Alternative single fighter for UK in 1960s

Define who? NBMR3 was a whole of NATO requirement that Britain wholeheartedly embraced but other countries also had major stakes in the proposals, which is the main reason why the Mirage IIIV was named dual winner.



The Phantom and Harrier were the Hunter replacements, but the Phantom was as much a Canberra replacement as it was a Hunter replacement. The Hunter was well and truly gone and the requirements for the RAF changed by the time it was decided to replace the Phantom with the Jaguar in the attack role.



The main mode of Harrier operation wasn't V/STOL, it was STOVL; Short Take Off (nozzles at 45 degree angle, airborne at 60kts in less than 400') and Vertical Landing. This gives a full gamut of payload range with a massive range of basing options. I'm a big fan of the RAF buying the 164 P1127s instead of the P1154s as planned.



The amount of development work required to turn a Scimitar into a P1121/Phantom/F105-106 means it would be easier and cheaper to develop/buy these types and avoid working around the limitations of the mid 50s design.
The F-105, F, 106 and F-4 were all mid '50s design. The F-105 first flew in 1955, The F-106 in 1956, and the F-4 in 1958. The Scimitar first flew in 1956 so they are actually contemporaries.
 

Zen9

Banned
Define who? NBMR3 was a whole of NATO requirement that Britain wholeheartedly embraced but other countries also had major stakes in the proposals, which is the main reason why the Mirage IIIV was named dual winner.
Everyone involved.
Oh and Mirage IIIV being declared a joint winner was both a sop to the French and the death knell of NATO seriousness on the matter. UK plowed ahead on the P1154 in part thinking the rest of NATO will follow.

The Phantom and Harrier were the Hunter replacements, but the Phantom was as much a Canberra replacement as it was a Hunter replacement. The Hunter was well and truly gone and the requirements for the RAF changed by the time it was decided to replace the Phantom with the Jaguar in the attack role.
Wrong, try not to think of the aircraft as the roles required to be performed.
nuclear MRI was the heart of NMBR.3, ranges upto 300nm or so if I reccal.

This is why some 70 F4 got the task, and why it was moved to the Jaguar. Hunter previously never got the modifications for the job, hence why Canberra's were tasked so and why they figure in this planning and requirements process.

The main mode of Harrier operation wasn't V/STOL, it was STOVL; Short Take Off (nozzles at 45 degree angle, airborne at 60kts in less than 400') and Vertical Landing. This gives a full gamut of payload range with a massive range of basing options. I'm a big fan of the RAF buying the 164 P1127s instead of the P1154s as planned.
My old books use the term V/STOL, and originally it was VTOL that dominated thinking. V/STOL and then STOL and STOV/L are compromises.

You think 194 Harrier GR1's with the restrictions on range and speed are a better solution than P1154 or Jaguar?

The amount of development work required to turn a Scimitar into a P1121/Phantom/F105-106 means it would be easier and cheaper to develop/buy these types and avoid working around the limitations of the mid 50s design.

In context....the context of the twin seater FAW and the possibly single seater FGR already being built for the RN and RAF and entering service in the mid-50's, going through progressive marks as improvements in everything from AI radars to powerplant to structure are applied. A potential run of 450 for the RAF, and over 248 for the RN....
The only attraction the Lightning has in this scenario is top speed and climb.

I can see the attractions of moving on from Scimitar, but it's NMBR.3 and that means OTL. Unless......
Unless the VTOL, V/STOL, STOL STOV/L element with the V in it anywhere is removed and then just possibly alternatives make more sense.

I'd love to have seen the P1121 and agree that's a AH scenario that could indeed cover the MRI missions and a variant produced in numbers to that for the RAF.And if you want to talk about that just say so.
 
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The main mode of Harrier operation wasn't V/STOL, it was STOVL; Short Take Off (nozzles at 45 degree angle, airborne at 60kts in less than 400') and Vertical Landing. This gives a full gamut of payload range with a massive range of basing options. I'm a big fan of the RAF buying the 164 P1127s instead of the P1154s as planned.

Short take off operation came later in the program. Most early plans show vertical takeoff as the primary mode of operation. STOL takeoffs came as the aircraft were fielded as a means for increasing payload and reducing fuel burn during takeoff. Figuring the best thrust angle and takeoff run 9as well as the use of Ski Jumps) came thru trial and error, not as some sort of plan.
 
