As a former USAF pilot, I always imagine myself at the controls of the aircraft you describe, Ed. Some would be delightful, and some - like this monstrosity - would just be loathsome. I flew the Cessna O-2 in combat, another ugly and cobbled-together plane that managed to get me home on every one of 300 missions. I can empathize with guys who flew some of the ones you feature.
As a 12 year old watching that air show in 1956 from across Belfast lough and seeing the crash, I now know who was sadly killed, and the plane involved, thank you for sharing, 👍😃
Thank you. Well researched and presented. Such a pleasure to find someone making documentaries properly, without filling them with unrelated stock footage and uninformed cliched narration. I'll be watching more.
I'm an American Marine, been out for years. I was just a Ground Pounder. Your videos are really good and interesting. It's nice to see someone doing content on these subjects, in a serious manner. I'm sure the USAAC, USAAF and USAF had aircraft that didn't make it, for whatever reason, but not enough content exist on that subject. Thank you for doing such a good job.
Thanks man. I've got a lot of ex-US marine buddies, I'm used to crayon-eaters :) in fact you should check out Miles Vining - ex-marine, does a lot of gun stuff, great guy. Yeah, lots of weird "might-have-been-stuff" out there,
@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters (Tongue-In-Cheek) LOL! The only ex-marines were thrown out. I don't know where this crayon eating nonsense came from; it wasn't around when I was in, '94-'98. I think the army made it up because we're better than them in every way. Thanks for the recommendation, though. keep up the good and interesting work! I hope you have a nice day! ;-)
To its credit it looks exactly like what you'd imagine from the name "Seamew." I can only hope it's complimented by an equally wonky-looking Royal Army helicopter named Landyip.
Can you imagine how it would be when you are a military aviator and have to admit at the bar, or at some family gathering that THIS is what you fly. The horror...
I love learning about the little known elements of military history & especially the development of forgotten prototypes, This channel seems to fill that niche....Looking forward to watching your previous videos....Hope the channel grows & gets the recognition it deserves for covering these topics.....Thank You.
I got a pretty good knowledge of British Aircraft but this is the first I've heard of this. Thanks. "Loads left unused in the factory". I'm trying to think that "oh they could have used them for....." I can't.
I don't know what it is exactly, but these ugly ducklings do it for me. I always fall sponteaneously in love with them, if I want to or not! The Mazda 121, the Messcherschmidt car, the Goggomobile... and so on, and so on. This one, with its aptly hampered name? Come on... Seamew? Not a grain of grandiosity or flare in such a name. Ahhh, Seamew, I love thee, name, design, reputation and all. Thanks for putting this gem of undesireableness on TH-cam.
Any pilot will appreciate just how phenomenal the view forward and down out of this cockpit must have been. It would have been worth flying it just for that feature.
I was acquainted with Wally Runciman, and witnessed his crash close up. He completed a loop, then attempted a second loop, at too low an altitude. An interesting point is that the Seamew had a jettisonable undercarrige, in case of ditching!
I was also at that airshow as a youngster. I remember a plume of smoke at the end of the runway, the organisers trying to keep the show going as people drifted away. It's a shame that the pilot lost his life in an aircraft that was such a failure.f
Its tail seems very short - little chance of over correcting any sudden nose overs, and the wings mid chord lift being barely ahead of the CoG... dangerous indeed without a skilled pilot keeping within its likely razor thin control aspect of its performance envolope.
Thank you for posting. Excellent timing since I just watched Warbird Mistress' detailed review of Fairey aircraft and learned he had come from Short. There were a number of cab forward-and-high designs at the end of the war and some time afterward. Not my favorites . An odd look for sure, but much less fuel to keep aloft than the helicopters. I think the wings, props, and stabilizers could be removed and it would make a great helicopter fuselage. I'll look up some more Short airframes.
Its better than that. Its takes two to operate it. James Bond could operate the weaponry and Mr Bean could blindly fly it. On a plane that should have never existed. Sereously who drew that and thought "foocket that'll do" and who then saw that and thought "fwarh that's exatly what we're looking for"? And then they built it and nearly sold an arse load of them? F#$£*¥@ HELL. Tbh bet foldy wings did it. People buy anything with foldy wings back then. They probably told some of them they flapped, the batards.
