Prototypes and trials, HMS Illustrious
Naval Air History is very lucky to have been given access to Dave Bull’s wonderful collection of photographs of aircraft on HMS Illustrious in the late 1940s-early 1950s. The first […]
Category Archives: WW2 History
An event in the early career of Captain Eric Brown
With the anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic making headlines, the legendary Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown has come to even greater prominence. Captain Brown flew a Grumman Martlet fighter […]
P-51D Mustang from the sea
North American Aviation P-51D Mustang 44-14574 ‘Little Zippie’ now resides in the East Essex Aviation Museum, Jaywick, Essex, after lying on the seabed for more than 30 years. The remains […]
Fleet Air Arm Museum reserve collection
The Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton has the biggest collection of naval aircraft in Europe. The main collection is unquestionably impressive, but the museum also holds a reserve collection […]
Barracuda interview on Airplane Geeks
The aviation podcast ‘Airplane Geeks’ programme for 30 January 2013, Episode 233, features an interview with Matt Willis on the Fairey Barracuda. You can listen to the episode online here […]
Heinkel He115 raised from the sea in Norway
On 2 June 2012, a rare Heinkel He115 was raised from the sea at Sola near Stavanger in Norway, by a team from the Sola Historic Aviation Museum and Birger […]
Naval aircraft, through their creators’ eyes
The magazine adverts of the 1930s-40s provide a fascinating view of how naval aircraft manufacturers saw themselves, and wished others to see them. During this period, artwork in the aviation […]
The Unsung Ark Royal
When the current HMS Ark Royal (R07) leaves Portsmouth early next year for a Turkish scrapyard, it mark only the second time in 99 years that there will not be […]
A recipe for obsolescence? British naval torpedo bomber development in the 1930s
The Fleet Air Arm led developments in torpedo attack using landplanes flying from aircraft carriers between the two world wars. How is it then, that until the last two years […]
The Spitfire’s struggle to go to sea
When the Spitfire finally went to sea in late 1942 it was in a great rush. This was all the more surprising since the idea of a carrier-based Spitfire dated […]
British naval anti-aircraft weaponry – a brief history
With reference to the Explosion Museum of Naval Ordnance, Gosport All the photographs of preserved naval AA weapons below show items in the extensive collection of the Explosion Museum The […]
Black Thursday – a disastrous Fleet Air Arm raid
One of the most disastrous naval air strikes in the Fleet Air Arm’s history took place over the night of 12-13 June 1940. It was one of the many attempts […]
Three raids at the beginning of the end
In the Spring and Summer of 1944, the Royal Navy had begun to make its presence felt in the Far East. Forced out of the Pacific by overwhelming Japanese naval […]
The birth of modern Air-Sea Rescue
The Air Sea Rescue service that saved so many airmen in the Second World War could be said to have its roots in the early 1930s, with the development of […]
The Worst Specification Ever?
The specifications N.8/39 and N.9/39 must quite possibly rate as the most convoluted in the history of naval aviation. These two ‘sister’ requirements for naval fighters were first discussed in […]
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