Hunters were intended to be equipped to drop tactical nukes - I've seen a drawing of an F6 variant carrying a Red Beard under one of the inner pylons.
 

Zen9

Banned
Hunters were intended to be equipped to drop tactical nukes - I've seen a drawing of an F6 variant carrying a Red Beard under one of the inner pylons.
Certainly there were studies into this. Along with fitting the Saro P.177 for the role.
 
Now I'm thinking about it, it may have been in the training role for the Navy - I've a feeling the drawing may have had an airfield arrestor hook like the Navy Hunter GA11s. It's was late 2003 when I saw it at the home of a private researcher and I've not seen reference to it anywhere else.
 
If the RAF had funded the Scimitar as it's heavy day fighter instead of the Swift.

Why do you hate the RAF so much to inflict yet another appalling design on them. The Scimitar was the most maintenance heavy aircraft ever placed in UK military service, the Swift was just bad. The best thing that could have happened at the end of WW2 was if the whole Supermarine factory and it's design team had suddenly decided to stop aircraft production and started to make kitchen appliances, at least that way they could have gone bankrupt without sucking so much public funding up first.
 

Zen9

Banned
Why do you hate the RAF so much to inflict yet another appalling design on them. The Scimitar was the most maintenance heavy aircraft ever placed in UK military service, the Swift was just bad. The best thing that could have happened at the end of WW2 was if the whole Supermarine factory and it's design team had suddenly decided to stop aircraft production and started to make kitchen appliances, at least that way they could have gone bankrupt without sucking so much public funding up first.

I'll take issue with that. The RAF had an appalling naivety about maintenance of modern jets and nothing exemplifies this more than their expectation that the Lightning needed no more hours than a Hunter. It took them quite some time to accept that wasn't the case.

As for your view on Supermarine.
Who would you support instead and what design?
 
Supermarine just lost the plot after WW2, everything after the Spitfire was an expensive and ineffective boondoggle.

Hawker had a lot of interesting and potentially useful designs that got binned due to MoS or RAF disinterest. The decision not to develop a transonic design like the F100 or Super-Mystere and to jump straight to a supersonic Lightning also caused undue delay as the UK design teams still had to do all of the intervening development work without any practical experience. The Hawker p1083 would have fit the bill and may well have actually sold abroad. I would have let English Electric have it's head to a greater extent as Petter was a massively talented designer, I would have been tempted to arrange for Miles to be merged with them as they were two of the most innovative aircraft companies around in the late 1940's.

Supermarine just could not get the Swift right and by the time they had a workable aircraft the RAF had pretty much lost patience and bet on the Hunter.
 
The F-105, F, 106 and F-4 were all mid '50s design. The F-105 first flew in 1955, The F-106 in 1956, and the F-4 in 1958. The Scimitar first flew in 1956 so they are actually contemporaries.

The US was a mile in front of Britain, they didn't have the 'year of maximum danger' policy to cripple aircraft development postwar. As such they had the swept wing Sabre in service in 1950 and the transonic F100 in 1954.

In any event, jet fighters don't lend themselves to structural rebuilds on a great and extended scale, putting Speys in the Phantom and the J79 into the Kfir are the 2 examples I can think of. Other changes are generally in detail within the basic design.
 
Everyone involved.
Oh and Mirage IIIV being declared a joint winner was both a sop to the French and the death knell of NATO seriousness on the matter. UK plowed ahead on the P1154 in part thinking the rest of NATO will follow.

I don't disagree, but the idea had legs at the time and most likely needed to fail on both technical and political fronts in order to show it was no good.

Wrong, try not to think of the aircraft as the roles required to be performed.
nuclear MRI was the heart of NMBR.3, ranges upto 300nm or so if I reccal.

This is why some 70 F4 got the task, and why it was moved to the Jaguar. Hunter previously never got the modifications for the job, hence why Canberra's were tasked so and why they figure in this planning and requirements process.