Very interesting - you can see it's the result of similar requirements to the Fairey Gannet. I think it was featured in old aircraft spotters year books I was given in the 60's by my cousins. The name (but not the appearance) seems vaguely familiar. Good video about an obscure topic!
Good grief, I used to work for Short Bros and even I had never heard of that one! Possibly because it was one of the company's dirty secrets ( it had one or two others).
This actually was not a bad idea, at the time. Bear in mind that, at that time, a lot of old WW-II "Woolworth Carriers" were laid up in reserve in "The Mothball Fleet". In case of war, they could have been reactivated quickly to operate aircraft such as the Seamew in the anti-submarine or convoy escort roles. However, by the time the Seamew was ready to go into production, an even better idea had been developed in the form of ASW helicopters.
Curious! How useful is an observer position whose view downward is nearly completely blocked by the airplane's wing? Perhaps that should be labelled the radar operator's position.
"If it looks right it'll fly right" And many everyday planes we fly in now, ate practically death traps if you stall it. Some popular planes only fly with BRS installed, and everyone us trained to stay away from stalking. Thru don't teach spins, because it was killing too many instructors and students. Meanwhile, the "32 Arup S-2 violated every part of thected herring of " if it looks right... ". The parasol circular wing Nemeth parachute plane flew better and faster than the plane the fuselage came from. The similar Farman 1020 of the '30s too. Stall-spin proof, super slow landing speed, astonishing climb rate. Utterly ignored by the "market"
I saw Runciman's crash at Sydenham when I was 9. IIRC he did one low-level loop successfully and immediately went into a second, possibly not realising that he had come out of the first loop lower than he went into it, or it may be that he stalled at the top of the second. Whichever it was, he couldn't recover and went into the ground. I still remember the horrible crump and the pall of smoke. I heard later that they had taken him out in two pieces, but I never saw this confirmed.
@@andyniblock43 Pretty dire, although at 9 I was less sensitive to what had just happened than my father, who was with me. I was a bit disappointed that they stopped the display because they'd used up all their foam, but he was very quiet for a few hours afterwards.
Hey Ed............. You mentioned somewhere along the line that suggestions for obscure & curious aeroplanes were always welcome. Weellllllllll, The Westland Wyvern must have been a pretty horrible thing to fly too but .............. acquired one very unique reputation on 13 October 1954 When Lt. B. D. Macfarlane successfully ejected from a Wyvern. Which was by that time under water after his aircraft had ditched on launch and been cut in two by the launching carrier HMS Albion. [According to Wikipedia anyway]
The shorts brothers went on to bigger and better aircraft designing and building the shorts 330 and 360 cargo aircraft that are still in service today. Used primarily by the military.
There was the Ensign Eliminator. But this... this seems to be what the answer to the enemy's wishes, a weapons platform that proves more dangerous to those who use it than to its intended target.
Notice how no one ever mentions the Supermarine Seamew or the Avro Seamew Lancaster? Two pioneering aircraft that the Germans could never hit as Galland and co were laughing too hard 😊
Thanks - I didn't know about the Seamew. A "baby Gannet"? It used a single Mamba engine (Gannet had the double Mamba). The requirement and concept were good but, in practice......?
So what was the handling problem??? I'm going to guess it may be yaw instability, since the cockpit looks like a tail in the nose, that would have to compensated with a huge tail in the rear. The tail is big, but is it huge? It does seem like a valid concept to me though, since airplanes are far cheaper than helicopters, one can make and operate more of them and therefore patrol a larger area. It just needed to be modified to increase stability like the Mig 3, but more so. I bet the easiest way would be to lengthen the fuselage, and/or maybe expand the tail.
The accolades of a company-employed chief-test-pilot who's job it is to "make the plane look good" to those with the money to purchase it; sure... sure you can trust what he has to say about it! BTW just found your channel today. Can't say how impressed I am with the wealth of info about obscure aircraft. You've found your niche. Now more people need to find you.
