RAF's 'day' fighters' alternatives, 1931-39
- Thread starter tomo pauk
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I'd suggest DH + Napier, and Alvis + A-Siddeley.
Alvis was a newcomer, DH was more of using ww1 leftovers than doing a real engine design & experimentation job.
The 1st two were making in-line air-cooled engines, so the cumulative experience should come in play. Since there is a knowledge of the in-line designs (crankshafts, camshafts, vibration patterns etc) - have them make a big, liquid cooled V12? 40L or bigger would be my suggestion. Halford was employed by both companies (in different time).
The 2nd two were in air-cooled business. A-S tried to do 2-row radials, but these were unsuccessful, to say at least. Perhaps take a good look on the R-1830 and scale-up to 40-45L?
Armstrong-Siddeley’s problem was Siddeley. He was both technically conservative and a bit of an autocrat. But he was also a great businessman. Partially why the Siddeley name remained attached to its parent company right up to Hawker Siddeley.
Siddeley was added to the engine ring based on the potential of the Jaguar. The Jaguar was developed from the RAF.8 which was handed to them by its designers; Major F.M Green former head of Engine Development at the Royal Aircraft Factory and Sam Heron, among other things expert in heat transfer. Green remained the chief engine designer for many years. But Siddeley ignored Heron’s advice enough that Heron left and went to work in the US where he was a major contributor to the development of the Wright Whirlwind from the Lawrence J-1 and developer of sodium cooled poppet valves.
A-S large Cat engines needed a third (central) engine bearing. Every twin radial engine manufacturer ran into the same problem of vibration when they approached the 1000 hp mark. The solution was generally a third bearing, increasing complexity and weight but allowing for better shaft support. A-S never implemented it, instead going to inline radials in their Dog series (seriously, somebody in marketing screwed up on that one). If you add this in they should be capable of a large displacement twin row radial of competitive size.
Napier was, IMO, effectively a dead letter, design wise, after the loss of Arthur Rowledge to RR in 1921. Until the 1930’s they had access to founder Montague Napier as a consultant (he had moved to France in 1915 for his health) and subsisted on developments of Rowledge’s Lion. Then they used the services of Frank Halford as a consulting designer who created the air cooled inlines that eventually led to the Sabre. These were not exactly rousing successes, though the Sabre itself has fans. IMO Napier should have been replaced as an engine ring designer in the late 20’s or early 30’s. Their management was poor, their design office was small and their production facilities were archaic. They had some talented draftsmen that could translate Halfords very non production focused work to the Production floor but those might be better served in other companies. They could perhaps have been saved by acquisition by a company with more drive, like EE or RR, but I think you are probably better off replacing them. Fairey was getting started then, and its products had some possibly very useful features. It might be a viable replacement.
One thing we tend to forget about the aero industry of the time is that it was not a massive growth industry until rearmament. Established players like Bristol did very well, but the market did not have room for a lot of new players. Most of the ones that we think of (Wolseley, EE, Alvis) only became interested in the rearmament boom of the late 30’s.
At the same time, the established aero engine manufacturers, or at least some of them did extremely well. We tend to dismiss the numbers produced because we look only at production. In the protectionist international scene of the interwar period the only way to expand beyond the domestic market was to license produce. The British manufacturers tended to dominate this market. Bristol engines were so influential in the US, for instance, that Luke Hobbs (later developer of the Stromberg Carburetor and the J57 jet engine) when asked why he had not yet developed a two-row radial supposedly answered “Because Fedden hasn’t”.
Combining companies under government mandate will kill a lot of the dynamism that existed in the industry while not addressing the reason production numbers were small, a small domestic market. If you want to improve the production ability of the aero manufacturers prior to the war, I suggest something like @NOMISYRRUC ‘s work on this thread. Improving the Commercial air market. I expect a government merged aero engine manufacturer would be more akin to Leyland than ICI.
Wolseley Aero Engines was a personal project of Lord Nuffield. Considering how much crap he gets on tank threads, I am always surprised how much interest there is in his involvement in aero engines. Wolseley was not accepted by the government because Nuffield was financing the company personally, rather than through his auto group, and refused the Air Ministry request for a financial audit. The audit was pretty standard practice for taking on a new contractor but Nuffield was not keen on the idea and dropped the proposal.
Alvis only got back into the aero engine game with the rearmament boom in the late 30’s. It had no such assets prior to 1935 and no incentive to be involved.
Fairey I think had potential, though they are unlikely to be a world beater. They did have some good ideas and any production facility would have been brand new. The problem was that Richard Fairey consistently picked fights with the Air Ministry. In some cases he was perhaps justified but unnecessarily provocative. In others he was just provocative. He was also a bit of a skinflint, which could possibly cause problems down the line.