A lot of decisions were made and changed between 1960 when NBMR3 was first promulgated and when P1154 was cancelled in 1965, and the information readily available tends to be the early stuff which has little to no bearing on the situation in 1965 planning for 1968. I think the biggest unrecognised one is the 1962 Nassau Agreement to buy Polaris submarines, meaning that the V-bombers would be re-roled as tactical nuclear bombers and the TSR2 would go from a Canberra replacement to both Canberra and V-bomber replacement. When the numbers dropped from 193 TSR2 to 50-110 F111k/AFVG the RAF needed a Canberra replacement and shoved half the Phantom fleet into the role with the other half and the Harrier into the Hunter replacement.

My old books use the term V/STOL, and originally it was VTOL that dominated thinking. V/STOL and then STOL and STOV/L are compromises.

You think 194 Harrier GR1's with the restrictions on range and speed are a better solution than P1154 or Jaguar?

In May 1962 the order for 9 Kestrels was placed to form the Tripartite evaluation squadron to prove the concept, so while thinking in 1962 was around VTOL the planners knew they knew nothing. The Tripartite sqn was stood up in October 1964 and down in Nov 1965, then it was clear that STOVL was the best mode of operation so nobody was thinking VTOL from then on.

Yes I do think 164 Harrier GR1s would be better solution than the P1154 and Jaguar, but not because its a better plane, in terms of performance it isn't; my support comes from a 'Whole of Government' perspective. Having the P1127 developed into the Harrier means that there are 3 high-end (expensive, vulnerable to cancellation) aircraft development programmes in Britain, there is only one: TSR2 and a RAF with 164 GR1 and 193 TSR2s is better than the clusterfuck of OTL. What's more the GR1 means that the Sea Vixen replacement becomes a joint project with the US to put Speys into the Phantom and allows the RAF to get on board to replace its own all-weather fighter the Lightning a bit later.

I'd love to have seen the P1121 and agree that's a AH scenario that could indeed cover the MRI missions and a variant produced in numbers to that for the RAF.And if you want to talk about that just say so.

The problem I see with the P1121 is that like the P1154 its an expensive clean sheet plane in competition for funds with the TSR2.
 

Zen9

Banned
I don't disagree, but the idea had legs at the time and most likely needed to fail on both technical and political fronts in order to show it was no good.
I think we can agree that completely!

I think we can agree this that the Harrier is a reasonable (for the time) Hunter successor with the added benefit of being nuclear capable. Even if it's not the precise way of describing it.
 

Zen9

Banned
The good thing about P.1121 is that the prototype was a company funded private venture - the UK taxpayer didn't pay a penny for the waste.
Either it was a serious waste of company money, HS being lured into this by elements of the RAF. Or it was a sound move they couldn't complete in the face of government hostility.

Personally I think it still had legs if they could prove it with the prototype's flight. And it's a better basis for a FAW system than the Lightning.
As I think the Strike-Fighter is a reasonable conventional solution for ROA of upto 600nm.
With the weight/bulk of avionic systems of the time.
 
1121 was based around the DH Gyron, but it was too sensitive to disrupted airflow - a test engine behind a dummy 1121 intake kept surging - so HSA looked at the BS Olympus instead. An engines was run with the dummy intake with no issues so any production aircraft would have got Olympus. Except the engine was behind schedule, so work on the prototype was cancelled and the type abandoned.
 
The US was a mile in front of Britain, they didn't have the 'year of maximum danger' policy to cripple aircraft development postwar. As such they had the swept wing Sabre in service in 1950 and the transonic F100 in 1954.
The Americans also had more money; they had more scientists, engineers and draughtsmen to go around their armaments industry and civilian industry; the interest on their national debt was a smaller proportion of total spending than the UK's; they didn't have cities to rebuild; and they didn't have a welfare state to pay for.

In short America had the "brains" to design more than one generation of military aircraft between 1945 and 1957. Furthermore, they had the money to pay the designers and they had the money to build the aircraft.

Therefore, I would argue that "The year of maximum danger," policy was the best option or the least bad option depending upon your point of view. However, where we might agree is that the policy could have been carried out better with a large portion of hindsight.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Strictly IMO, where the UK ran into problems was that they continually tried to leapfrog generations of aircraft instead of building successive generations and learning from the experience gained. Granted, they had good reason to at the time. Aircraft were advancing so rapidly that they knew they couldn't afford the more deliberate approach.

