AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 116 / 264

Plate 116 of 264 · Second World War · Carrier torpedo bomber

Fairey Albacore Mk I

Albacore Mk I, N4389 ‘4M’, painted as N4389 ‘4M’, a Fairey Albacore Mk I of the Fleet Air Arm, as displayed at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton: the carrier torpedo bomber built to replace the Swordfish, a biplane with folding wings, an enclosed and heated cabin for its crew and a 1,130 hp Bristol Taurus XII fourteen-cylinder sleeve-valve radial driving a three-bladed propeller, shown standing tail-down on its main wheels and tail wheel with its wings spread and without its torpedo, which the museum shows on a separate stand: Dark Slate Grey and Extra Dark Sea Grey above Sky on the fuselage and fin, pale upper wing surfaces as displayed, red, white, blue and yellow roundels on the fuselage sides with the black code ‘4M’ behind them, ‘ROYAL NAVY’ and ‘N4389’ in small black letters on the rear fuselage, a red, white and blue fin flash, blue and red roundels above the upper wings, and a black propeller with yellow tips (shape from the airpages.ru Albacore three-view, cross-checked against a second three-view silhouette; markings matched to photographs of the museum’s aircraft; colours are standard values, as the museum’s lighting makes the photographs too warm to sample); the museum’s Albacore, the only one left, was built from the remains of N4389, shot down in the Kirkenes raid of July 1941, and N4172, which crashed in Sutherland in 1941.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as N4389 ‘4M’, a Fairey Albacore Mk I of the Fleet Air Arm, as displayed at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton: the carrier torpedo bomber built to replace the Swordfish, a biplane with folding wings, an enclosed and heated cabin for its crew and a 1,130 hp Bristol Taurus XII fourteen-cylinder sleeve-valve radial driving a three-bladed propeller, shown standing tail-down on its main wheels and tail wheel with its wings spread and without its torpedo, which the museum shows on a separate stand: Dark Slate Grey and Extra Dark Sea Grey above Sky on the fuselage and fin, pale upper wing surfaces as displayed, red, white, blue and yellow roundels on the fuselage sides with the black code ‘4M’ behind them, ‘ROYAL NAVY’ and ‘N4389’ in small black letters on the rear fuselage, a red, white and blue fin flash, blue and red roundels above the upper wings, and a black propeller with yellow tips (shape from the airpages.ru Albacore three-view, cross-checked against a second three-view silhouette; markings matched to photographs of the museum’s aircraft; colours are standard values, as the museum’s lighting makes the photographs too warm to sample); the museum’s Albacore, the only one left, was built from the remains of N4389, shot down in the Kirkenes raid of July 1941, and N4172, which crashed in Sutherland in 1941. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (895 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (Albacore I, Barracuda II); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Albacore Mk I, N4389 ‘4M’ modelled here.

History

The Albacore

Fairey designed the Albacore to Air Ministry specification S.41/36 as the successor to its own Swordfish: a carrier torpedo, dive and reconnaissance bomber that kept the biplane layout for slow, steady deck landings but gave its crew an enclosed cabin. The prototype, L7074, first flew from Fairey’s Great West Aerodrome at Harmondsworth on 12 December 1938, flown by F. H. Dixon. The cabin was heated and the pilot had a windscreen wiper, comforts unknown in the open-cockpit Swordfish, though crews found the front of the cabin too hot in summer and the back cold and draughty. The wings folded back for stowage, and the early Taurus II engine of 1,065 hp gave way to the 1,130 hp Taurus XII. Fairey built 800, all at Hayes, between 1939 and 1943.

No. 826 Naval Air Squadron formed on the Albacore in March 1940 and began operations from shore bases, attacking shipping and E-boats in the English Channel and over the Dunkirk beaches. Carrier operations began that November, when Nos. 826 and 829 Squadrons embarked in HMS Formidable, and at the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 Formidable’s Albacores pressed home torpedo attacks through heavy fire, hitting the battleship Vittorio Veneto and slowing her. Fifteen front-line squadrons eventually flew the type. In July 1941 Albacores from HMS Victorious and HMS Furious raided Kirkenes and Petsamo in the Arctic at heavy cost, and on 9 March 1942 twelve from Victorious attacked the battleship Tirpitz off Norway; one torpedo passed within 20 yards, but none hit, and two aircraft were lost.

Ashore, Albacores of Nos. 821 and 826 Squadrons spent two years in the Western Desert dropping flares to light targets for RAF night bombers, including at El Alamein, while No. 828 Squadron flew from Hal Far in Malta against Axis convoys to North Africa. The Albacore never fully replaced the Swordfish, which outlived it in Fleet Air Arm service: the Barracuda took over during 1943, and the last Albacore squadron, No. 841, disbanded at the end of that year. No. 415 Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force flew Albacores against German shipping in the Channel until July 1944, making it the last biplane the RCAF used in combat.

This airframe

Albacore I N4389 ‘4M’

N4389The airframe modelled

The only Albacore left is at the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton, and it is a composite of two aircraft. N4389 was shot down during the Kirkenes raid of July 1941, and N4172 crashed at A’Mhoine in Sutherland the same year; the museum rebuilt the remains of both as one aircraft, using the tail of N4389 and the fuselage of N4172, and displays it as N4389, coded ‘4M’. The model follows photographs of it as displayed, standing tail-down on its main wheels and tail wheel without its torpedo, which stands beside it: Dark Slate Grey and Extra Dark Sea Grey above Sky on the fuselage and fin, the upper wing surfaces pale, red, white, blue and yellow roundels on the fuselage sides with ‘4M’ in black behind them, ‘ROYAL NAVY’ and ‘N4389’ in small black letters on the rear fuselage, a red, white and blue fin flash, blue and red roundels above the upper wings, and a black propeller with yellow tips. The colours are standard values rather than samples, as the museum’s lighting makes the photographs too warm to measure, and no photograph shows the undersides, so the model carries no under-wing roundels. The shape follows the airpages.ru Albacore three-view, cross-checked against a second three-view silhouette.

See it at Fleet Air Arm Museum

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Albacore in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 264 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.