The Supermarine Type 322 was a prototype British

carrier-borne Carrier-based aircraft, sometimes known as carrier-capable aircraft or carrier-borne aircraft, are naval aircraft designed for operations from aircraft carriers. They must be able to launch in a short distance and be sturdy enough to withstand ...

torpedo, dive bomber and reconnaissance aircraft of 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 opposin ...

. A single-engined

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

, it was unsuccessful, with only two examples being built. The

Fairey Barracuda The Fairey Barracuda was a British carrier-borne torpedo and dive bomber designed by Fairey Aviation. It was the first aircraft of this type operated by the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA) to be fabricated entirely from metal. The Barracuda ...

, built to the same specification, would fill this role.

Design and development

The Type 322 was designed by Supermarine to meet a 1937 requirement ( Specification S.24/37) for a replacement for the British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

Fairey Albacore The Fairey Albacore is a single-engine biplane torpedo bomber designed and produced by the British aircraft manufacturer Fairey Aviation. It was primarily operated by the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm (FAA) and was heavily used during the Second ...

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

(even though the Albacore was yet to fly, with orders placed both with Supermarine, and with

Fairey Aviation The Fairey Aviation Company Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer of the first half of the 20th century based in Hayes in Middlesex and Heaton Chapel and RAF Ringway in Cheshire. Notable for the design of a number of important military a ...

for what became the

Barracuda A barracuda, or cuda for short, is a large, predatory, ray-finned fish known for its fearsome appearance and ferocious behaviour. The barracuda is a saltwater fish of the genus ''Sphyraena'', the only genus in the family Sphyraenidae, which was ...

.Mason 1994, p. 354. Supermarine's design was a high-wing monoplane, originally intended to be powered by the

Rolls-Royce Exe The Rolls-Royce Exe, or Boreas, was a 24-cylinder air-cooled X block sleeve valve aircraft engine intended primarily for the new Fairey Fleet Air Arm aircraft, particularly the Fairey Barracuda. The Exe was relatively powerful for its era, p ...

engine. Unusually it featured a

variable-incidence wing A variable-incidence wing has an adjustable angle of incidence relative to its fuselage. This allows the wing to operate at a high angle of attack for take-off and landing while allowing the fuselage to remain close to horizontal. The pivot mech ...

, first demonstrated on the French Paul Schmitt biplane at the Paris Airshow in 1913.Thetford 1946, p. 31. Variable incidence allowed the fuselage to be kept at the optimum angle for good visibility whilst maintaining lift – particularly useful for a carrier-borne aircraft and with tail-wheel undercarriage. The incidence could be varied from 2 degrees when the flap setting was neutral, to 16 degrees when the flaps were lowered to 60 degrees. The

lift coefficient In fluid dynamics, the lift coefficient () is a dimensionless quantity that relates the lift generated by a lifting body to the fluid density around the body, the fluid velocity and an associated reference area. A lifting body is a foil or a com ...

with the wing at this setting was 3.9 (double that of conventional and contemporary aircraft), giving a stalling speed of 57 knots. Since it was intended for carrier use, the wing also folded – a remarkable technical achievement in view of the small increase in structural weight involved. The undercarriage was a fixed tailwheel type to save complexity.Andrews and Morgan 1987, p. 163. It would have been very challenging to retract the landing gear into the wings. It was primarily of wooden construction, in common with the

Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle The Armstrong Whitworth A.W.41 Albemarle was a twin-engine military transport aircraft, transport aircraft developed by the United Kingdom, British aircraft manufacturer Armstrong Whitworth and primarily produced by A.W. Hawksley Ltd, a subsid ...

bomber since, when it was being built, there was a danger of light alloy being in short supply. The Exe was cancelled in 1938, and the

Rolls-Royce Merlin The Rolls-Royce Merlin is a British liquid-cooled V-12 piston aero engine of 27-litres (1,650 cu in) capacity. Rolls-Royce designed the engine and first ran it in 1933 as a private venture. Initially known as the PV-12, it was later ...

was substituted in the design.

Operational history

Two Type 322s, nicknamed "

Dumbo ''Dumbo'' is a 1941 American animated fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The fourth Disney animated feature film, it is based upon the storyline written by Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl, a ...

" owing to the types corpulent appearance, were built. Originally due for completion in early 1941, the project was delayed owing to the high priority then in force for the production of Spitfires. The first prototype (R1810) flew on 6 February 1943, followed by the second prototype (R1815) with the Merlin 32 in place of the Merlin 30, a four-blade rotol constant speed airscrew, a tail of greater area and

alclad Alclad is a corrosion-resistant aluminium sheet formed from high-purity aluminium surface layers metallurgically bonded (rolled onto) to high-strength aluminium alloy core material. It has a melting point of about 500 degrees celsius, or 932 degree ...

covered outer wings. By this time, however, Fairey's competing design had entered service as the

, and the two Type 322s were used as experimental aircraft. A developed version was planned as the Supermarine Type 380. It was also intended that this wing technology was to the incorporated in a replacement for the Sea Otter – variable incidence benefiting seaplanes where the optimum angle of the floats can be maintained during takeoff and landing. Postwar, R1815 was retained by the company and was used in 1946 for chase in the low-speed handling trials of the

Supermarine Attacker The Supermarine Attacker is a British single-seat naval jet fighter designed and produced by aircraft manufacturer Supermarine for the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA). The type has the distinction of being the first jet fighter to enter oper ...

jet fighter.Chorlton 2012, p. 59.

Specifications (S.24/37)

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* Andrews, C.F. and E.B. Morgan. ''Supermarine Aircraft since 1914''. London: Putnam, 1987. . * Brown, Capt. Eric. ''Wings of the Weird & Wonderful''. London: Airlife, 1985, pp. 120–127. . * * Chorlton, Martyn. ''Supermarine: Company Profile 1913–1963.'' Cudham, Kent, UK: Kelsey Publishing Group (''Aeroplane''), 2012. . * Mason Francis K. ''The British Bomber since 1914''. London: Putnam, 1994. . * Thetford, Owen. ''Aircraft of the Fighting Powers, Vol. VII''. Hertfordshire, UK: Argus Books Limited, 1946 (Facsimile Edition 1979. Rochester: Staples Printers (Stanhope Press), pp. 31–32. .)

External links

Supermarine S.24/37
– British aircraft of World War II

* ttp://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1946/1946%20-%200797.html "Variable Incidence"a 1946 ''Flight'' article {{Supermarine aircraft 1940s British bomber aircraft Cancelled military aircraft projects of the United Kingdom Type 322 Variable-incidence-wing aircraft World War II torpedo bombers Carrier-based aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft High-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1943