Eric 'Winkle' Brown | Skua's surprise survival trick
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- Опубликовано: 21 апр 2023
- Famous Royal Navy test pilot Eric 'Winkle' Brown's first combat mission is a largely overlooked event in his career. Straight out of a training squadron, he was drafted to 801 Naval Air Squadron which was in need of replacement Blackburn Skua pilots. He was immediately sent on a long-range dive-bombing raid from the Orkney Islands to the occupied Norwegian city of Bergen.
The squadron successfully reached their target - a fuel storage farm - and dropped their bombs unopposed. But German Me 109F's intercepted them shortly after.
'Winkle' took his Skua low through the fjords, hugging the steep cliff faces, in a bid to limit the attack angles his pursuer could attain against his wildly outclassed fighter-bomber. After taking several hits, none of which proved serious, he dropped his dive brakes in level flight - causing the Skua to jerk to a near stop, with the startled German fighter pilot having to swerve to avoid a collision.
The desperate ploy worked, and 'Winkle" and his Skua were left alone to cross the North Sea and return to his Fleet Air Arm airfield.
Brown's opinion of the Skua was mixed. He felt it was an adequate dive bomber. But it was underpowered and lacked the flying characteristics expected of a competent fighter.
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'Eric Brown Blackburn Skua', by Naval aviation painter, Michael Turner.
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books.google.com.au/books/abo... ► Duels in the Sky: World War II Naval Aircraft in Combat, By Captain Eric M. Brown, RN
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Hard to beat the words of Eric Brown. Cheers from NZ🇳🇿.
Indeed. Though I was never sure how he flew so fast, as his balls must have weighed a ton. Ball's that big and that kind of ballast should have slowed him down............
@@Boric78 😁
Literally a legend.
Anything from "Winkle" is always gold.
Your channel is a gem. Greatly appreciated thanks
Anything with Winkle Brown is well worth watching , Legend of a Man and Aviator.
I totally agree!
Absolutely!!
One of the absolute best Naval History channels on RUclips.
Great video. The Skua is almost always derided and appears on lists of 'worst' aircraft. As usual it was better than its reputation would suggest.
I think the crew of the cruiser Königsberg would agree.
I have long since been of the opinion that if the RN had escort carriers in 1939 the Skua would have been the ideal plane and would have probably earned itself a very good reputation, however by the time the UK actually had sufficient decks and escort carriers the Skua was long gone in the Atlantic they probably would have been very useful.
One thing he doesn't mention in any of the autio narratives that I have found is that the Skua was not at all good as a deck landing aircraft. I don't think it would have worked off escort carriers.
But still bad
@@jonsouth1545 Good range but hell I would not want to be landing one of those on any ship's deck,
least of all a small ship's.
Eric Brown was a fantastic pilot. His book is a great read.
Whats the book called?
The one I know about is Duels in the Sky: World War II Naval Aircraft in Combat
@@ArmouredCarriers thank you so much
@@jaws666 Wings On My Sleeve
@@williamnethercott4364 thamk you👍
I recall reading that the Skua performed well in the Mediterranean against Italian aircraft opposition.
Interesting here, concerning the Ju-87, that the British are examining a formerly Italian-operated Ju-87, as one can see the fasces insignia on the wings, as well as the white cross on the tail rudder.
Fascinating recollections by the pilot, Eric Brown.
I first came across the Italian 87s when I was reading about Pedestal as they attacked the convoy several times along with 87s for FC 10 (who hit Indom).
With the gear down,there's a distinct whiff of Chipmunk.
Excellent …! Thanks so much I never knew about this part of Eric Brown’s service..
He wrote a book titles "Wings on my Sleeve" and well worth a read if you are interested in that period and what he had flown.
@@braveworld2707 very interested thanks 😊
Maverick owes Eric Brown a pint.
Capt. Brown.
a brilliant aviator of the old school.
I met and served this gentleman, in my humble capacity as a bartender, i had a as it happens a passion for WWII warplanes, especially the FW190 & Spitfire Mk V - IX and beyond., This man was a singular and true regular at my pub at the time (2 years so) and to my credit or otherwise, i did NOT appreciate this Eric Winkle or as we called him at the Harbour Inn circa 2007-2010 "Wee Willie Broon"
Tactics in the fjord were really clever!
Read "Winkle's" book Wings on my Sleeve ..the sheer number of aeroplanes he flew is just mind numbing...
