Geneseo 2010 CWH Fairey Firefly

The Canadian Warplane Heritage rare Fairey Firefly Mk V, made it's first performance at this years show.

[@nationalwarplanemuseumatge2704]

Always great to go back and rewatch these, miss those years

[@paulhargreaves9337]

beautiful aircraft

[@martkbanjoboy8853]

Two of the ex - RCN Fireflies were found in the desert in a remote area. Iirc the recovery team was given a short interval to get them out of there. They must have had help from the RCAF. This was back in 1984. Both of the Fireflies were initially at the museum in Shearwater N.S. This one was donated to the Hamilton museum. They were originally found as is. The cannons were still loaded on both of them. EOD had to make sure the place was safe & the planes too for recovery. For an unknown reason the Shearwater Firefly isonly cleared for taxiing although the two planes are in comparable shape. Trivia: even though the craft were used in at leastone war between Ethiopia and Eritrea they still were painted in RCN Fleet Air Arm colours.

[@TheOldGord]

I have an article from years ago that covers their discovery and recovery from Eritrea. Going to have to look for it and re-read it.

[@SuperReasonable]

I saw a Firefly at RAE Llanbedr in the 60’s being used for fire practice, it was sad to see. They had been flying them as target aircraft there after the war before switching to the Meteor 16’s

[@paladin56]

Lovely stuff and a good commentator who knows when to shut up!

[@briansteffmagnussen9078]

How did it perform as fighter and why are there no historic documentary filmed about this plane.

[@alecblunden8615]

It was the replacement for the Fairey Fulmar and so designed for use as a fighter, strike and reconnaissance aircraft. However they were dominantly used in the later two roles with the fighter role falling to the Seafire and Sea Hurricane, various American machine and the Sea Fury, followed by the jets post Korean War. It was a capable interceptor, but probably too big for a fighter.

[@briansteffmagnussen9078]

@@alecblunden8615 Yes, you are right. There's not that big difference to a Hurricane or Boulton Paul. But if you stretch the desing for more crew it will just become too fat to take part in the dance. But i like it, It seem to be well build and looks good.

[@MrCapKorzeniowski]

Strange fighter... I wonder if it ever shot any enemy fighters down.

[@NickRatnieks]

In the Pacific, the Japanese Oscar- It was the first British aircraft to fly over Japan. I'm not sure if the attacks off Norway led to any German fighters being shot down.

[@JDWDMC]

The FAA had a very different philosophy to the US when it came to "Fighter" aircraft. Their primary responsibility was recon rather than interception.

[@gjaltvanderhem838]

@@JDWDMC It was primarly designed to shoot down german long range bombers and recon planes, attacking the british fleet, it wasnt inteded to tangle with Bf109's , it ended uo in the fighterbomber/recce/asw role.

[@SandraThomas-q4i]

Taryn Neck