As an example, in 1953, the subsonic, gun armed F-86 Sabre and MiG-15 were state of the art, front line fighters. Just five years later, the Mach 2 missile armed Phantom (and nearly Mach 2) MiG-21 were both flying. The UK didn't have the funds to do what the US did and field hundreds of fighters of each successive generation. They could field hundreds of modern fighters only if they were able to build fighters that essentially skipped a generation of development, giving them a leg up on everyone else.

Unfortunately for them, they bet the farm on this plan and it backfired. Hard. From what I can see, mainly for two reasons: trying to sustain multiple companies and finding development of too many designs instead of focusing on just a handful. And badly guessing when aircraft technology was going to leap forward. The first problem could have been solved had someone actually used a little critical thinking and narrowed down the proposals too just two or three designs earlier instead of trying to keep ten different companies alive by funding their prototypes, and then not having the money to actually buy any of the proposed jets. That also ties into my second point:

They spent so long evaluating proposals trying to sift the wheat from the chaff that by the time a decision had been made, aircraft technology has moved on and left them with a substandard design, forcing them to start the whole process over again. And in the few cases where they did get an aircraft into service, the tech jumped immediately after, leaving the UK with a whole lot of brand new, very expensive and totally obsolete equipment.

Now, obviously there are exceptions to this. The EE Lightning, the Jaguar, the Hunter, the Harrier and the Canberra spring immediately to mind. But overall, the UK was never able to make this strategy pay off. And in the long run, it cost them the ability to independently design and build their own aircraft
 
Strictly IMO, where the UK ran into problems was that they continually tried to leapfrog generations of aircraft instead of building successive generations and learning from the experience gained. Granted, they had good reason to at the time. Aircraft were advancing so rapidly that they knew they couldn't afford the more deliberate approach.

As an example, in 1953, the subsonic, gun armed F-86 Sabre and MiG-15 were state of the art, front line fighters. Just five years later, the Mach 2 missile armed Phantom (and nearly Mach 2) MiG-21 were both flying. The UK didn't have the funds to do what the US did and field hundreds of fighters of each successive generation. They could field hundreds of modern fighters only if they were able to build fighters that essentially skipped a generation of development, giving them a leg up on everyone else.

Unfortunately for them, they bet the farm on this plan and it backfired. Hard. From what I can see, mainly for two reasons: trying to sustain multiple companies and finding development of too many designs instead of focusing on just a handful. And badly guessing when aircraft technology was going to leap forward. The first problem could have been solved had someone actually used a little critical thinking and narrowed down the proposals too just two or three designs earlier instead of trying to keep ten different companies alive by funding their prototypes, and then not having the money to actually buy any of the proposed jets. That also ties into my second point:

They spent so long evaluating proposals trying to sift the wheat from the chaff that by the time a decision had been made, aircraft technology has moved on and left them with a substandard design, forcing them to start the whole process over again. And in the few cases where they did get an aircraft into service, the tech jumped immediately after, leaving the UK with a whole lot of brand new, very expensive and totally obsolete equipment.

Now, obviously there are exceptions to this. The EE Lightning, the Jaguar, the Hunter, the Harrier and the Canberra spring immediately to mind. But overall, the UK was never able to make this strategy pay off. And in the long run, it cost them the ability to independently design and build their own aircraft
What he said.
 
The Americans also had more money; they had more scientists, engineers and draughtsmen to go around their armaments industry and civilian industry; the interest on their national debt was a smaller proportion of total spending than the UK's; they didn't have cities to rebuild; and they didn't have a welfare state to pay for.

In short America had the "brains" to design more than one generation of military aircraft between 1945 and 1957. Furthermore, they had the money to pay the designers and they had the money to build the aircraft.

Therefore, I would argue that "The year of maximum danger," policy was the best option or the least bad option depending upon your point of view. However, where we might agree is that the policy could have been carried out better with a large portion of hindsight.

Well yes the US had a lot of cash but a large amount of that went into a host of projects that went nowhere. The TSR2 terrain following radar system was actually much better than the one in the F111A for example, where the US had a real advantage was they invented modern project management and also didn't suffer from "mission creep" disease to the extent the UK did.
 
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