Devilfish Posted July 13, 2016 Share Posted July 13, 2016 Built for a GB over on What-if..... In 1960 the Royal Navy started looking at ways in which to protect it's fleet from airborne attack without the need for big expensive carriers.One of the concepts favoured was that of the old catapult armed merchant ship, but brought up to date.A plan was devised where a number of ships would be modified to carry up to 4 small, fast, maneuverable fighters to act as air defence.To launch check them, they would be fired upwards at an angle with a rocket booster. Landing would be either by "dropping" onto a rubber deck and arrester net combo, or, as a last resort, ditching and taking to a life raft.The Folland Gnat was chosen as the base aircraft. Initial intentions were to keep it fairly off the shelf, but arm it with 2 Firestreak missiles. The F.1 entered service in 1965 aboard the only ship to be converted, renamed HMS Zellous.By 1974, the Gnats were getting a bit out of their depth and plans were made to scrap them. However, funds were made available to improve them, and the F.2 was introduced. It featured a small AI radar, a 30mm cannon and AIM-9 missiles replacing the obsolete Firestreaks.The F.2 soldiered on until 1984, before finally being retired.An F.2 has the honour of the first kill in the 1982 Falklands war, as HMS Zellous was on a routine supply run to the islands as the invasion started.All 4 Gnats were launched within a matter of 20 minutes, a crew record (the ship only carried one launcher) 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptormodeller Posted July 13, 2016 Share Posted July 13, 2016 (edited) Another beautiful whiff from the devil. And er... that rocket is huge. Edited July 13, 2016 by raptormodeller Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatboydim Posted July 13, 2016 Share Posted July 13, 2016 Great Fleet Air Arm What-If. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevej60 Posted July 13, 2016 Share Posted July 13, 2016 Well built and well thought out,great job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thud4444 Posted July 13, 2016 Share Posted July 13, 2016 I am so stealing the over wing launchers for my what if..... Good looking Gnat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devilfish Posted July 13, 2016 Author Share Posted July 13, 2016 Another beautiful whiff from the devil. And er... that rocket is huge. I wanted a good burn to get it to altitude... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnT Posted July 13, 2016 Share Posted July 13, 2016 Great thinking! I suspect the time on the rocket burn to be only marginally less than time on internal fuel in the Gnat! What was it they said - the Gnat was already fuel critical if the taxi out to the runway was lengthy?! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aeronut Posted July 13, 2016 Share Posted July 13, 2016 You did know that in 1956 the Gnat F1 WAS considered for navalisation and use from conventional carriers. It was rejected as getting to a launch airspeed by catapult involved accelerations considered to be too great. And on the smaller carriers the deceleration on landing was also expected to be excessive. More lift from the wing would have of course reduced the problem but that required a bigger aircraft which wouldn't have been a Gnat. I suppose a ZELL would have solved their problems 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackingjob Posted July 16, 2016 Share Posted July 16, 2016 Like the bit about the rubber mat landing. The late Lt CD-R Winkle Brown in his book Wings on my Sleeve, spoke of tests to land on a suspended mat, and there were some photos....the idea was to overcome stresses on under carriage . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devilfish Posted July 18, 2016 Author Share Posted July 18, 2016 Like the bit about the rubber mat landing. The late Lt CD-R Winkle Brown in his book Wings on my Sleeve, spoke of tests to land on a suspended mat, and there were some photos....the idea was to overcome stresses on under carriage . Yes, that's where I got the idea from. The idea was also to get rid of heavy undercarriage, which was being carried around purely for 2 short phases of the flight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bentwaters81tfw Posted July 20, 2016 Share Posted July 20, 2016 Shades of Hot Shots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SleeperService Posted August 14, 2016 Share Posted August 14, 2016 Shades of Hot Shots. I can't get the image of Charlie Sheen crammed into the cockpit on this out of my mind now. I love it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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