I can see it now: A Soviet submarine crew takes one look at the Shorts Seamew, and goes ROTFLMAO. Then a Royal Navy boarding crew collects the still-laughing crew and the Whiskey class submarine. "Monty Python and The Shorts Seamew" would make a cracking funny Cold War-era movie.;)
Sometimes the most spastic looking craft are functionally the best at the job. Not exactly the “Top Gun“ image for the pilot ...but....the workhorses of a conflict. However, the SeaMew seems to indeed achieved that rare standard of having been both an ugly and stupidly designed piece of crap 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏😉 Enjoyed the video immensely, please do more like this 👍👍😄
I read somewhere that it had poor pitch and roll response at low speed and the controls were badly harmonised, but I can't remember the source. I also believe that the large wing and low weight meant that the aircraft was badly affected by buffeting due to turbulence around ships' superstructures, and the poor low-speed handling made it a real dog to land. However, it's not unusual for new designs to have teething troubles and the issues were apparently being addressed when the programme was cancelled.
@3:00 minute mark... there is an apparently well-dressed chap standing at the tail of the aircraft, on the elevator, that looks suspiciously like a James Bond type fellow...
In fairness the test pilot was killed doing a loop at very (too) low altitude, the aircrafts handling characteristics were as fundamental to the accident as the handling characteristics of the ground he hit.
G'day Ed, I say the following with the deepest respect for the British aircraft manufacturing industry, the RAF, the FAA, the Spitfire, Hurricane and, of course, the Mosquito, Lancaster, Wellington etc. Of all the British aircraft produced during and just after WW2 many, too many, were absolute 'dogs'. The Seamew was, I contend, the leader of this pack. WIth the design resembling one created by a sight challenged committee of people who had never seen an aircraft; the Seamew could not be uglier. Then to learn, surprise, surprise that it was potentially lethal to it's operators is, really, no shock. That one photo of a pilot just about to leap from the wing to the one climbing strut poking out of the fuselage tells the story perfectly. If the boarding pilot missed that foothold he would have plunged to the tarmac and possibly broken a leg or died before ever sitting in the cockpit. This had to be someone's dark, sinister joke. A design planted by the Ruskies, perhaps? Ed, I notice that you feature some other 'canine' UK aircraft so you must know what I'm talking about. I can't say any more because I can't beat the quote noted by TheSlugstoppa, below. It's a classic, unlike the Seamew. Cheers, BH
Very interesting aircraft. It seems that it was produced for a role that no longer existed. Britain got rid of all its escort carriers when the Second World War ended. I enjoy hearing about obscure aircraft and think the Short Singapore flying boat should be next. One of the biplanes operating at the start of WWII it has what I believe to be a unique engine arrangement.
Being an ugly looking aircraft is no barrier to commercial success. The Short Sky van /330/360 was regarded as ugly but it proved to be the most successful commercial aircraft produced in the UK since 1945 to date .
When you think, at the time the Seamew was flying, the most dangerous aircraft the Sovs had in the mid-Atlantic, was the Kamov Ka25. This plane could have hopped between CVE to CVE to Greenland to CVE to CVE to Iceland and back again - and unless the Sovs took Iceland a'la Red Storm Rising, what was going to shoot it down? A Tu-95?
At least the test pilot liked it so it couldn't have been all bad .another missed opportunity. sea mew we salute you .is there any in museum's I can have a look at and ponder what might have been .I like it
@@georgebarnes8163 Yeah, but to clarify my personal meaning of odd duck: the Skyvan had it's cuteness, but I don't rate that one high on the odd duck scale. I appreciate the effort, but it had the sense of some kit you buy plans for and furnish with stacking auditorium chairs. And, experimental planes, like the flying pancake, are also fascinating. But, the ones I really love are the very functional but ungainly birds that have some special job and are out there just being part of getting things done without any sense of flash or ego pumping machismo.
@@TesserId could I suggest the Short SC.1, not get much stranger than that, there would be no Kestrels of Harriers without it. The 5 engine wonder lol.
Can you imagine having your sub suddenly disabled and when you surface you see this fucking thing sputtering around overhead making the same sounds as the bubble car thing from the original Charlie and the chocolate factory
Sounds like an excellent addition to the Elbonian air fleet.
Gun Jesus would be proud of you!