Fascinating that they had to make these aircraft recognition films back then. Because I'm the kind of aircraft nerd who can recognize a passing plane in an instant. But I'm also the kind of nerd who would probably read those aircraft recognition books they had for fun everywhere, including the toilet. I remember going to the supermarket one day and hearing some aircraft approach. Propeller driven, so probably some modern private aircraft, I much prefer fighter jets myself. And then it was like, hang on, that's a familiar drone. Never heard it before in real life but I recognized it from TV, so I look up and it's 4 WW2 aircraft, including a Spit and a Mustang.
Most of the people in training at that time would not be nerds though, hence the requirement for that kind of recognition training.
Anti aircraft gunners were inclined to shoot at anything that came over. Friendly fire incidents were far too common. These films were an attempt to educate and prevent tragedies.
And you arent being actively shot at
My mother had to learn aircraft recognition during WW2 although she was only a shorthand typist civilian working for the RAF. She had no interest in anything technical or mechanical but still in the 1980s she would astonish me when at an airport she could identify similar looking looking jet airliners. "Oh that's a DC 10 look at the characteristic tail and the way the wings........" the skill of aircraft recognition never left her.
Perhaps you were near Ohakea, vintage aircraft have fun there.
Thanks uploader. Eric Brown was a legendary pilot.
Another good one....thanks!
"And we were happy boys, and it's all nice way to use your dive brakes.... "
I just love the way this fine fell recounts his wartime deeds, so matter of fact!
Anyway, I must be off now. So cheerio!
(Yes, I was just having fun with that cheerio bit! 😉.
Two videos in a week?😳 this is amazing!
A short one added to the mix.
@@ArmouredCarriers I was about to ask for an episode on the Skua, just as I had asked for an episode on the Albacore!
@@redskindan78 Heh, I'd been trying to gather enough material on the Skua to do an episode for some time. But the amount of footage is minimal, and the variety of pictures is also extremely limited. So using Winkle's tale to describe it's characteristics seemed the best option.
@@ArmouredCarriers And a brilliant idea!
Great set of videos thanks. My Dad was Fleet Air Arm, ground. Served in Ceylon [as was].
I've had a long standing like of the Skua so its nice to hear that it was a good aircraft, at its secondary role, if not its primary. Its taken the advancement of the munitions to make a properly workable duel perpose fighter/ bomber worthwhile.
Probably the worst thing about the Skua was the fact it was badly under powered and poorly armed, it didn't last long in service.
Fantastic film coverage ,wish I was there serving.
A few apt words from the time: "You lived for the day. And not everybody lived."
TY🙏🙏
Eric Brown was a pilot that will probably never be equalled
Pity he was not Oxford or Cambridge or we would be reading the fascinating hisory of Sir Eric Brown.
Another hit! I was about to ask ArmouredCarrier for an episode on the Skua, and here it is! I have always like the Skua as a dive-bomber, thinking it was roughly comparable to the USN's Chance-Vought SB2U Vindicator and the "Wind Indicator"''s great replacement, the Douglas SBD Dauntless. The specs on the Skua are as good as the Vindicator, except in range, and Skua's dive flaps made it a better dive-bomber than the SB2U.
In my imagination, I wonder if the RN would have done better assigning a squadron of Swordfish / Albacores, and a squadron of Skuas, and a squadron of fighters to each fleet carrier. Combining that line-up with improving the Skua, building a stronger engine, using twin .30 caliber guns in the rear. As Winkle Brown puts it, making a single aircraft perform two roles usually makes it master neither...although the Skua, he says, was much better as a dive-bomber than a fighter.
The numbers:
- Skua: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburn_Skua
- Vindicator: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_SB2U_Vindicator
- Dauntless, which RN evaluated but rejected: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_SBD_Dauntless
RN carriers were smaller in aircraft capacity.
And were expected to do reconnaisance. Having a 2nd crewman for navigationover the ocean was seen as an advantage.
Remember nobody knew how the next war was going to be fought using carriers.
@@sugarnads Yes, nobody knew exactly how the next war would be fought, but the two other navies with aircraft carriers developed single-seat fighters. My hunch is that the RN had not had enough practice during the years and years when the RAF controlled flight-decks. The ROC, the "turret fighter" was a disaster. Using the Skua as a fighter seems to have blinded he Admiralty to its value as a dive bomber. Imagine the Fulmar without the extra weight of the observer...could it have out-performed German strike aircraft?
Cool video. Test pilot legend.
“I liked dive bombing, I thought it’s a very exhilarating experience “
Couldn't they have made the canopy a little more streamlined? It looks as aerodynamic as a London bus.
It was designed when streamlining meant putting a pointy spinner on a biplane, to be fair to it.
A LEGEND.
