1942 at RNAS Lee-on-Solent. During the Cold War, it was reformed as an experimental trials unit, and then as a helicopter traini ...

713 Naval Air Squadron 713 Naval Air Squadron (713 NAS) was a Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land ...

** 714 Naval Air Squadron **

716 Naval Air Squadron 716 Naval Air Squadron (716 NAS) was a List of Fleet Air Arm aircraft squadrons, Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm. References Citations Bibliography

* 700 series Fleet Air Arm squadrons Military units and formations ...

718 Naval Air Squadron 718 Naval Air Squadron (718 NAS) was a Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy created on 15 July 1936 to serve as a Catapult Flight of the Fleet Air Arm. It was elevated to squadron status at the end of 1937, before being disbanded on 21 January 1 ...

754 Naval Air Squadron 754 Naval Air Squadron (754 NAS) was a Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm. It was active as an Observer Training Squadron from 1939 to 1944 as part of No.2 Observer School, forming out of the School of Naval Co-operation, in ...

** 764 Naval Air Squadron ** 765 Naval Air Squadron ** 773 Naval Air Squadron

Specification

References

Notes

Bibliography

*
For Light Reconnaissance
(

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

). ''

Flight Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere (i.e. air flight or aviation) or through the vacuum of outer space (i.e. spaceflight). This can be a ...

'', 9 December 1937. pp. 570–574. * Mondey, David. ''The Hamlyn Concise Guide to British Aircraft of World War II''. London; New York: Aerospace Publishing Ltd., 1982. P.87. , . * Sturtivant, Ray and Balance, Theo. ''The Squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm''. Tonbridge, Kent, UK: Air Britain (Historians) Ltd., 1994. . * Taylor, H.A. ''Fairey Aircraft since 1915''. London: Putnam, 1974. .

External links

Fairey Seafox
– British Aircraft of World War II {{Fairey aircraft 1930s British military reconnaissance aircraft Floatplanes Seafox Single-engined tractor aircraft Biplanes Aircraft first flown in 1936