@@s.marcus3669>>> 🤭🤭🤭
Albanian!...GO BACK TO SCHOOL!!! 🤪🤪🤪
As a former USAF pilot, I always imagine myself at the controls of the aircraft you describe, Ed. Some would be delightful, and some - like this monstrosity - would just be loathsome. I flew the Cessna O-2 in combat, another ugly and cobbled-together plane that managed to get me home on every one of 300 missions. I can empathize with guys who flew some of the ones you feature.
Hey bud, the O-2 was a fine bird. It did its job quite well.
As a 12 year old watching that air show in 1956 from across Belfast lough and seeing the crash, I now know who was sadly killed, and the plane involved, thank you for sharing, 👍😃
I was also at that airshow, but over at the test pilot's office side. I too was 12 years old.
I as a 13 year old was also there when Squadron Leader W.J. Runciman was killed.
I think I read of a Pilot's comments on this machine which stated "Access to the Cockpit is difficult and I recommend that it be made impossible".
Brilliant quote ,, true or not , it should be.
That would be the Blankburn Botha
That thing actually saw front line service
@@jamesricker3997 'Bloody Botha' -legendary for being unable to maintain height on one engine.
Dry British wit at its finest sounds like it was a terrible airplane
G'day Ronald
Not British, definitely Aussie humour.
I have been in Naval Aviation for over 40 years with a specialty in ASW yet I’ve never heard of this aircraft. Nice job!
The Royal Navy created a UFO conspiracy to cover it up.
Quite possibly the ugliest aircraft ever built
Never heard of it .You can learn something new every day.
Thank you. Well researched and presented. Such a pleasure to find someone making documentaries properly, without filling them with unrelated stock footage and uninformed cliched narration. I'll be watching more.
I'm an American Marine, been out for years. I was just a Ground Pounder. Your videos are really good and interesting. It's nice to see someone doing content on these subjects, in a serious manner. I'm sure the USAAC, USAAF and USAF had aircraft that didn't make it, for whatever reason, but not enough content exist on that subject. Thank you for doing such a good job.
Thanks man. I've got a lot of ex-US marine buddies, I'm used to crayon-eaters :)
in fact you should check out Miles Vining - ex-marine, does a lot of gun stuff, great guy.
Yeah, lots of weird "might-have-been-stuff" out there,
@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters (Tongue-In-Cheek) LOL! The only ex-marines were thrown out. I don't know where this crayon eating nonsense came from; it wasn't around when I was in, '94-'98. I think the army made it up because we're better than them in every way. Thanks for the recommendation, though. keep up the good and interesting work! I hope you have a nice day! ;-)
To its credit it looks exactly like what you'd imagine from the name "Seamew."
I can only hope it's complimented by an equally wonky-looking Royal Army helicopter named Landyip.
Or maybe Hillbark
Can you imagine how it would be when you are a military aviator and have to admit at the bar, or at some family gathering that THIS is what you fly.
The horror...
You'd probably prefer to say that you are a bus driver in the FAA ...
You mean admitting to the lovely young lady sitting next to you what "thing" you flew.
If I was the pilot of one of those POS I would wear a paper bag at all times...
better than walking
@@Steve211Ucdhihifvshi especially over water
I love learning about the little known elements of military history & especially the development of forgotten prototypes, This channel seems to fill that niche....Looking forward to watching your previous videos....Hope the channel grows & gets the recognition it deserves for covering these topics.....Thank You.
Fascinating, I many others I had not heard of these aircraft and others in your series before, thank you..
I got a pretty good knowledge of British Aircraft but this is the first I've heard of this.
Thanks.
"Loads left unused in the factory".
I'm trying to think that "oh they could have used them for....."
I can't.
Well done, excellent vid. Long time since I’ve seen this plane mentioned.
Thanks for posting.
I don't know what it is exactly, but these ugly ducklings do it for me. I always fall sponteaneously in love with them, if I want to or not! The Mazda 121, the Messcherschmidt car, the Goggomobile... and so on, and so on. This one, with its aptly hampered name? Come on... Seamew? Not a grain of grandiosity or flare in such a name. Ahhh, Seamew, I love thee, name, design, reputation and all. Thanks for putting this gem of undesireableness on TH-cam.
Thanks for making this video! An interesting plane that I had never heard of with a good variety of photos and footage!