Thankyou for serving "winkle"
Well, despite what a few rather rude / hostile RUclipsrs - sorry, lay viewers - have said lower down the comments, I actually enjoyed this presentation as much for how it was assembled and edited together as for the content, so I can only say that I know what I like when I see it.
It's nice to see the long-maligned Skua get a more balanced reappraisal recently. Not perfect, maybe not great, but thoroughly adequate in the strike role and perhaps okay in the CAP against snoopers.
FWIW, I have long been under the impression from various readings that a good fighter has low inherent stability, while a good dive-bomber benefitted from very *high* stability? The little-discussed long fillets at the base of the Skua's wings, with their dihedral, probably aided the aeroplane's stability and hindered its maneouvrability as far as I'm prepared to guess.
Good video and many thanks.
Yes, such trade-offs in optimal performance are why multi-role aircraft - even now - represent a major compromise. (Here's looking at you, F-35 & F-18!)
They had some losses? And the wonderful windshield, it must have knocked 25mph off the speed.
I always thought it a shame that Eric Brown never made flag rank given all he did for the FAA in the post war. I heard it was because it would send the wrong message as HM government had decided to kill the new carriers, so once the old ones left service, there wouldn't be any fixed wing aircraft left, so his expertise wouldn't be needed.
I believe the 'wrong message' would have been that what were, in effect, 1-Star Admirals (Commodores) would be allowed to take such risks as part of their everyday duties.
A true gentleman
Winkle has that lovely accent that sounds like he’s been in the mess on the pink gins. Wonder how he would have done in the BofB. I know he was in gladiators in the West Country but had he transferred like other FAA pilots did it would have been very interesting.
That would be a great vid actually = FAA pilots in the Battle of Britain.
I'll keep an eye out for audio accounts.
Can't help but see John Hurt recounting these stories in my mind as I listen. A good calibre actor to be playing the part of Eric in some film I suppose.
He is about two feet taller than ' Winkle ' !!!
@@philstothard8333 Really? I neither knew John Hurt was tall and that Eric Brown was short.😄
Why has there not been a movie about this man?
Nice video. IMO, a close comparison to the Skua is actually the Douglas SBD, which actually held its own against Japanese fighters on occasion. But similar size planes with similar layouts, filling similar roles.
But the SBD had so much less aerodynamic eye-sores, I mean that windshield GAWWD!! can't find anything like that on any Douglas aircraft that I can think of.
I compared them -- Skua, SB2U Vindicator, and SBD Dauntless. Vindicator was developed about the same time as the Skua. Dauntless was a year or two later. I think of the SBD as what the Skua could have become...more powerful engine, twin-30 machine guns for the rear seat, two .50s firing through the prop, heavier bombs. The Vindicator lacked the dive flaps of the Skua and the Dauntless, which made it less of a dive-bomber. (Vindicator used its prop to slow down a dive, which didn't work well. That's one reason the USMC Vindicators at Midway were closer to glide-bombers)
@@redskindan78 Using the prop as an air brake! A recipe for engine overspeed. Like Eric said the Stuka trumps them all and it had the early long development history too.
The Skua desperately needed more power and replacing the 850 hp Bristol Perseus engine with a 1100 hp Taurus should have been possible - the Taurus was a slightly more compact engine and only a bit heavier. In fact, in theory you could fit the Bristol Hercules in the Skua's nose which would give over 1300 hp, but the engine was also over twice as heavy. Ideally they' have added a constant speed prop at the same time.
I think the Skua was ultimately the victim of the RAF's general lack of interest in Dive-bombing - a prejudice the FAA inherited and never really shook off. An evolved Skua with more power and less emphasis on the air combat role would have been very equivalent to the SBD Dauntless and certainly a lot more useful than the Fulmar that replaced it - but only if the FAA adopted a proper single seat fighter at the same time.
@@mattbowden4996 You gotta admit that the Battle/Fulmar/Firefly evolution turned out a nice plane in the end.
But Douglas sure went weird after the Dauntless with the Skypirate before again coming to their senses with the Skyraider. Military brass were interfering in both FAA and USNAVY to force designers to make ugly ducklings I guess. I could just imagine a J7W running rings around an XTB2D and whimsically pruning its silly propeller until it fell to the sea 😁🤪
Eric Winkle Brown must have had more lives than a black cat. The number of different situations that he got into a survived is amazing. Then he took on Test Flying as if he didn't need to risk his neck any more!
*That 'Unique' Skua tail comes close to reappearing on the Mosquito* 🤔
O the windshield must have been the dive brakes.
