AHC: Make fairey aviation the dominant aircraft producer for the RN

How would Faireys become the main suppliers of aircraft to the RN like Grumman aircraft did for the US Navy?

Would a 1917 pod help?
 
Split the FAA back out into the RN in 1923 when it almost occurred.

Free from RAF domination from about 1930 the FAA start specifying good, state of the art, aircraft so the Swordfish becomes akin to the Devastator in 1936, the Fulmar akin to the Buffalo in 1940 and the Barracuda akin to the Avenger. The first 2 planes, being in action right when they are state of the art, do such great work in the first years of WW2 that the inertia carries the FAA and Fairey through until 1990.
 
Not impossible but I doubt the company would be known as Faireys - as much of it is now part of Babcock International - who are still very much involved in the servicing of the RN Today

Have a few amalgamations go differently and perhaps Fairey in the style of Babcock is making the Aircraft and guided missiles of the 60s etc until that part of the company is absorbed by BAe in the 80s under Thatcher???
 
I suspect the Heathrow Scandal being a bigger thing might have helped too - their problems seem to have got a lot worse when they lost their home to become the new London airport.
 
Okay, since the pod is much before th ww2.
Naval fighters are more demanding with necessary speed 'span' vs. their land-based counterparts - lower stall speed, yet as high top speed as possible. In the 1930s-1950s era, the later requirement dictates monoplanes, and former requirement dictates high-lift devices, predominantly good, very good flaps, while slats are also a good ting. So make the 2-seat fighter not so darned huge, but size of P-51 to Hurricane, with reasonably thin wing outfitted with slats and Fowler flaps - and 'ALT Fulmar' that performs, thus there is less need for Sea Hurricane or Seafire.
Make a deal with RR to develop the 'R' engine into a viable military engine before 1940s, don't waste time and resources into developing own engines (Grumman didn't make any engines, so this is along the lines of this thread).
Use the wing from the ALT Fulmar, but bigger, and fuselage from Battle for the new torpedo bomber - 'ALT Albacore'.
Install the 'ALT Griffon' on the fighter by 1941, so there is a 370++ mph fighter now, with two drop tanks, later with 4 cannons.
Once the Griffon with 2-stage S/C is available, have that one installed, for 400++ mph.
Time is for a new airframe, that will sport laminar-flow wings, slats, Fowler flaps with 2 segments (like the Nakajima Saiun), 1 seat, capable to carry a torpedo - ALT Firefly. A tactical bomber spin-off with 2/3 seats might be called ALT Barracuda.

Move on to jet A/C development in 1945 (not my cup of tea, hopefully other people can take over).
 
Okay, since the pod is much before th ww2.
Naval fighters are more demanding with necessary speed 'span' vs. their land-based counterparts - lower stall speed, yet as high top speed as possible. In the 1930s-1950s era, the later requirement dictates monoplanes, and former requirement dictates high-lift devices, predominantly good, very good flaps, while slats are also a good ting. So make the 2-seat fighter not so darned huge, but size of P-51 to Hurricane, with reasonably thin wing outfitted with slats and Fowler flaps - and 'ALT Fulmar' that performs, thus there is less need for Sea Hurricane or Seafire.
Make a deal with RR to develop the 'R' engine into a viable military engine before 1940s, don't waste time and resources into developing own engines (Grumman didn't make any engines, so this is along the lines of this thread).
Use the wing from the ALT Fulmar, but bigger, and fuselage from Battle for the new torpedo bomber - 'ALT Albacore'.
Install the 'ALT Griffon' on the fighter by 1941, so there is a 370++ mph fighter now, with two drop tanks, later with 4 cannons.
Once the Griffon with 2-stage S/C is available, have that one installed, for 400++ mph.
Time is for a new airframe, that will sport laminar-flow wings, slats, Fowler flaps with 2 segments (like the Nakajima Saiun), 1 seat, capable to carry a torpedo - ALT Firefly. A tactical bomber spin-off with 2/3 seats might be called ALT Barracuda.

Move on to jet A/C development in 1945 (not my cup of tea, hopefully other people can take over).