Any pilot will appreciate just how phenomenal the view forward and down out of this cockpit must have been. It would have been worth flying it just for that feature.
I was acquainted with Wally Runciman, and witnessed his crash close up. He completed a loop, then attempted a second loop, at too low an altitude. An interesting point is that the Seamew had a jettisonable undercarrige, in case of ditching!
I was also at that airshow as a youngster. I remember a plume of smoke at the end of the runway, the organisers trying to keep the show going as people drifted away. It's a shame that the pilot lost his life in an aircraft that was such a failure.f
But the point here is that he liked the aircraft so much he bought it.what I mean to say he had faith in its capability.
@@JohnDoe-ox5ni Sorry but he did not buy the aircraft, he was a test pilot for the company that built it.
@@JohnDoe-ox5ni and, to use army slang, he 'bought it' - as in, got killed
I don't know about anti submarine, looks more like anti flying.
Thanks for posting this.
Its tail seems very short - little chance of over correcting any sudden nose overs, and the wings mid chord lift being barely ahead of the CoG... dangerous indeed without a skilled pilot keeping within its likely razor thin control aspect of its performance envolope.
I recall seeing one of these, well the fuselage, at the old Fleet AirArm museum in Cornwall.
Thank you for posting. Excellent timing since I just watched Warbird Mistress' detailed review of Fairey aircraft and learned he had come from Short. There were a number of cab forward-and-high designs at the end of the war and some time afterward. Not my favorites . An odd look for sure, but much less fuel to keep aloft than the helicopters. I think the wings, props, and stabilizers could be removed and it would make a great helicopter fuselage. I'll look up some more Short airframes.
Another plane I’ve never seen, very interesting video !
It was highly successful in causing Russian submariners to laugh themselves to death.
If James Bond flies a plane, it would be a Spitfire. If Mr.Bean flies something, it must be this.
😂
I reckon he flies a Transavia PL-12 Airtruk, the plane in Mad Max 3
Its better than that. Its takes two to operate it. James Bond could operate the weaponry and Mr Bean could blindly fly it. On a plane that should have never existed. Sereously who drew that and thought "foocket that'll do" and who then saw that and thought "fwarh that's exatly what we're looking for"? And then they built it and nearly sold an arse load of them? F#$£*¥@ HELL. Tbh bet foldy wings did it. People buy anything with foldy wings back then. They probably told some of them they flapped, the batards.
You haven't seem Man with the Golden Gun have you? Bond flies an ugly little seaplane in that one.
Perfect Bean plane....lol
The sheer ugliness of this bird would keep any sane Submariner from surfacing.
Very interesting - you can see it's the result of similar requirements to the Fairey Gannet. I think it was featured in old aircraft spotters year books I was given in the 60's by my cousins. The name (but not the appearance) seems vaguely familiar. Good video about an obscure topic!
Good grief, I used to work for Short Bros and even I had never heard of that one! Possibly because it was one of the company's dirty secrets ( it had one or two others).
Do tell the one or two others!
What about the cars they Made and also the vacuum cleaners !
@@kaptainkaos1202 well there was the.... oh better not, I might get arrested under the Official Secrets Act.
Thanks for reviews of odd and obscure aircraft--I just subscribed!
Whatever its other faults, the visibility from the cockpit looks spectacular!
When you are inside, you dont see how ugly it is.
Yeah, but you instead see how ugly it flies.
That's what SHE said !!
Re: It doesn’t look bad from the inside. Evidently getting inside wasn’t easy.
How refreshing to be entertained by not so well known airplanes. Thank you
Enjoyed that, thanks for making it.
This actually was not a bad idea, at the time. Bear in mind that, at that time, a lot of old WW-II "Woolworth Carriers" were laid up in reserve in "The Mothball Fleet". In case of war, they could have been reactivated quickly to operate aircraft such as the Seamew in the anti-submarine or convoy escort roles. However, by the time the Seamew was ready to go into production, an even better idea had been developed in the form of ASW helicopters.
This looks like it belongs in the Pixar movie Planes.
Seamew is a common name for the Common Gull. At least it's "vicious" flight characteristics didn't include stealing food and ****ing on parked cars.