Why didn't Blackburn come out with an improved mark with better performance while development of the Barracuda proceeded? I think the Royal Navy could of used more Skaus. They only built 192.
I think they were a relatively small company and only had so much capacity in their design department. From memory.
They were in a rush to get the Botha into production at the Brough factory (they had to subcontract out production of the Roc to Boulton-Paul). Their factory at Dumbarton was committed to Sunderland production (it was primarily a flying-boat factory), while the one at Brough switched to producing the Swordfish for Fairey after production of the Botha was finished. As it was, the Botha was a disaster, it used the same type of engines as the Skua and they might have been better off producing more Skuas, even if only as target-tugs and trainers, rather than the Botha. Almost the last half of Skua production were delivered already equipped as target-tugs anyway- so the number of Skuas "fit" for combat was a lot less than 192 - closer to 100.
Brave an skillful fellows 😊 . Rare lot .
Thought I knew sll the WW2 aircraft. I never heard of the Skua. Never saw a model kit of one either.
It was only operational 1939-1940. Seriously underpowered. Production had ended before the outbreak of war.
1943 convoy aboard HMS Audacious. #OurHistory. 😂👍☘️😉🤞
Quite surprised about what Winkle Brown says about the JU-87 as the only 'vertical' dive bomber. Perhaps he meant at the time? Because he also later flew the Vultee Vengeance which was specifically designed to dive vertically.
I guess someone who has flown 487 different aircraft types can be forgiven for misplacing the memory of one or two of them from time to time!
His book, Duels in the Sky, is excellent in the way he simply and concisely compares his experience and opinions of WW2 aircraft.
The U.S built SBD Dauntless dive bomber dove so close to the vertical that the bomb under the fuselage had to be mounted on a swing arm so it would avoid hitting the plane's propeller. A lot of Japanese carriers and other ships were destroyed by that highly accurate dive bomber.
@@danielebrparish4271 Most dive bombers had the same arrangement, including the Stuka. But the SBD only reached 80 degress in its dives. The Vengeance and Stuka were unusual in that regard.
@@danielebrparish4271 The Skua also used a bomb crutch - what would be called a trapeze in US service - and for the same reason. Yet the Skua was a less steeply-diving bird. So bomb trapezes seem to have been a component of many dive-bombers.
if you had to face a 109 Emil in either a Roc or a Fulmar which would you choose?
Blackburn maybe should of come out with a more powerful variant of the skua. Makes more sense to dive bomb a ship than drop a very expensive torpedo when you are a sitting duck a such low altitude and slow speed.
If it looks right - the Skua doesn’t
Time loves a hero.
Thank you, Little Feat.
It's a Little Feat for sure!
... needs a turret ... oh! wait !
That made me actually lol. Not figuratively but actually. :)
@@geordiedog1749 I put myself between a Roc and a hard place ...
my father was FAA , I remember being told that the Skua was the first plane to shoot down an enemy in WW2 ?? Dornier Do18 in 1939 ?
Yes, near Scapa Flow.
@@ArmouredCarriers 57.36N 02.36E About halfway between Aberdeen and Denmark. The British fleet had sortied out into the middle of the North Sea to cover the escape of the submarine HMS Spearfish which had broken down in German waters and was having to make its slow way back on the surface. For British claims (as opposed to Polish or French) a claim for a Bf109 by a gunner in a Fairey Battle predates the Skua/Dornier shoot-down by 6 days but German records show no such loss. Whereas the Dornier was verified as shot down (Crew captured). Excellent Video. by the way.
And all goes to show that the RAF, who developed the Skua, did not want a dive-bomber and had some very strange notions about fighter tactics in the mid 1930s.
Underside silhoutte the Skua could pass for a Mitsubishi Zero
I can't believe RAF excepted this
Do you mean "accepted" or "excepted". And it was operated by the Fleet Air Arm, not the RAF.
Sadly missed RIP , oh and its Knots not knotes as in the video
Well it would have been much harder if it was a Blackburn Roc. The "turret fighter" was a silly idea with limited practicality.
3 very interesting videos, that covered rarel topis well, but the three films were badly glued together. With narration and some stills two or three excellent videos could have been made. I still enjoyed the film.
I’ll try to do better next time. The challenge was mixing three separate sources into a coherent package. My amateur skills clearly didn’t reach that bar.
@@ArmouredCarriers Those that never fail never did anything. You took a hard subject and nearly made an extremely good film, rather than good. Keep up the good work.
👍🏻🏴 Hopelessly outdated Fleet Air Arm aeroplanes but brave aircrew.
