The British Fighter That Had No Business Being Good: Fairey Fulmar

In this video, we take a look at the Fairey Fulmar, a British fighter from World War II. We first talk about things having no right or business being good, and how some designs just...work. We then move to Britain moving to revamp their Navy and their Fleet Air Arm, requesting a new carrier-based fighter. We talk about how Fairey was the only submission to the request and how the request may not have necessarily been viewed as important. We talk about how Fairey used a variant of an old design for the submission that was related to the Fairey Battle Light Bomber. We then talk about interesting specs of the design, how they differed from a lot of carrier-based fighters at the time. We talk about the Fulmar's eventual first flight, solid performance, and its lone flaw in its terrible top speed. We talk about how the combat performance of the design in the Mediterranean, how it was an excellent role-player or sidekick to other aircraft. We talk about how it was eventually replaced by naval versions of the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane, and we end by talking about how, on paper, the Fulmar shouldn't have been good.