Mew, seens the english name for german Möwe
During WW2 Curtiss also designed a Naval scout plane called the Seamew, which was equally unsuccessful.
and just as ugly
new to/really enjoying your channel, just a handful of vids watched and already 3 unique/rare planes I'd never seen before, cheers
Just come across your videos. Great. Really interesting. Thanks.
Curious! How useful is an observer position whose view downward is nearly completely blocked by the airplane's wing? Perhaps that should be labelled the radar operator's position.
"If it looks right it'll fly right"
And many everyday planes we fly in now, ate practically death traps if you stall it. Some popular planes only fly with BRS installed, and everyone us trained to stay away from stalking. Thru don't teach spins, because it was killing too many instructors and students.
Meanwhile, the "32 Arup S-2 violated every part of thected herring of " if it looks right... ".
The parasol circular wing Nemeth parachute plane flew better and faster than the plane the fuselage came from. The similar Farman 1020 of the '30s too. Stall-spin proof, super slow landing speed, astonishing climb rate.
Utterly ignored by the "market"
The 2 criteria for Fleet Air Arm:
1.How lumpy is it?
2.Can it at least theoretically land on a ship?
The Brits made one beautiful plane, the Spitfire and then said, we need diversity.
I saw Runciman's crash at Sydenham when I was 9. IIRC he did one low-level loop successfully and immediately went into a second, possibly not realising that he had come out of the first loop lower than he went into it, or it may be that he stalled at the top of the second. Whichever it was, he couldn't recover and went into the ground. I still remember the horrible crump and the pall of smoke. I heard later that they had taken him out in two pieces, but I never saw this confirmed.
I was there also as a young 13 year old.
@@andyniblock43 Pretty dire, although at 9 I was less sensitive to what had just happened than my father, who was with me. I was a bit disappointed that they stopped the display because they'd used up all their foam, but he was very quiet for a few hours afterwards.
Hey Ed............. You mentioned somewhere along the line that suggestions for obscure & curious aeroplanes were always welcome.
Weellllllllll, The Westland Wyvern must have been a pretty horrible thing to fly too but .............. acquired one very unique reputation on 13 October 1954
When Lt. B. D. Macfarlane successfully ejected from a Wyvern.
Which was by that time under water after his aircraft had ditched on launch and been cut in two by the launching carrier HMS Albion.
[According to Wikipedia anyway]
Excellent presentation, just subscribed to your channel.
I seem to recall that new examples were being taken off the end of the production line and immediately scrapped !! If only taxpayers knew !!!
More or less the same happened to the ASW Nimrods back around 2010.
So sad .you would have thought they would have saved one .the workforce must have been demoralised.
@@JohnDoe-ox5ni Absolutely agree - if only for a museum - but there again, they probably thought it was too ugly !!
@@kenmilne725 lolol...ya, the only museum where you were issued a blindfold when you went in !!
More significantly the TSR2, which was a technical triumph, and close to being fully production-ready. It is truly an 'if only'
Looks like the Fairey Gannet's grandad.
The Gannet entered service in 1953, the Seamew first flew in 1953, it's more like the Gannet's simple younger cousin.
@@snarkymatt585 Sure looks inbred...
But the Gannet was a *WAY* more capable plane, though. That's why 303 ASW versions were built instead of the very limited capability Shorts Seamew.
My initial thoughts watching were that the Seamew was like a basic "baby Gannet". Seamew is a type of seagull (Larus canus).
@@Steve-GM0HUU I thought it was a type of cat that loves long walks on the beach. lol
Airplane designed by Monty Python
And now for something COMPLETELY different...
Or possibly the inspiration for Vulture Sqn.
Thanks again for another interesting video! 🙂
The shorts brothers went on to bigger and better aircraft designing and building the shorts 330 and 360 cargo aircraft that are still in service today. Used primarily by the military.
There was the Ensign Eliminator. But this... this seems to be what the answer to the enemy's wishes, a weapons platform that proves more dangerous to those who use it than to its intended target.
0:11 well if your horses die of thirst in the desert, you would thank The Heavens for this camel.
Excellent vid. Thank you.
Great video on an unknown bird. That flew as bad as it looked.
Really reminds me of the Transavia PL-12 Airtruk.
