page_title: Fairey Gannet
section_title: Design
hierarchical_section_title: Fairey Gannet / Design
caption_attribution_description: English: Armstrong Siddeley Double Mamba in a non-display Fairey Gannet at the Royal Australian Navy Fleet Air Arm Museum, HMAS Albatross (air station).
context_page_description: The Fairey Gannet is a British carrier-borne aircraft of the post-Second World War era. It was developed for the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm by the Fairey Aviation Company. It was a mid-wing monoplane with a tricycle undercarriage and a crew of three, and a double turboprop engine driving two contra-rotating propellers.
  The Gannet was originally developed to meet the FAA's dual-role anti-submarine warfare and strike requirement. It was later adapted for operations as an electronic countermeasures and carrier onboard delivery aircraft. The Gannet AEW.3 was a variant of the aircraft developed as a carrier-based airborne early warning platform.
context_section_description: The pilot was seated well forward, conferring a good view over the nose for carrier operations, and sat over the Double Mamba engine, directly behind the gearbox and propellers. The second crew member, an aerial observer, was seated under a separate canopy directly behind the pilot. After the prototype, a second observer was included, in his own cockpit over the wing trailing edge. This addition disturbed the airflow over the horizontal stabiliser, requiring small finlets on either side. The Gannet had a large internal weapons bay in the fuselage and a retractable radome under the rear fuselage.
  The Gannet's wing folded in two places to form a distinctive Z-shape on each side. The first fold was upward, at about a third of the wing span where the inboard anhedral (down-sweep) changed to the outboard  dihedral (up-sweep) of the wing (described as an inverted gull wing). The second wing fold was downward, at about two-thirds of the wing span. The length of the nosewheel shock absorber caused the Gannet to have a distinctive nose-high attitude, a common characteristic of carrier aircraft.
  In FAA service, the Gannet generally wore the standard camouflage scheme of a Sky (duck-egg blue) underside and fuselage sides, with Extra Dark Sea Grey upper surfaces, the fuselage demarcation line running from the nose behind the propeller spinner in a straight line to then curve and join the line of the fin. Code numbers were typically painted on the side of the fuselage ahead of the wing; roundel and serial markings were behind the wing. The T.2 and T.5 trainers were finished in silver overall, with a yellow "Trainer band" on rear fuselage and wings.
caption: The Gannet's distinctive double folding wing.
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