The ALT Fulmar 4 50 cal high machine guns? Or would cannon be better for fleet defence?
 
WI Gyorgy Jendrassik moves to England much earlier and starts consulting with Power Jets much earlier?

By the end of WW2, several RN FAA airplanes fly with turboprops driving counter-rotating propellers. The increased horsepower propells the best FAA interceptor well over 400 knots. Meanwhile a hefty - turboprop - takes over the torpedo bomber role. Fairey Gannet serves similar to OTL. After a decade of experience with turboprops, FAA orders a pure jet interceptor.
 
By the end of WW2, several RN FAA airplanes fly with turboprops driving counter-rotating propellers. The increased horsepower propells the best FAA interceptor well over 400 knots. Meanwhile a hefty - turboprop - takes over the torpedo bomber role. Fairey Gannet serves similar to OTL. After a decade of experience with turboprops, FAA orders a pure jet interceptor.
Take a look at the statistics for the Gannet and Spearfish - both by Fairey, the Gannet was a "low performance" anti-submarine aircraft while the Spearfish was a "high performance" torpedo bomber. Despite all this, the Gannet is actually slightly faster than the Spearfish and by all accounts vastly nicer to fly. The difference is really in the engine - bring turboprops forwards a few years and using the Gannet as an attack aircraft is entirely feasible.
 
1923 Former RNAS officer, now reluctantly in the RAF ties one on and proceeds to explain to nearby MPs and members of the respectable press the differences between flying over Iraq bombing defenceless native villages, and flying from ships to look for and attack other ships, before returning to your own, which is now many miles away from where you left it. He does this carefully and uses short easily understandable (if slightly slurred) words.

This makes just barely enough difference to get the RN back ownership of its own air arm.

In order to avoid a fight with the very P***ed off Air Ministry over aircraft production the Admiralty comes to an understanding with the Civil Service that their aircraft will mostly come from two firms. Fairey Aviation and Blackburn. They will only look outside of these firms if A. They are unable to meet a Naval requirement and B. Other firms have already met Raf requirements and have a gap in their production schedule that can be used for a Naval Aircraft, or the naval contract is sub contracted to either Fairey or Blackburn for production.

Money is still very tight and in 1930 naval aircraft are still at the same level of advancement as Otl.

Aware that the performance of land based aircraft is soon to greatly increase and that the RN may have to operate within range of hostile land based aircraft the RN issues specifications for a broadly similar to the RAFs F.7/30 specifications and when neither Blackburn or Fairey are able to come up designs to satisfy this orders Naval prototypes built of designs submitted for RAF trial. The testing brings the candidates down to two aircraft, the conventional Gloster Gladiator biplane and more radical Bristol 133 monoplane. For reasons best known to themselves Bristol only built one RAF prototype and this crashes just before the trials begin. The RAF the selects the Gladiator as its next fighter. When tested the two aircraft seem roughly equal, but the 133's engine has only 3/4 the power of the engine in the Gladiator. During the night the two Bristol Mercury engines are swapped around and the 133 emerges as the clear winner. Blackburn are sub contracted to build the Navy's new fighter.

At about this time the RAF is looking for a new light bomber and Fairey submit their Battle design, which is selected. The RN ask if a dive bomber version can be made. A smaller lighter machine emerges as the Fulmar. While working on this design a number of Battles are given arrester hooks for carrier landing trials. As a publicity stunt to attract recruit to the expanding air arm one of these is flown with a dummy torpedo and Fairey are surprised by the reaction in the Admiralty. Rather than treating it as a gimmick the Admiral Commanding the Fleet Air Arm gets on the phone and simply says "We'd like 200 to start. when can you have them ready". The first of these is delivered to Lee on Solent one month after the USN begins operation with their new Douglas Devastator torpedo bomber.

Somewhat at a lose end and with Fighter performance now surpassing that of the Bristol 133 the Fairey design team draw up plans for a single seat development of the Fulmer dive bomber as a pure naval fighter. Because of their other production commitments this fighter, the Frigate is sub contracted to Blackburn. Six months later Fairey buy a controlling stake in Blackburn Aircraft.
 
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