AHC for 1941: best possible naval/carrier capable fighter for nations

Driftless

Donor
The Dewoitine's canopy position is nearly the same as the F4U Corsair's(in relationship to the wing and forward fuselage). To be fair, that was a knock against the Corsair, but they figured it out...
 

Archibald

Banned
The Dewoitine's canopy position is nearly the same as the F4U Corsair's(in relationship to the wing and forward fuselage). To be fair, that was a knock against the Corsair, but they figured it out...

A simple trick was a longer / taller tailwheel. This had the effect of lowering the nose and improving forward visibility.
 
A simple trick was a longer / taller tailwheel. This had the effect of lowering the nose and improving forward visibility.
I noticed the pic of the Fw-190 I posted on page 1 post #19 also has a taller tailwheel than the OTL FW, I think this is to give better clearance for the the torpedo but would this have also made the Fw-190 a decent carrier fighter?
 
Nice design. Definitely does not suck.
ETA The Douglas design, that is.
Thanks, it was just a rough concept. There are issues with it which I recognized as I was drawing it. The biggest is balance. Even with the wings so far forward I think the weight of the R-2800, its fluids, and the Cockpit/Pilot would make this thing pretty nose heavy. The solution, of course, would be to either switch the fuel tank and cockpit locations (moving the cockpit pretty far back a la F4U) or extend the tail and add some ballast (increasing overall weight but possibly fixing the instability and maybe even improving aerodynamics a bit by smoothing out the transition between the turbulent wake from the fuselage and the sounding air (although the prop wash will also affect this).
 
I agree that the R-2800 is the best option, overall, but with time constraints the R-2600 or a properly developed R-2180 will fit the bill very nicely.

So original XF6F-1? It was OK'd on June 30 1941
Grumman-XF6F-1-Hellcat-Bu.-No.-02981-left-front-quarter-large.jpg

but didn't fly till a year later, and this prototype was re-engined with the R-2800 and designated the XF6F-3 and flown a month later. It crash landed in August '42, and re-engined yet again with a 2000HP Turbocharged R-2800 and now designated the XF6F-4

Grumman-XF6F-4-Hellcat-Bu.-No.-02982-at-NACA-Langley-Field-11-May-1944.jpg

At this point in 1944 it was used to test 20mm cannon armament. The Prototype had a long, productive life.

Now some of the delay to the -1 first flight was tweaking the design to reflect what was discovered about the IJN Zero after Pearl Harbor. with the cockpit raised to a more hunchbacked look for better pilot visibility over the F4F, and adding 200 pounds of armor around the pilot.
even though it had a huge wing( for a fighter) at 42' span and 334sq.ft of area(larger than the twin engine XF5F), it retained excellent maneuverability and was a very stable gun platform
 
The Glooster F5/34 often comes up in ITL's and suffers from two major problems.
1, the Mercury engines leaves it seriously under powered by 1940 let alone 1941.
2, Folland designed the F5/34 with a one piece wing spar stretching from wing tip to wing tip, not exactly conducive to easily adapting for folding wings.

AIHPB, Now if when Folland leaves Glosters at the start of 1937 and has instruction to build a Naval F5/34 ASAP and Bloody Bristols can get him reliable 1200hp Taurus engines in early 1938 as was promised by the cousins then you could be onto a winner. Further if Folland could grow theF5/35 as Supermarine 'grew' the Spitfire for the MKIII and Later Griffon engine marks then a Hercules F5/34 would be potentially great naval fighter bomber. As a Bonus if you have a working Taurus then the FAA can nick the Bristol type 148 as an alternative to the Fairey Fulmer (with a Taurus the 148 was perportably cable of 300mph plus). This then gives you a potential 1940 air group of Fighter F5/34, Recon/Dive bomber/fighter Bristol 148, Recon/bomber/torpedo bomber Fairy Albacore which all use versions of the same engine.
 
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The problem with the F5/34 genesis is engines and competition. The Seafire wingfold was situated amidst a solid wing spar, not a "natural" joint. The R-1830 was the best first engine choice.

French carrier choice seems to have been the Grumman Wildcat, since they ordered 81 of them, and Wildcat/Dewoitine performance in combat was quantified, albeit shipboard Wildcats vs. land-based 520s.
 
He also said in a flyoff, the Spit IX would have a very hard time against the Hellcat, would have little problem vs a Me 109G-6, but would be evenly matched against a FW 190A-4

Spit IX vs FW-190A depends on altitude flown. That's why the Spit XII was created.
 
One easy way to improve the Wildcat is simply have the FM-2 variant ready to go in the timeframe of this threat.

For the British - what about a purpose built carrier variant of the Spitfire?

Get the development of the Sea Spitfire start in 1938 with a folding wing, improved landing gear - armament a pair of .50s in each wing and the additional fuel tank!

With an earlier standing up of Seafire and 3 years of development we might have the MkIII or better by 41!
 
So original XF6F-1? It was OK'd on June 30 1941
...
but didn't fly till a year later, and this prototype was re-engined with the R-2800 and designated the XF6F-3 and flown a month later. It crash landed in August '42, and re-engined yet again with a 2000HP Turbocharged R-2800 and now designated the XF6F-4

At this point in 1944 it was used to test 20mm cannon armament. The Prototype had a long, productive life.

Now some of the delay to the -1 first flight was tweaking the design to reflect what was discovered about the IJN Zero after Pearl Harbor. with the cockpit raised to a more hunchbacked look for better pilot visibility over the F4F, and adding 200 pounds of armor around the pilot.
even though it had a huge wing( for a fighter) at 42' span and 334sq.ft of area(larger than the twin engine XF5F), it retained excellent maneuverability and was a very stable gun platform

Influence of the Zero was in convincing people at Navy and subsequently at Grumman that a 2-stage supercharged R-2600 will not cut it for the big & heavy fighter. Thus the installation of the 2-stage R-2800 on the future Hellcat (difference of 300 HP, or almost 20%), Navy made decision even before the 1st flight of a prototype.
The hunchback feature is already there.
Another problem with 2-stage R-2600 is that it runs late vs. the 2-stage R-2800 for about a year = will be late for the best part of 1941. Prospects for the Hellcat with 1-stage supercharged R-2600 are even worse, talk Fairey Firefly Mk.1 level of performance.
 
Just a few notes on the Reggiane 2000 (navalized foe the Aquila.)

Here is what the USN rejected in 1937.

Now the guys who worked in that joker, came to work for Roberto Longhi and Antonio Alessio at Reggianne. The family resemblance is more than superficial. The Italians planned to use the Re-2000 as a one size fits all fighter attack plane, which made me go and look at the P-44 Lancer as a navalized answer to what ails the USN. The trouble is after we add a folding wing hinge, self sealing fuel tanks, a tail hook et al, one might as well go with an F4F four gun. There is no advantage.

As for the Re-2000, the single plane could have dive bombed with a 200 kg SAPI which would have been sufficient to de-deck a British flattop. It would have given a Seafire all it could have handled. And most importantly, the Re-2000 would have been within the capability of the cats planned for the Aquila. Of course it would have come 2 years too late into service.
 
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