Garrison
Donor
I sort of did that in my TL, but I was thinking of an actual armed deployed version. Just the shock effect in Berlin would probably be worth it.
RAF's 'day' fighters' alternatives, 1931-39
- Thread starter tomo pauk
- Start date
The starting point is the available engines not the airframes. It has to be in production or entering actual production and to be made in the UK. No imported engines are going to be tolerated at this time. So you have Kestrel, Jaguar (laterTiger), Mercury (later Perseus), Pegasus or the RAFs beloved of the time Goshawk. These are the makers the Air Ministry would draw from. Napiers were tolerated with the history of the Lion which was still in service at the time. Of course later in the period there will be the Merlin but then you are in the OTL standard fighter situation.
If the alternative day fighter is to be an alternative it could be either instead of OTL standard fighters or an additional alternative. Looking at the latter one might term it a Gladiator alternative as a stop gap pending the Merlin OTL standards rather than a superior Spitfire and/or Hurricane alternative. My mental model is the Fokker D XXI or Vickers Venom.
Nice if it can do Army Cooperation too and use the Lysander engine supply. Of course it can do the Sea Gladiator role as a fleet day fighter.
If the alternative day fighter is to be an alternative it could be either instead of OTL standard fighters or an additional alternative. Looking at the latter one might term it a Gladiator alternative as a stop gap pending the Merlin OTL standards rather than a superior Spitfire and/or Hurricane alternative. My mental model is the Fokker D XXI or Vickers Venom.
Nice if it can do Army Cooperation too and use the Lysander engine supply. Of course it can do the Sea Gladiator role as a fleet day fighter.
My preferred Gladiator alternative is the Bristol 133 that doesn't suffer pilot error just before the service trials. All it really needs is for Bristol to licence the undercarriage that Curtis put on the P36.
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One of my dad's favourite conspiracy theories (along with Wilson cancelling the TSR2 on the specific orders of Moscow) was that the individual in the Air Ministry who turned down Whittle's request for funding in the late 20s did so as he did not want to risk any lowering of the value of his shares in a propeller manufacturing company
Indeed. IIRC Whittle said that the RAF could have had Meteors in 1942 if he had been given the proper funding. By that token, it's not that much of a stretch for the Gloster Pioneer (easier to type than E.28/39) to make its maiden flight on May 15th 1939 (as opposed to May 15th 1941), thus beating the Heinkel 178 into the air by some three months.
Having had a quick browse of the wikipedia article, it's clear that it would have taken a huge amount of effort to make it a fighter. It lacked a radio, had no cockpit heating, had no reliable power source for a heated pilot's seat and had such limited internal fuel that they couldn't even find the true maximum speed at alititude without running out of kerosene.
You raise the interesting question of what would Mitchell have done with access to the Rolls Royce Welland? And then the Nene? I think it's unlikely he would have produced such an unbalanced design as the Supermarine Attacker.
Yes, I'm sure he would have done much better than the Jet Spiteful. (Its original working name). Then again I suspect the Spitfire line would ended when a fresh design was made to use the Griffon.
Supermarine Spiteful - Wikipedia
Supermarine Attacker - Wikipedia
Of course, if we could get a usaeable Welland in 1939/1940, there is a chance to fit it into an existing fighter airframe. However, that would probably lead to something resembling this...
I personally think it would be a crime to do that to a Spitfire.
I personally think it would be a crime to do that to a Spitfire.
Yeah, but I'm not convinced the jet nozzles on the Jetfire are big enough, or that the cowling will fit a centrifugal turbojet. The early British jet engines were a bit bulkier than the Jumo 004 that powered the Yak. I think it would have bit more overhang. It could make an interesting Whiff model. A Spitfire I with a Welland. Checking a thesaurus (and remembering alliteration) it could be the Supermarine Siren, She-Devil or Scold. I draw the line at Shrew.The Jetfire is Miss Universe for the Yak-15
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Old cowing will be gone, there is no way it can fit the jet. Derwent was with 43 in diameter, or even of a smaller diameter than the tiny Mitsubishi Zuisei.
Jet nozzles similar to the Jetfire's were used on the Sea Hawk, that had 2.5x greater thrust.
Overhang/underhang on the Yak-15 was made so the exhaust can clear the lower fuselage. See here.
The Jetfire's nozzles seem, in the image anyway, to be of a much smaller diameter than those on the Sea Hawk. Maybe a bit of artistic licence.
I understand how the Yak-15 is arranged and I meant that it seems a more practical solution than the Jetfire's twin nozzles. The Jetfire's exhausts as illustrated would be encroaching on the cockpit, as far as I can see if they were to exit at the trailing edge of the wing. I can see it getting pretty hot in there, too. This wasn't an issue with the Sea Hawk because the cockpit was in front of the engine. If we were modifying a Spitfire airframe routing the jet pipes back towards the trailing edge would be difficult to say the least.
With a Yak-15 style layout there would need to be some sort of shielding for the underside of the fuselage unless an impractically long jet pipe was used. In addition, the existing cowling would be way too narrow. The Merlin was 40 inches high and only 30.8 inches wide. The Welland had a diameter of 43 inches.
What about engaging the French to re-launch a new 2-nation Schneider Cup-equivalent, but with land based aircraft? Each nation would sponsor a minimum of one radial and one inline engine entry each. In the grand scheme of things it's likely a relatively tiny investment to get a dramatic burst or development. Aircraft specifications to require a minimum range and payload (which would mimic weight for weapons) could be specified each year based on new developments?
You'd have to use the Axial flow Metrovik Jet engine.
Metropolitan-Vickers F.2 - Wikipedia
Well, that's sort of getting away from the notion of "Whittle gets funding, so the Gloster Pioneer flies two years earlier and we have a practical jet engine available by 1939".You'd have to use the Axial flow Metrovik Jet engine.
Metropolitan-Vickers F.2 - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
I'm not sure we'd have to use an axial flow engine. Modifying the forward fuselage to fit a WB2 or Welland sounds like less work than trying to get the Metrovik to work reliably in 1940 when didn't run OTL till 1941 and wasn't reliable in 1943.
Driftless
Donor
Have one series as a circuit course race and another that's a point-to-point sprint (Say Nice to Paris). You'd probably see some different craft being developed.