Turned into a monoplane and stretched.
Go on go on........names we need names. Now who's dad admitted to flying these?
In my book beautiful is as beautiful does when it comes to weapons.
Very interesting, this is one of the few aircraft I have never heard about...
Kind of like the crazy uncle no one talks about
Many British aircraft designers rested on their laurels after the war and here is a perfect example.
Same nation that made the Spitfire, came up with this freak of an aircraft 😄
Looks like an s55 helicopter cockpit welded on a percival primary trainer.
And they were going to replace the TBM with that? OOOOOKKKKKK.
To it's credit, it did manage to make Fairey Gannett look slick.
This seems to be a cursed name for aircraft, as the Curtis Seamew was even worse, as it actually entered service.
Notice how no one ever mentions the Supermarine Seamew or the Avro Seamew Lancaster?
Two pioneering aircraft that the Germans could never hit as Galland and co were laughing too hard 😊
Thanks - I didn't know about the Seamew. A "baby Gannet"? It used a single Mamba engine (Gannet had the double Mamba). The requirement and concept were good but, in practice......?
Who sat back after drawing this thing up and said to themselves..."Yeah, now that looks good!"
And how much alcohol was involved?
@@Hoomi2 Those fkrs must have been on acid to give that thing the nod !
It is a pity one or two were not saved for aviation museums as a curiosity.
So what was the handling problem??? I'm going to guess it may be yaw instability, since the cockpit looks like a tail in the nose, that would have to compensated with a huge tail in the rear. The tail is big, but is it huge?
It does seem like a valid concept to me though, since airplanes are far cheaper than helicopters, one can make and operate more of them and therefore patrol a larger area. It just needed to be modified to increase stability like the Mig 3, but more so. I bet the easiest way would be to lengthen the fuselage, and/or maybe expand the tail.
It's a classic example of 'form follows function.'
Can you imagine being told you get to fly a military plane as a reservist. You'd be so stoked; until you saw it.
Proto Gannet. Interesting video. Thanks!
When you detect an enemy sub & that this ugly duckling is the only ASW plane available, would you refuse its services ?
It flew so slowly that it couldn't be recovered as the carrier was faster than the Seamew.
A step up from the famous radar equipped 'stringbag' (Fairey Swordfish)?
The accolades of a company-employed chief-test-pilot who's job it is to "make the plane look good" to those with the money to purchase it; sure... sure you can trust what he has to say about it!
BTW just found your channel today. Can't say how impressed I am with the wealth of info about obscure aircraft. You've found your niche. Now more people need to find you.
A truly gormless looking beast
I can see it now: A Soviet submarine crew takes one look at the Shorts Seamew, and goes ROTFLMAO. Then a Royal Navy boarding crew collects the still-laughing crew and the Whiskey class submarine. "Monty Python and The Shorts Seamew" would make a cracking funny Cold War-era movie.;)
Sometimes the most spastic looking craft are functionally the best at the job. Not exactly the “Top Gun“ image for the pilot ...but....the workhorses of a conflict. However, the SeaMew seems to indeed achieved that rare standard of having been both an ugly and stupidly designed piece of crap 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏😉 Enjoyed the video immensely, please do more like this 👍👍😄
And they STILL went ahead and built it !!! WTF??
On board man!! So awesome!!!!!
What was it about the aircraft that made it a potential killer? What was the cause of its poor flying characteristics?
I read somewhere that it had poor pitch and roll response at low speed and the controls were badly harmonised, but I can't remember the source. I also believe that the large wing and low weight meant that the aircraft was badly affected by buffeting due to turbulence around ships' superstructures, and the poor low-speed handling made it a real dog to land. However, it's not unusual for new designs to have teething troubles and the issues were apparently being addressed when the programme was cancelled.
@3:00 minute mark... there is an apparently well-dressed chap standing at the tail of the aircraft, on the elevator, that looks suspiciously like a James Bond type fellow...
In fairness the test pilot was killed doing a loop at very (too) low altitude, the aircrafts handling characteristics were as fundamental to the accident as the handling characteristics of the ground he hit.
