A Wilder Wildcat

[DougM]

But in effect isn’t that how we got the Hellcat?

By the time you rebuild the nose for the new engine, Put on a bigger prop, rebuild the landing gear (and that probably needs a new wing as the gear should go there, or major fuselage work. Build a bigger tail to deal with the issues from more power, rework the various subsystems to handle the new engine, Rework the fuselage to rebalance the aircraft… You have invented a new aircraft,

You may as well build a blank sheet aircraft.

 

[LordVorKon]

Outside the box!

How about a Merlin 24, 1,400 hp in 1941? or Merlin 32 Series in 1942 both built by Packard?

All well and good, but the USN didn't want water-cooled engines.

 

[tomo pauk]

You may as well build a blank sheet aircraft.

Yes, there is no doubt that a blank sheet aircraft is gonna be needed.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

Outside the box!

How about a Merlin 24, 1,400 hp in 1941? or Merlin 32 Series in 1942 both built by Packard?

A Merlin powered Wildcat would look bizarre. Doesn't stop me from wanting to see some concept art though.

 

[Belisarius II]

Outside the box!

How about a Merlin 24, 1,400 hp in 1941? or Merlin 32 Series in 1942 both built by Packard?

Respectfully not a realistic option. First for time, the Packard Merlin didn't start on the production line until August 1941. The F4F-3 was designed in 1937-40 and was being produced from 1940 on. The earliest production runs of the Packard Merlin's were already earmarked for Canadian Hawker Hurricane's, and Curtis P-40F's and several later models. The USN had no interest in inline engine carrier aircraft considering them too delicate for service at sea. Radials are much less vulnerable to fatal damage. A cannon shell can blow off a cylinder and the engine will keep running. They can't be taken out with a hit to the radiator, or cooling system.

Although the P Merlin is slimmer it's over 26 inches longer, and including the cooling system weighs about as much as the R-2600. The redesign work on the F4F-3 might be even more extensive than adapting the Wright R-2600. Besides Grumman had never designed an inline engine aircraft. It would be a design philosophy change for both Grumman and the USN that neither wanted to go through.

 

[ennobee]

Final design of the Hellcat looked pretty much as the Hellcat.

Oops, I meant to write that the final design of the Super-Wildcat that eventually became the Hellcat didn't look like a Wildcat anymore.

 

[DougM]

I don’t know… the Hellcat looks a lot like an enlarged Wildcat. Much like the Hornet and Super Hornet look like each other.

 

[Belisarius II]

I don’t know… the Hellcat looks a lot like an enlarged Wildcat. Much like the Hornet and Super Hornet look like each other.

Yes, you can see a strong lineage in the F6F to earlier Grumman fighters. Saying that there were some big changes made. The F6F was much bigger than the F4F and less stubby. It had low mounted wings as opposed to the waist level wings of the F4F. The F6F's landing gear retracted into the wings unlike earlier Grumman fighters which were fuselage mounted. The F6F had a higher vertical stabilizer.

 

[Belisarius II]

I don’t know… the Hellcat looks a lot like an enlarged Wildcat. Much like the Hornet and Super Hornet look like each other.

Again, there's strong resemblance, but the Super Hornet is almost a whole new bird.

 

[Belisarius II]

But in effect isn’t that how we got the Hellcat?

By the time you rebuild the nose for the new engine, Put on a bigger prop, rebuild the landing gear (and that probably needs a new wing as the gear should go there, or major fuselage work. Build a bigger tail to deal with the issues from more power, rework the various subsystems to handle the new engine, Rework the fuselage to rebalance the aircraft… You have invented a new aircraft,

You may as well build a blank sheet aircraft.

In February 1938 the F4F was still early in its design phase. The design was in flux for a few years while it competed for a navy contract against the Brewster F2A Buffalo. The version with the Wright 2600 engine was one proposal. The Wilder Wildcat would've left the Buffalo in the dust. The first production version wasn't built till February 1940 and those went to the RN as the Martlet. Wildcats didn't enter squadron service with the USN & USMC till a few months before Pearl Harbor. There was plenty of time to design & build a bigger Wildcat, but the USN went for a more conservative design that was slower than the Hawker Hurricane which was already in service at the time.

 

[fastmongrel]

They can't be taken out with a hit to the radiator, or cooling system.

Hellcats (and all high performance radial engines) were vulnerable to a hit in the oil cooler. Late models of radial engines were not air cooled they were oil and air cooled.

 

[tomo pauk]

Hellcats (and all high performance radial engines) were vulnerable to a hit in the oil cooler. Late models of radial engines were not air cooled they were oil and air cooled.

It took some time for some aircraft manufacturers to realize that a destructive hit on the oil system was a thing; granted, some of them didn't bothered at all.

