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  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

    Post 16 Update

    Post 17 Warning

RAF Air-Sea Rescue during WWII

S

SADT

Charter Member
Hello All, :wavey:

I was wondering what aircraft were used in the Air-Sea rescue role by the RAF during WWII, as doing recreation flights in FSX is quite cool. As I understand from Wikipedia, an Air-Sea rescue service was not set up until 1941. After that I can find nothing. Any help would be much appreciated :salute:

BTW - Was it really true that if the electrics failed on a Boulton-paul Defiant, the turret-gunner was doomed? I would think it incredibly irresponsible that they did not even provide a manual back-up, to allow the gunner to get out, or a pop out hatch. This has been in my mind ever since I read, "A Piece of Cake"
 
The Supermarine Walrus was used for ASR.

Mike Stone's FS9 model displays in FSX:



But it doesn't float very well ;)

 
Hi Paul,

Thanks for that, though I don't think a floor hatch would be useful after a belly landing in which the A/C caught fire, or in a ditching.
 
SADT said:
Hello All, :wavey:

I was wondering what aircraft were used in the Air-Sea rescue role by the RAF during WWII, as doing recreation flights in FSX is quite cool. As I understand from Wikipedia, an Air-Sea rescue service was not set up until 1941. After that I can find nothing. Any help would be much appreciated :salute:

BTW - Was it really true that if the electrics failed on a Boulton-paul Defiant, the turret-gunner was doomed? I would think it incredibly irresponsible that they did not even provide a manual back-up, to allow the gunner to get out, or a pop out hatch. This has been in my mind ever since I read, "A Piece of Cake"
Click to expand...

Not that people that are on the FSX forum can't help with this. But you need to ask this on the CFS3 forum. There is a group of guys called the Groundhogs that have made the CFS3 expansions that are historains of the RAF and how when and what-- when it comes to WWII.

And thy would be happy to help you.


flyer01:salute:
 
My father was a pilot in the RCAF who flew for the RAF in 284 squadron which flew air-sea rescue during WW2. His plane was the Vickers Warwick. It carried a 10 man life-boat in the bombay. From his logbook I discovered that he went on a lot of missions where they would shadow the American B-26 bomber formations as they attacked southern France or northern Italy. The idea being that if one of the B-26's had to ditch on the way back from a raid, the Warwicks would be right there to drop their life-boat to assist them.

As far as I know, no one has published a flightsim model of the Warwick. I built a gmax model but it hasn't been finished. Seems a few years of building Texans got in the way.

Attached is a picture of my Dad with his crew while they were stationed in Sardinia around 1944. My Dad is the one standing in the hatch. The other picture is an advertisement published by Vickers.

To get a good picture of how RAF air sea rescue worked you also need to look up the high speed launches (similar to American PT boats) that were manned by RAF personnel.
 
I knew a WW2 SAR pilot, they had both Spitfire (early MkII type in 1944) and Walrus aircraft (both designed by R J Mitchell, but not really similar!) on his squadron and all would fly both types in any given day!
 
I had a friend named Emile Bertrand, who flew for the Free French in the RAF. Very much a gentleman and was the Chief Engineer of a plant in Warren, Michigan called Speedring.
He was a pilot of a Walrus in rescues of downed RAF and US crews in the channel. He never gave me an amount, he just said that there were very many.
He was shot down twice by Me-109s. Once picked up by another Walrus and the other by a Motor Patrol Boat. I guessed from what he said that all the rescues were between the Walruses and the MPBs. He had nothing but admiration about the Walrus. In spite of it's ungainly appearance, it flew very easy.
Emile was from Brittany and taught me how to eat Mussels in a seaport town in Connecticut. With garlic they're delicious!
 
I've always loved the Walrus and it was an aircraft I believe alot of downed pilots were overjoyed to see when they were in the drink!
 
One of the reasons a dedicated ASR unit was not founded until so late was that the UK and Ireland already had a pretty efficient and effective offshore search and rescue organisation in the form of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution - RNLI.

Unfortunately for certain elements within the British hierarchy at the time, the RNLI launched to all reports of a downed airmen, not just ones wearing RAF Blue, with the net result that they were accused of "aiding and abetting the enemy" on a number of occasions.

The entirely voluntary and charitable RNLI is one of the reasons why successive British Governments have felt able to hack and slash at Coastguard and Search and Rescue budgets... As they are again this year. After all, when people do it for free, why should the Government have to pay for it? :rolleyes:

Anyway. That's beside the point. The point is that the RNLI were out pulling parachutes out of the Channel and North Sea well before the military got their act together and started doing it themselves.

Ian P.
 
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