Fairey AEW Gannet
This is the Fairey AEW Gannet. It was designed for the Royal Navy () to be used as a dedicated anti-submarine aircraft which could be launched from an aircraft carrier (its wings fold up as do most carrier-based aircraft). To me, it is an odd-looking beast starting with the contra-rotating propellers. One propeller will spin clockwise, the outer counter-clockwise resulting in greater thrust from a given engine than a single-propeller design. It also provides more stable handling at low speed. The downside is that this design creates more noise. The second odd-ball feature is that the plane looks pregnant. That is a radar dome enclosing a radar adapted from a predecessor aircraft. This adaptation then required a cascade of other modifications including moving the observer's cockpit, creating a new cabin, moving the exhaust, increasing the size of the vertical stabilizer and increasing the length of the undercarriage. It began service in 1958 and was retired in 1978 — only 44 were built.
Size: 6951px × 4634px
Location: Tucson, AZ
Photo credit: © B. David Cathell / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: aew, aew-3, air, aircraft, airplane, anti-submarine, arizona, az, bdavid, crisis, cuban, engine, fairey, gannet, hunter, missile, , museum, navy, pima, piston, reconnaissance, royal, space, tucson
