The RAF, just that little bit better in 1940
- Thread starter tallthinkev
- Start date
He's also in The Way Ahead. The last scene of that that film is rather similar to the closing titles of Dad's Army.
And @Peg Leg Pom replied,
I think that I've asked whether a "Twin Mercury" or "Twin Pegasus" engines producing 1,200hp could have been in service in 1940 with an early enough POD. They would be analogous to the P&W Twin Wasp and Wright Cyclone. This may be false memory syndrome, but @Just Leo thought it was a good idea and he thought most of my aviation suggestions (especially when it came to aero engines) were rubbish.
Probably.
Thanks for the photo. Alfred Doolittle, Private Fraser and the Punch & Judy Man from Hi-De-Hi (Ho-De-Ho!) in the same photo. Kudos to you! Respect is due as Normski used to say! Plus Leslie Dwyer's memorable appearance in The Carnival of Monsters.
I think Peter Ustinov wrote the scripts for The Way Ahead and The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp.
TBH I noticed it when BBC2 showed The Way Ahead as part of a Carol Reed season in about 1988. That was the second time I watched it. The first time was in about 1976 when BBC1 did a season of black and white British war films that were introduced by David Niven, which did include The Way to the Stars, but didn't include Reach for the Sky or First of the Few because ITV had the rights at the time.
I often use the term BEC for British Empire and Commonwealth from a long defunct discussion group of the same name about the armed forces of the BEC which existed in the early years of the internet. There was a thread on Dad's Army and I made a post about the similarity then.
The Wikipaedia article on The Way Ahead says so, but I wouldn't trust that without corroboration.
It's like the story I once heard Derek Nimmo tell on Just a Minute. That is when the producers of The Avengers were looking for an actress to replace Honor Blackman they said, "We want someone with man appeal." Which in memos was shortened to m.appeal. Which is how the character played by Diana Rigg was called Emma Peel. I've no idea if it's true, but I wish it was.
If the legend's better than the truth. Print the legend.
Wouldn't you end up with the Welkin in that case? And would it be worth it? Sure it had a decent range, but so did the Mustang. It'd suck as a night-fighter, since it couldn't carry as sophisticated a radio set as the Beaufighter or Mosquito, and nor would it have been as good a bomber, since all the bombs would have to be carrier externally, which would result in drag.
I'd be interested to see what the Sunderland could do with Bristol Hercules engines. Sure they're bigger, but they're also more powerful, and actually more efficient (261 g/kWh for the Hercules II, vs 319 g/kWh for the Pegasus XVIII).
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It would give the RAF a 4-cannon armed fighter a lot sooner, turning it into a true bomber killer. It would also be excelent as a fighter-bomber. It wouldn't replace the Mosquito at night, and I don't think it would have the range to engage in the long range raids the Mosquito did, but close to home, or over the cost of France?
The Beaufighter entered service in mid-late 1940, and also carried 4 cannons. In addition, it's another aircraft that needs engines which are already critical elsewhere, and it needs two of them, not just the one of the Hurricane or Spitfire.
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There was the Short G-class flying boat that had 4 Hercules engines and Hercules engines were fitted to the Short Seaford also known as the Sunderland Mk IV.
AIUI an important reason why the Seaford wasn't built in large numbers was that the improvement in performance over the Twin Wasp powered Sunderland Mk V wan't great enough.
I know about the Seaford, but I was talking more about Hercules being fitted to a just slightly modified Sunderland, the same way the Sunderland V used Twin Wasps.
I am a fan of the Whirlwind but I think in OTL 1940 is way to late to make the change. The Bristol Beaufighter is available, the Mosquito is in the pipeline and is a merlin Whirlwind really worth two Spitfires or even two Hurricanes, There was not a glut of Merlin XX'a at that time so it is one or other IMVHO.
AIUI the modifications were needed because of the extra weight and power the Hercules provided. If I'm right it's not possible to have one without the other.
I used to think that too. Then I read this post on the Merlin Whirlwind thread.
Therefore, I think the Merlin Whirlwind should be viewed as a substitute for the 3,300 Sabre-Typhoons built by Gloster rather than cutting into Hurricane and Spitfire production during the Battle of Britain.
I also think that the Whirlwind couldn't be put into service in time to serve in the Battle of Britain had it been designed as a twin Merlin rather than a twin Peregrine aircraft from the start. I think its service entry would have been no earlier than OTL. However, when it did enter service it would have had engines that were more reliable. Plus if Westland's projected performance figures were correct (and I doubt that they would be) the Merlin Whirlwind would be faster and have a longer range. Nevertheless the Merlin Whirlwind should be better than the Sabre Typhoon on account of having a more reliable engine and the Whirlwind entered service a year earlier than the Typhoon.
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Using that logic you could make the argument to stop hurricane/defiant production in favour of spitfires. However this didn't happen immediately suggesting the attitude of we can increase engine production prevailed
Hurricane production lasted until July 1944 so there was obviously some value seen in that design.
Its the same with P40's - they were still being produced in 1944 as the P40N and like the Hurricane It was used primarily in the ground attack role
I guess its down to the inertia of mass production - better to produce far more of an inferior but useful air frame than spend months retooling and building up production resulting in potentially 1000s of lost airframes
IOTL Lord Beaverbrook decided to concentrate on designs that were already in production to maximise production for the duration of the "Sealion Crisis".
That wasn't a bad idea. However, it was at the price of delaying the introduction of some new types and the outright cancellation of others that would have been useful later in the war.
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