The Spearfish was designed by Fairey Aviation to
Admiralty Specification O.5/43 as a replacement for the
Fairey Barracuda in the torpedo/dive bomber role. In comparison to the Barracuda, the Spearfish had a much more powerful engine, an internal weapons bay and a retractable
ASV Mk.XV surface-search
radar mounted behind the bomb bay. In August 1943, the company received an order for three prototypes to be built against Specification O.5/43 and the first prototype,
serial number RA356, was constructed at Fairey's
Hayes factory and first flew on 5 July 1945 from
Heston Aerodrome; the other two did not fly until 1947. In November 1943 the company was ordered to build a dual-control dive-bombing trainer variant against Specification T.21/43 and this was built at the
Heaton Chapel factory and assembled and flown at
Ringway on 20 June 1946. Three further development aircraft were ordered in May 1944 to be built at Heaton Chapel, with the last two to be fitted with a
Rolls-Royce Pennine engine; only the first Centarus-engined aircraft was built but never flew. Production orders for 150 aircraft were placed to be built at Heaton Chapel; the first ten aircraft were intended to use
Bristol Centaurus radial engine, Centaurus 59 engines on the next 22, and Centaurus 60s of the remainder. In addition, the flaps were to be enlarged and lateral control was to be provided by
spoilers with small "feeler" ailerons. With the cancellation of the
Malta-class carriers, the Fleet Air Arm no longer had a requirement for new torpedo bombers and the programme was cancelled. In bad weather a pilot circling a carrier while waiting to land would have been forced to fly such a wide circuit that he could not always keep the carrier in sight. The later prototypes had ailerons boosted by hydraulic power and artificial feel to the stick from a spring, as an interim measure but Brown found "the second prototype was much less the pleasant aircraft to fly as the stick continually hunted either side of neutral and there was no build up of stick force with increase in speed." The first prototype was later used by
Napier & Son at
Luton for trials of the firm's inflight
de-icing systems. It was then briefly used for ground-training purposes beginning on 30 April 1952, until it was scrapped shortly afterwards. The second prototype was used by the Royal Navy Carrier Trials Unit at
RNAS Ford, Sussex, until it was sold for scrap on 15 September. The third prototype conducted ASV Mk.XV radar trials, but was damaged in a heavy landing on 1 September 1949 and sold for scrap on 22 August 1950 as uneconomical to repair. The fourth prototype never flew and was used as a source of spares. The sole Heaton Chapel-built aircraft was the closest to the planned production configuration and it was used for engine-cooling and power-assisted flying-control trials, until it was
struck off charge on 24 July 1951. In a follow-up, to meet Specification O.21/44 for a two-seat
strike fighter, the Spearfish was redesigned to accommodate a twin-coupled
Rolls-Royce Merlin engine and
contra-rotating propellers. A variety of other engines were considered and although a production order was placed for three examples in 1944, the programme was eventually shelved, remaining as an unfulfilled paper project. ==Description==