Grumman designed, on the F7F, the S-shaped tunnel for the oil radiators so the oil cooler can be armored (two per A/C), so it is protected from the fire from behind and from the front. They also buried the oil coolers behind the engine of the F8F, with the fresh air routed from the wing root intakes (sharing the openings with the ram air intake for the carb). Vought, on the AU-1 (attack version of the Corsair) took advantage of the engines choosen being just with 1-stage S/C and without intercoolers (thus freeing a lot of space), and installed the oil cooler just behind the lower cylinders, while adding the armor plating under the best part of the nose.

Having the copious amount of the oil in the system helped sometimes, eg. P-47 was good in this regard; F4U not so much. Hellcat was also less vulnerable to the hits than eg. the F4U, perhaps due to the oil system being a smaller target (just one radiator, vs. two on the F4U and P-47)?

The earliest to armor their oil system were probably the Germans, with BMW 801 being delivered with armored oil system for the Fw 190.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

You might have better/more exact information at hand, but overall the SBDs and TBDs at Coral Sea comparatively suffered much less at the hands of Zeros (i'm not counting ditchings or other losses not from Zeros), they weren't decimated/anihilated like the TBDs were at Midway or indeed like the japanese D3As and B5Ns usually suffered at the hands of F4Fs in pretty much all carrier battles of 1942.

At Coral Sea the TBDs suffered no losses to the A6M CAP despite Japanese claims to the contrary, while the SBDs took it on the chin and quite bloodily at that. This led the Americans to largely draw wrong conclusions regarding which attack aircraft was the more vulnerable, until Midway proved them wrong of course. The only American figure under no such illusions was Hornet's John Waldron. "Be prepared for all of their VF to jump on our VT" was his warning to everyone on board ship prior to Torpedo Eight leaving on its fateful mission.

By contrast, at Coral Sea the D3As got off fairly lightly compared to what happened at Midway. At Coral Sea it was the B5Ns that came away decimated. Funny, that.

 

[James Ricker]

That would increase Japanese losses and lessen American losses,that would quickly add up.
It would also give the Wildcat a bigger payload,rocket equipped Wildcats would be a nightmare for U-Boats.
Then there is the Engine. The United States mass produced engines, other aircraft woud benefit. The B-17,B-24,B-25 and B-26 would all be re-engined to simplify logistics and improve their proformence.

 

[tomo pauk]

Then there is the Engine. The United States mass produced engines, other aircraft woud benefit. The B-17,B-24,B-25 and B-26 would all be re-engined to simplify logistics and improve their proformence.

Simplifying the logistics is good, over-simplifying not so much?

B-26 powered by R-2600s would've been a lower-performing aircraft - not good when that is added to the problems the B-26 had in OTL.

Someone still needs to produce the engines, so we have perhaps 2 of R-2600s for each 3 of R-1820s not produced? Or, 3 R-2600s for each 4 of R-1830 not produced? Math does not favor swamping the Axis with bombers when compared with what was tried to be acomplished with B-17s and B-24s.
Then we have the engineering task of re-engining the heavies. For the B-17, that means installing the powerplants of almost double the weight + the increased weight of the structure that needs to hold all of that together, so the bombers are still safe to fly. Thirstier engines + heavier A/C = more fuel and oil needed = another significant weight increase = again the sturdier and heavier airframe is needed. Bigger tail and stabilizators + stronger U/C = again the weight goes up. Is the wing size now sufficient to keep all of this in the thin air above 25000 ft with full fuel and bomb load, with modicum of handling still there? Take off capability?

At the end of the day, we're probably better off with a bespoke new bomber, like what Martin suggested with the XB-33.
We can also recall that, for the RAF and USAAF units flying from the UK, R-2600 was a very rare engine.

 

[mack8]

Thinking of this a bit more, probably the R-2180 is the most optimum choice, because while it has the same diameter, it's significantly lighter than the R-2600, thus alleviating some of the weight issues the R-2600 would cause an perhaps keep the F4F airframe more or less same as OTL, rather than pretty much a new aircraft the R-2600 required (which was the XF6F-1). The R-2180 was already flying before the war which is the reason for my choice, so if PW focuses on improving the R-2180 rather than waste time on the R-2000, then a two stage 1400 HP R-2180 would be ready just in time for the XF4F-4. Then late-war water injection R-2180 could do say 1600 HP, this powering the FM-2.

Speaking of which, i never quite understood why they kept switching between R-1830 an R-1820 engines for the F4F, same like with P-36 models really.

 

[mack8]

At Coral Sea the TBDs suffered no losses to the A6M CAP despite Japanese claims to the contrary, while the SBDs took it on the chin and quite bloodily at that. This led the Americans to largely draw wrong conclusions regarding which attack aircraft was the more vulnerable, until Midway proved them wrong of course. The only American figure under no such illusions was Hornet's John Waldron. "Be prepared for all of their VF to jump on our VT" was his warning to everyone on board ship prior to Torpedo Eight leaving on its fateful mission.

