Sword Models

[The Wooksta!]

https://swordmodel.cz/en/home/188-sw72157-short-seamew-.html



Looks like this initial boxing will be the RN version only so maybe a 2nd boxing for RAF

If they run true to form, it'll have the plastic in for both FAA and RAF, with the only difference being the decals.

[Wardukw]

This is one of those aircraft where you have to wonder did anyone at any point think "There's something wrong here " 🤔
OK eye sight might have been an issue for the designer and everyone else I suspect who'd seen it when it first rolled out .

[PR19_Kit]

But it's like 'Half-a-Gannet' and no-one thought ill of that at the time. 

[Thorvic]

It is half a gannet, its has a single mamba rather than a double :-)

The idea wasnt that bad, as a ligher simplar ASW aircraft for the RNVR and Coastal Command, where the Gannet was more complex and expensive to operate. It was only 6 years after the end of the war, the cold war had started and the submarine threat was still there in a new form. The Royal Navy at this time was creating the type 12 ASW frigates and converting many its wartime stock of destroyers to ASW frigates Type 15 full conversion, type 16 partial conversion, they also built the Type 14 captain class third rate frigates,  The Seamew sort of fits into that type 14/16 areaas a dedicated ASW aircraft, intended to be operated from coastal airfields for coastal ASW ops whilst MPAs went open ocean, and to operate from the light fleet carriers and potential next gen escort carriers in times of war.
The light fleet carriers Ocean, Glory, Theseus, Triumph and Warrior, were all operating as training ships or aircraft ferries, and Warrior was modenised with new latice mast and radars, and converted to an angled deck. The other light fleets would receive a similar refit along with Unicorn. In time of war these would embark the RNVR squadrons and provide ASW escort groups for convoys.
The 1957 defence review put paid to these plans, alongside the likes of the F155T, the Avro 730 and other aircraft projects the RNVR and RAFR forces were disbanded, the carrier updates cancelled, and much of the reserve fleet and older types sold off and scrapped. Warrior went to Argentina after operation Grapple, Triumph become a Destroyer/Frigate repair ship, to replace prewar types, and one of the others was considered as conversion to submarine support ship, but theu were scrapped instead.

Along side a 72nd Seamew build, i do plan to modenise a 1/700 Colossus class on par with Warrior and include Seamew with Seahawk and possibly Sea Venom as RNVR airgroup

[jcf]

Evidently pretty much everyone who flew it hated it, flight characteristics were described as vicious. The only person to champion the beast was killed while demonstrating of the thing.

[chrisonord]

It shouldn't be too difficult to make the landing gear retractable, and replace the radar bulge with a sideways trainable gun turret for nighttime gunship duties. Plenty of ammunition could be carried internally too.

[zenrat]

How about a Highball Seamew?

Although it might not be able to fly fast enough for them to bounce properly.

[Steel Penguin]

How about a Highball Seamew?

Although it might not be able to fly fast enough for them to bounce properly.

now all i can see is the highball drop deploying from where the radome is on the profile, and instead of the bomb spinning up, the plane starts to whip round it instead.   

[The Wooksta!]

Too late.  They'd given up on the trials by late 1948 - PX219, the Highball Sea Hornet, was sent to Vickers in late 1948 to have the Highball equipment removed, before going to Arbroath as a ground instructional airframe in March 1949.  This is a good six years before Seamew ever flew.

[PR19_Kit]

..... and that's a good reason NOT to do it anyway? 

[The Wooksta!]

It has to have some relation to reality.  Besides which, Seamew was an ASW aircraft, not low level strike.  Highball for such a role is quite simply absurd.

[Old Wombat]

At the blistering pace of the Seamew at full throttle, the Highball would hit the water ... & sink!   

[jcf]

Keep pushin' lads and we'll clear
this abomination off the deck in no time.

[zenrat]

What is this reality of which Lee speaks?
 

[PR19_Kit]

There's some very odd things about a Seamew, and I don't just mean its overall shape.

That pic that JCF posted shows a couple of them, first, the exhausts point DOWNWARDS, which can hardly help use any residual jet thrust properly, can it? And with wings THAT big it surely doesn't need any extra lift from the vertical exhausts either.

Second, it has intakes on the tailplane roots. Whoever needs air-cooled tailplanes?

And they couldn't have made that nose any shorter if they tried, as it is the pilot's nose is almost in danger of being chopped off by the prop!