G'day Ed, I say the following with the deepest respect for the British aircraft manufacturing industry, the RAF, the FAA, the Spitfire, Hurricane and, of course, the Mosquito, Lancaster, Wellington etc. Of all the British aircraft produced during and just after WW2 many, too many, were absolute 'dogs'. The Seamew was, I contend, the leader of this pack. WIth the design resembling one created by a sight challenged committee of people who had never seen an aircraft; the Seamew could not be uglier. Then to learn, surprise, surprise that it was potentially lethal to it's operators is, really, no shock. That one photo of a pilot just about to leap from the wing to the one climbing strut poking out of the fuselage tells the story perfectly. If the boarding pilot missed that foothold he would have plunged to the tarmac and possibly broken a leg or died before ever sitting in the cockpit. This had to be someone's dark, sinister joke. A design planted by the Ruskies, perhaps? Ed, I notice that you feature some other 'canine' UK aircraft so you must know what I'm talking about. I can't say any more because I can't beat the quote noted by TheSlugstoppa, below. It's a classic, unlike the Seamew. Cheers, BH
This looks like a very modern homebuilt to me, though it is quite large..
Very interesting aircraft. It seems that it was produced for a role that no longer existed. Britain got rid of all its escort carriers when the Second World War ended. I enjoy hearing about obscure aircraft and think the Short Singapore flying boat should be next. One of the biplanes operating at the start of WWII it has what I believe to be a unique engine arrangement.
Being an ugly looking aircraft is no barrier to commercial success. The Short Sky van /330/360 was regarded as ugly but it proved to be the most successful commercial aircraft produced in the UK since 1945 to date .
When you think, at the time the Seamew was flying, the most dangerous aircraft the Sovs had in the mid-Atlantic, was the Kamov Ka25.
This plane could have hopped between CVE to CVE to Greenland to CVE to CVE to Iceland and back again - and unless the Sovs took Iceland a'la Red Storm Rising, what was going to shoot it down? A Tu-95?
At least the test pilot liked it so it couldn't have been all bad .another missed opportunity. sea mew we salute you .is there any in museum's I can have a look at and ponder what might have been .I like it
I seriously love odd ducks. They have such personality.
Like the Short Skyvan which was a major success and just as ugly.
@@georgebarnes8163 Yeah, but to clarify my personal meaning of odd duck: the Skyvan had it's cuteness, but I don't rate that one high on the odd duck scale. I appreciate the effort, but it had the sense of some kit you buy plans for and furnish with stacking auditorium chairs. And, experimental planes, like the flying pancake, are also fascinating. But, the ones I really love are the very functional but ungainly birds that have some special job and are out there just being part of getting things done without any sense of flash or ego pumping machismo.
@@TesserId could I suggest the Short SC.1, not get much stranger than that, there would be no Kestrels of Harriers without it. The 5 engine wonder lol.
@@georgebarnes8163 Oh do please provide links. But I was just yesterday thinking about the massive intakes on Harriers. It still fascinates me.
@@TesserId No bother brother, hope this helps th-cam.com/video/5MrO92fqqJ4/w-d-xo.html
They say: "If it looks right,.......baah, just forget it!"
even more odd than the Fairey Gannet - they seem to be siblings albeit a few years apart
The Seamew showed the Soviets that the British were serious about mutually assured destruction ...
More likely so ugly they scared off submarines
Mutually assured self-destruction in Seamews 😀? Sorry, someone had to say this.
"vicious" in what way I wonder? could not be high stall speed.
You'll understand when the debt charges make the whole submarine shake violently. Those pesky Seamews. Wonders of great design. 😄
Probably being a taildragger that a bunch of nosedraggers couldn't handle.
Just when I thought there's nothing uglier than *Shorts Skyvan* but then its uncle emerged here...
I enjoyed that, thanks!
I never see this !!! Iam learn much in Thais channel thank you
This sound like a plane you give to the enemy!
Thank You!
It wasn't described as a 'camel amongst horses' which doesn't really have any meaning.
Can you imagine having your sub suddenly disabled and when you surface you see this fucking thing sputtering around overhead making the same sounds as the bubble car thing from the original Charlie and the chocolate factory
Wasn't the curtiss seamew a dog as well? The name is cursed where naval aircraft are concerned.
these vids are great.