Halford preferred to work with De Haviland. And to be honest his ideas are probably better suited to their small engine designs than they are to Napiers anyway.
Bristol was almost certainly the most successful engine company of the interwar. Even RR didn’t do as well. Generally it was not a problem that they used their own engines since everyone else was using them too.
If you want to separate an engine and airframe company I would suggest Armstrong Siddeley and Armstrong Witworth. The AW Ensign, for example, was hamstrung by its AS Tiger engines. Trouble is they are both already part of the Hawker group.
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Forsyth was the chief engineer of Fairey engines and was reasonably intelligent. Getting him away from Richard Fairey and into a team with more backing would have helped.
Napier didn't really have an internal chief designer who was well regarded and they relied on Halford working part time as a consultant.
Fairey and Napier were based in the same area of London and their design lines (Rapier/Dagger/Sabre) and (Prince/Monarch) had significant similarities.
Imo either line could have been a useful engine to be built in the 1930s and 40s with a little more work (while generally failing to beat off the primacy of Rolls Royce or Bristol offerings).
Fairey didn't have an production facility. Napier did.
While Napier didn't have a talented chief designer (unless you count Halford part time on a consultancy basis) they did have some useful design team staff.
Forsyth barely had any staff in the design team in Fairey. As you mention Richard Fairey was a bit of a skinflint.
A merger could see less influence for Richard Fairey.
As I said I see potential for a tie up but as you mention government mandate makes things very difficult.
Perhaps if Napier was replaced in the ring by Fairey they would have expanded their design teams and taken over Napier personal anyway.
I agree with you about the success of Bristol.
Actually they were so successful in the 30s they gave massive dividends. Atlee called it obscene levels of return to capital once in Westminster. I wonder if Bristol could have held back dividends and invested in expanding their development team and their factories pre war.
Bristol was good that there were Italian, Russian, German, American, French, Romanian, Polish, Swedish and Dutch companies building Bristol engines under license through big chunks or the 1920s and early to mid 1930s.
Would investment have done much good or without another Fedden or would more designers have failed to contribute.
Bristol should not have been merged because Bristol was very much a delicate balance between managing a company and keeping Fedden happy.
If there's a merger you have to worry does the change upset Fedden. If so will he leave and the aero engine division fall apart.
I am with you to here. The Prince was a water cooled V-12 in the 700-900 hp range while the Dagger and Rapier were air cooled H-24 engines with small cylinders and extremely high rpm’s in the 350 (Dagger) and 750 hp (Rapier) range. The Monarch and Sabre are both H-24’s aiming for the 2000 hp + range. But the Monarch was water cooled with integrally cast air passages and separately fired flat 12’s. The Sabre was liquid cooled but used sleeve valves and kept the smaller cylinders with extremely high rpm’s. There is a lot of variation in the design philosophy.
I am a little leery of the low displacement, high rpm concept of the Napier engines. But if the issues are worked out they could, in theory be good engines.
True, though Napiers was pretty terrible. If we want to get a good product in fair volume we are probably going to need a new facility either way.
That could work. I suppose alternatively if EE bought Napier early enough and was looking for a new head designer they may be able to pick up Forsyth. Particularly if they are offering a good design team in a new facility.
Possibly. IIRC the Bristol board tended to prioritize dividends. I am not sure what it was pre war but apparently Bristol’s Design department had about a third of the design staff that RR did around 1941. With a larger department maybe we see greater things from Bristol in this period.
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Fair. There is quiet a bit of variation.
Thats correct. I guess it depends on timing. If you have a merger in 1930 and a saleable engine product is produced there will be time for the Napier facility to add 20-30 engines a year and organically grow with a new facility coming with large orders during rearmament.
If the merger is mid 1930s with a first product coming out in the late 30s with a massive surge or orders the Napier factory wouldn't be suitable.
Its always hard to judge how much the design staff contribute. Fedden gets all the credit for Bristol engines in this era. Putting more people on the hercules mightn't get it any earlier or better.
That said even if a bigger design staff fails to advance projects on first line engines Fedden did a lot of work during the 30s redesigning some of his older engines to fit the second line engine market by massively improving fuel efficiency and reliability. These never quiet got finished and onto the market but would have been an easy low risk job to put some new designers on to cut their teeth.
Is it too much of a butterfly to suggest the Air Ministry provide a "Prototype Development Center" that companies could rent at exceedingly low cost to get access to the most efficient production tooling to make prototyping not only less expensive but also much faster? So you have government investment in expensive infrastructure along with specialist tradesmen who know how to use it all.....so not only can the center be used for prototyping but also for training if a company then decides it needs to purchase its own set of tools for their own production lines?
