Fairey Firefly Flypast Special

A portrait of one of the Royal Navy's most effective aircraft

The Fairey Firefly two-seater strike-fighter emerged from a troubled gestation to become one of the most widely used and effective aircraft of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm. It first saw service in 1944 during the attacks on the battleship Tirpitzas it lurked in the Norwegian fjords, then served in the Far East as the Fleet Air Arm tussled with the kamikaze threat. It went on to form an important part of several embryonic naval air arms in the early years of the Cold War among which is the Dutch Marineluchtvaartdienst and performed a vital role in combat in Korea in the early 1950s. In this book, naval aviation historian Matthew Willis tells the story of this important aircraft using more than 160 photographs, many of them rare or unpublished, accompanied by a detailed commentary covering every aspectof the Firefly's varied career from fighter, to sub-hunter, to pilotless target drone, in air forces all over the world.

Black & White pictures