For you aviation fans

[NutmegCT]

An early - and successful - British Navy seaplane launched from a submarine. But there's more to the story -

Photo shows HMS M2 and her Parnall Peto scout seaplane sometime after the October 1928 installation of the catapult mechanism. The aircraft, with folding wings, was housed in a watertight hangar. On return, the plane was lifted out of the water by the crane, wings were folded, and the aircraft was rolled back into the hangar.

On January 26, 1932, M2 left her base at Portland for an exercise in West Bay, Dorset, carrying Parnall Peto serial N255. Her last communication was a radio message at 10:11 to her submarine depot ship to announce that she would dive at 10:30. The captain of a passing merchant ship mentioned that he had seen a large submarine dive stern first at around 11:15. Unaware of the significance of this, he only reported it in passing once he reached port.

Her entire crew of 60 was killed in the accident. The submarine was found on February 3, eight days after her loss. In an operation lasting nearly a year and 1,500 dives, on December 8, 1932 she was lifted to within 20 ft of the surface before a gale sprang up, sending her down to her final resting place.

The hangar door was found open and the aircraft still in it. The accident was believed to be due to water entering the submarine through the hangar door, which had been opened to launch the aircraft shortly after surfacing.

Two explanations have been advanced. The first is that since the crew was always trying to beat their record time for launching the aircraft, they had opened the hangar door on surfacing while the deck was still awash. The other theory is that the flooding of the hangar was due to failure of the stern hydroplanes. High pressure air tanks were used to bring the boat to the surface in an awash condition, but to conserve compressed air compressors were then started to completely clear the ballast tanks of water by blowing air into them. This could take as long as 15 minutes to complete. The normal procedure for launching the aircraft was therefore to hold the boat on the surface using the hydroplanes whilst the hangar door was opened and the aircraft launched. Failure of the rear hydroplanes would have sent the stern down as observed by the merchant officers, and water would have eventually entered the hangar.

Some early film:

Tom M.

 

[PAUL161]

Tom, Thank you for posting that incident. First I've ever heard of that. Very interesting and a shame that all went bad, but they did prove it was feasible. Sounds like some of the crew messed up by not securing the hanger doors properly. 60 men lost, terrible tragedy to be sure. PJ

 

[aeronca65t]

Very interesting! I had never heard of this. Unfortunately, a sad ending.

 

[mikephillips]

Feasible yes, practical, to my eye no. The need to be on the surface so long to launch a scout or raid seems to have been the Achillies heal for this sort of thing. The Japanese subs intended to launch raids on the Panama canal took 15-20 minute per plane to launch, and the german experiments with towing an autorotating scout "helicopter" found it and the pilot would need to be cut loose if forced to dive. And the early missle experiments after the war the US Navy did also took anywhere up to an hour to setup, not good for a possible attack or defense senario. Anytime something needed to be assembled on the surface it was lost time and perhaps lost of the battle or war.

 

[PAUL161]

I agree, but they didn't have nuclear subs that can stay down for months, underwater launched missiles, laser/GPS satellite tracking systems and some equipment higher tech than that, so we have to put the time period in perspective, it was advanced technology for the time, quite advanced for 1932. But would it have given the British an advantage, who knows, but with the German Naval sub patrols in the North Atlantic later in the 30s, I doubt it. My dad was one of the lucky ones with two trips running the gauntlet to the UK delivering supplies to the British and never hit by a torpedo. PJ

 

[Keoke]

WOW That certainly was interesting I had never heard of these events either thanks for posting.

 

[mikephillips]

True. I think it was most effective in showing what wasn't realistic and possibly helping push the development of other concepts. certainly in wartime being effectively stuck on the surface that long, and lets not forget however long it might take to button everything back up after launching, would not help surivial statistics.