By contrast, at Coral Sea the D3As got off fairly lightly compared to what happened at Midway. At Coral Sea it was the B5Ns that came away decimated. Funny, that.

i've skimmed through some Osprey stuff, and it seems most of the SBD losses to Zeros actually happened during their (perhaps misguided) CAP use over the US carriers. I've read reference to 6 SBDs shot down and 2 jettisoned from Zeros, though not quite clear if it refers just to the CAP action, or includes losses from the attacks on KB as well (which might be another 3 or 4 more?). So that would make 10-11 or so lost to Zeros in total.

 

[tomo pauk]

Thinking of this a bit more, probably the R-2180 is the most optimum choice, because while it has the same diameter, it's significantly lighter than the R-2600, thus alleviating some of the weight issues the R-2600 would cause an perhaps keep the F4F airframe more or less same as OTL, rather than pretty much a new aircraft the R-2600 required (which was the XF6F-1). The R-2180 was already flying before the war which is the reason for my choice, so if PW focuses on improving the R-2180 rather than waste time on the R-2000, then a two stage 1400 HP R-2180 would be ready just in time for the XF4F-4. Then late-war water injection R-2180 could do say 1600 HP, this powering the FM-2.

The post-war R-2180A (sibling of the R-2800 C series, or, very roughly, one half of an early R-4360 ) as installed on the handful of airliners was good for 1650 HP (dry) and 1800 HP ('wet'). On - wartime - 100-130 grade fuel.
Something akin to this engine, assuming P&W continues with development of the R-2180 line, would've been also a great engine for the 'Sea Mustang', as well as for many other aircraft, like A-20, P-40, very likely for the B-24 etc.

FWIW, the turboed R-2000 as earmarked for the F5U, was supposed to make 1600 HP with water-alcohol injection (and 1350 HP 'dry', but we kinda already know that).

Speaking of which, i never quite understood why they kept switching between R-1830 an R-1820 engines for the F4F, same like with P-36 models really.

Engine availability was probably the reason.
The 1st call on the 2-stage supercharged R-1830s belonged to the USN and, sometimes, the RN, but P&W could not make these as required in 1940-42.
Meaning that 2nd best engine was either the 1-stage S/Ced R-1830, or the R-1820, that had advantage of offering a bit lower cost, lower weight, and it was 1st to offer 1200 HP (but not for long).
USAAC had no 1st line aircraft demanding the R-1820 bar B-17s, while R-1830 was featuring in many of the late 1930s designs for them, leaving more of R-1820s for retrofit.

The R-1820 was also 1st to jump to the 1300-1350 HP bracket. The R-1830 probably saw a lot less of development during ww2. That, combined with R-1830 being mass produced at many places, meant that R-1830 became a cheaper engine by mid-ww2. Unlike P&W, Wright was very reluctant to have other companies make their engines.

 

[DougM]

I realize that the Hellcat was much different than the Wildcat, but unless I am mistaken it was designed originally starting from the concept of an upgraded Wildcat and ultimately turned. Into a new aircraft.
Much as the Super Hornet was supposed to be an upgraded Hornet and then basically turned Into a new aircraft that just looked like the older aircraft and then only superficially.

And having various engines and various aircraft using them being build on different manufacturing facilities has its advantages. If a weakness shows up then you have other engines and or air raft to take the place. Plus using different parts and materials also helps.
The US was powerful enough that it could afford to lose a bit in efficiency. But as long as the plants are all working at full speed and as long as you have to set up different part supplies because of coming from multiple plants and going to multiple locations say Carriers in the pacific vs England or what ever. You are not losing enough efficiency to worry about.

 

[alspug]

I realize that the Hellcat was much different than the Wildcat, but unless I am mistaken it was designed originally starting from the concept of an upgraded Wildcat and ultimately turned. Into a new aircraft.
Much as the Super Hornet was supposed to be an upgraded Hornet and then basically turned Into a new aircraft that just looked like the older aircraft and then only superficially.

And having various engines and various aircraft using them being build on different manufacturing facilities has its advantages. If a weakness shows up then you have other engines and or air raft to take the place. Plus using different parts and materials also helps.
The US was powerful enough that it could afford to lose a bit in efficiency. But as long as the plants are all working at full speed and as long as you have to set up different part supplies because of coming from multiple plants and going to multiple locations say Carriers in the pacific vs England or what ever. You are not losing enough efficiency to worry about.

Your correct in that The USA had the ability to spend 2 years in peace learning from the Allies and doing research that took it to the edge of what was capable.
The Wildcat was at the beginning of it's development and operational process and it's successor was already being designed and planned for.

THis by itself is not unusual however the ability not to need to cancel development in order to focus on the urgently needed engine not the engine for next year was good.

The British engine designers suffered from the need to focus on quick improvements to existing designs and thus the next generation was paused and then restarted in fits and starts. With an extra 2 years of peace the British would have had jet aircraft and even the Royal Navy would have had proper fighters.