Ever heard of the magnificent levels of support provided to a young RAF officer and engineer by the name of Frank Whittle?
No?
Well there's your answer.
Why he wasn't posted to Farnborough and given the resources he needed is one of the great mysteries of the 20th century. Instead he's left to scrabble for funds and has to make do with a couple of helpers in a disused outbuilding of a factory in the Midlands.Too bad....what a missed opportunity.
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I think a jet fighter in 1941 is entirely possible. The Heinkel 280 made its first jet powered flight on 30th March 1941. Give Whittle the sort of backing von Ohain had and a Meteor, Vampire or something resembling the Gloster E1/44 flying at the same time (or earlier) is more than feasible
Garrison
Donor
A jet in 1941 is possible, but you probably need someone at the top to develop an enthusiasm for the technology.
1938
Minister this is Herr (insert appropriate German Jewish Name). Until last week he worked for Heinkel on an experimental aircraft with a new type of engine.
Quickly perusing the wikipedia article about Whittle, I came across this...
"Pat Johnson remained convinced of the validity of the idea, and had Whittle patent[14] the idea in January 1930. Since the RAF was not interested in the concept they did not declare it secret, meaning that Whittle was able to retain the rights to the idea, which would have otherwise been their property. Johnson arranged a meeting with British Thomson-Houston (BTH), whose chief turbine engineer seemed to agree with the basic idea. However, BTH did not want to spend the £60,000 it would cost to develop it, and this potential brush with early success went no further."
So, all we need is for BTH to say yes to developing the engine and the PowerJets work that started OTL in 1935 would have started in 1930 (and with more financial and technical backing).
So, a Meteor in 1939?
"Pat Johnson remained convinced of the validity of the idea, and had Whittle patent[14] the idea in January 1930. Since the RAF was not interested in the concept they did not declare it secret, meaning that Whittle was able to retain the rights to the idea, which would have otherwise been their property. Johnson arranged a meeting with British Thomson-Houston (BTH), whose chief turbine engineer seemed to agree with the basic idea. However, BTH did not want to spend the £60,000 it would cost to develop it, and this potential brush with early success went no further."
So, all we need is for BTH to say yes to developing the engine and the PowerJets work that started OTL in 1935 would have started in 1930 (and with more financial and technical backing).
So, a Meteor in 1939?
How much was the jet and how much was the metallurgy.
There was a lot of metallurgy developments during ww2.
Whittle had a lot of arguments with Rolls Royce about the quality of metallurgy in parts being produced by Rolls Royce during the initial starts of production.
I've always believed that the confluence of metallurgy advances and jet research came together at an appropriate point when it did.
If jet engine research was more advanced it probably would have run into a roadblock in terms of metallurgy advancements.
This would have limited the performance of the jets and decreased the lifespan of the engines.
Sure there could have been a mid 1930s jet but I suspect it would have a lifespan measured in dozens of hours and the performance characteristics; while impressive by 1930s standards wouldn't stand up to 1943 jet engines.
Once the benefits of Jets had been demonstrated research into better alloys would soon follow. A mid war production Jet engine could be available by 1940 with an early enough start.
marathag
Banned
Stellite, a not secret High temp alloy that was used in early US jets, were already common in the USA
Alloys with cobalt-chromium-molybdenum-tungsten mixes were around for a variety of US industrial uses, including GE's '20-30s turbocharger work. It's harder than Nimonic 75 to work with, but overall, Stellite 21or 23 was just as good as Nimonic 80 the UK started using in 1942, that was far, far better than Whittle's early pre-war use of stainless steel, then Vicker's Rex 78 alloy that Power Jets had used thru the first half of WWII
The first Stellite alloys were in use before the US entry to WWI, and used for cutting tools for Liberty engine production, then used for oil well drilling and exhaust valves in Wright Radials in the late '20s, one reason why Lindbergh selected the Whirlwind, it used those new longer wearing valves.
Stellite 6 melting range is 2340-2570 degrees, vs 2360-2615 for 21, a difference of a percent or two less Chromium and less of the other elements.
There isn't that much difference between Stellite 6 of 1915, 12 of 1925 or 21 of 1940
Stellite 21
0.007% Boron
0.20-30% Carbon
1% Silicon
1% Manganese
1.75-3.75% Nickel
3% Iron
5-6.0% Molybdenum
25.0-29% Chromium
remainder Cobalt, roughly 56-60%
Stellite was known in Europe, too. Eg. Hispano Suiza was coating the exhaust valves on the HS 12X and 12Y by early 1930s with stellite.