Did not say how bad the damage to his Skua was or if he made it back.
He made it back. I've not found any mention of the damage other than "nothing serious".
Skuas could definitely take a hit or two before falling apart - one of the Konigsberg raiders got back to Hatston with a hole from a 2cm flak hit near the Port wing root. There's a good photo of it. Not many aeroplanes would have survived a cannon hit there.
Yes, he said damage wasn't much, and of course he made it back, otherwise we wouldn't be listening to this would we?
"A bunch of 109Fs arrived." Video promptly shows 109Es.
Argh. I tried to get the right ones. Probably got into too much of a rush near the end.
@@ArmouredCarriers You are insufficiently nerdy. Lacking, indeed, in the nerd department!😁Stepfather was ex RAF - navigator on Wellington bombers in WW2 - I got it from him. Can't claim to be a true anorak, but I can recognise at a glance the difference between 109D, E, F and G. You need more nerd practice.
@@vipertwenty249 Yeah. I'm certainly better at telling the difference between aircraft carriers at a glance than the aircraft they carry...
@@ArmouredCarriers Qualified!! 😂Splendid! I can't ID aircraft carriers at all. You are hereby elected to the United Nerds Union.
If they were 'F's then they must have been amongst the very first deployed.
How he never knighted totally disgusting you couldn't achieve what he did in 3 lifetimes..
Damned annoying, the way the narrator keeps describing the Skua.
That's because its a WW2 aerial recognition video, probably shown to pilots, observers and anti-aircraft gunners. Probably ad nauseum so they wouldn't shoot their own aircraft down.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 Pretty much, a practice that is still in place I might add. Hitting the wrong target is, after all, terribly bad form, ESPECIALLY if it happens to be a friendly you blow up!
Anyone got a phone number for the blonde on the left at 11:00 ? 😊
Those British designers of the period were weird. Why would they put a greenhouse on top of an otherwise decent looking aircraft?
Probably because they were more concerned about the crew's visibility and the plane's cost and its effectiveness as a tool of war than what it looked like.
Those american dive bomber designers were weird af.
They put huge greenhouses on otherwise decent looking aeroplanes...
Well, obviously the designers were optimistic forward thinkers with extensive vegetable plots.
Joking aside, I am sure that a lot of aircraft canopies and turrets ended up as garden cloches post-war.
In the 1960's I remember home made sailing dinghy launching trolleys fitted with fighter tail wheels. There must have been loads of scrapped stuff that was re-purposed.
The skua what a was of money and metal
Nonsense. The Blackburn Skua was probably the best carrier borne strike aircraft in the world when it was introduced - certainly far better than the Curtis SBC Helldiver or Aichi D1A biplanes the US and Japanese were operating at the time - but it was introduced in 1938. Aviation technology was advancing so quickly at the time that it is not at all appropriate to compare aircraft from 1938 with aircraft from 1941. Of course the more advanced dive bombers from the Pacific war were better - but that does not mean the Skua was a waste of money and metal. Conceptually the SBD Dauntless is exactly the same as the Skua - just with an extra 400 hp and three years of technological advancement - so the designers at Blackburn clearly had a good idea but they didn't have the engine technology to make it work yet.
The Skua did excellent work in the opening years of the war and it's only real sin was that it had to pretend to be a fighter sometimes and that no effort was put into developing it further as a dive bomber or coming up with a proper successor. It should not have been difficult to fit the plane with the more powerful Bristol Taurus engine, a constant speed propeller and to remove of two of the four forward firing machine guns to increase it's performance and bomb load. Such a hypothetical "Skua Mk III" would have remained viable at least until early 1943 and would have given the FAA the "proper" dive bomber it historically lacked in this time frame.
@@mattbowden4996 sorry I keep watching armourd carriers program when the British got American planes which were far better like the marlet.
@@mattbowden4996 I'm sorry it sink the German light cruiser "kongsberg" in 1940 , pretty silly using it as a fighter though leave that to the harricane or Blackburn roc.
@@roybennett9284 Nice observation, although Skuas accounted for 40 German flying boats and bombers shot down or destroyed by strafing during the Norwegian campaign alone (claims verified against German records post-war). Then there are the ones in the Med as well. Meanwhile, the Roc only shot down one German bomber (over Dunkirk) and damage a couple of others during its career although it was committed to combat on a much smaller scale than the Skua.
@@johndell3642 and the light cruiser kongsberg
this video is horrendously edited
I’ll try to do better next time. The challenge was mixing three separate sources into a coherent package. My amateur skills clearly didn’t reach that bar.