Alternative single fighter for UK in 1960s

Anderman

Donor
IIRC it was the thickness of the wing. The RAe stated it doesn´t matter and it was wrong. Which btw i alwayy wonder if thick wings are a british aviation fetish there was a project for a thin wing Javelin after all. :)
 
Hitting Sidney Camm with club until he understands that swept wings are future would be good start. So Hawker builds the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_P.1052 instead of the Sea Hawk. That should speed the development of the Hunter a bit and so on.....
In that case should George Carter at Gloster be made to put swept wings on the G.A.4 Ace, Joe Smith at Supermarine build the Type 510 instead of the Attacker and De Havilland be made to put swept wings on the Venom and Sea Venom?
 
Certainly the RAF wandering off from the DH110 undermined its progress. That and the very public breakup after supersonic dives. Also finances don't seem to be released for purchases until '57.
The sole DH.110 Mk 20X prototype was ordered in February 1954 and flew on 20th June 1955.

148 Sea Vixens were built and they were ordered in 4 batches of 78, 40, 15 and 15 respectively. The first batch was ordered in January 1955 to Specification N.139P. I'm less certain about the later batches. The batch for 40 might have been in June 1959. The final two batches may have been in August 1960 and early 1961. The first aircraft flew on 20th March 1957 and the last on 3rd February 1966.

The first 21 Sea Vixens were pre-production aircraft and flew between 20th March 1957 and 14th February 1959. I don't have a first flight date for XJ513 the first production aircraft, but according to the UK Serials website it was delivered on 5th June 1959. The last aircraft from the January 1955 order was XJ611, which according to the UK Serials website flew on 29th December 1960 and was delivered on 19th January 1961.

Production of 100 Supermarine Scimitars to Naval Staff Requirement NRA.17 and Specification N.113P was given financial approval and sanction in December 1952. However, only 76 of the 100 aircraft ordered were built. I don't know when the there pre-production aircraft built to Specification N.113D were ordered. (Edit: Page 303 of Putnams, Supermarine Aircraft says two were ordered early in 1951 and a third aircraft was added subsequently.)

448 production Gloster Javelins were ordered in 3 batches. That is 200 fighters on 14th July 1952, 28 trainers on 27th September 1954 and 220 fighters on 19th October 1954. However, some of the aircraft in the second and third batches weren't built.
 
Last edited:

Zen9

Banned
When looking at the numbers of Javelins it really brings home the failure to focus on the DH110 as intended.
But having those sort of numbers for the FAW Scimitar variant would have changed a lot of things. Even if it came with partial Sapphire reheat.

It would be a lot quicker and theoretically easier to produce a strike variant from this position. Such a relief on NA.39 requirements might leave Shorts the winner or the whole thing canned in favour of more development of such a Strike Scimitar variant.

I think there is a difference between an order and payment. This is part of the explanation of why things change after '57 to my understanding.
 
Yes, yes and yes.
Should I have added that Joe Smith should also have been hit with a club to give the Supermarine Type 508 swept wings and a conventional tail, i.e. make it the Type 525?

AFAIK the Admiralty's aversion to swept-wing aircraft was their higher take off and landing speeds. Would it have been helped if the Board of Admiralty had been hit over the head with a club until they agreed to try the angled flight deck instead of the flexible deck and to "get their finger out" developing the steam catapult?
 

Anderman

Donor
Should I have added that Joe Smith should also have been hit with a club to give the Supermarine Type 508 swept wings and a conventional tail, i.e. make it the Type 525?

I think we have a winner :) area rule the Type 508 add a radar and fit it with the same avon engines that powered the EE Lightning. And we have a supersonic fighter for the RAF and RN.
 

Zen9

Banned
Even within OTL the Type 525 was planned to gain reheated Avons RA7R and I think an AI set.
Type 526 was offered to the RAF.
And a twin for training was Type 539 but with the original butterfly tail.

If it could fly by 31 August 51 with a swept wing this accelerates the process by 2 years and 5 months.

If that could be retained....Scimitar XD212 could fly by August 1954.

However they couldn't embarc much earlier on Victorious.
 

MatthewB

Banned
What about the Harrier? It won’t do the supersonic air defence role, but out the SHAR’s air
Hitting Sidney Camm with club until he understands that swept wings are future would be good start. So Hawker builds the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_P.1052 instead of the Sea Hawk. That should speed the development of the Hunter a bit and so on.....
It would be nice for the British and CW air forces in Korea to have something better than Meteors and Sea Furies in Korea. Hunter for the RAF swept wing Hawk for the FAA would be nice, or a same type for both services.
 

Pretaporter

Banned
What about the Harrier? It won’t do the supersonic air defence role, but out the SHAR’s air
It would be nice for the British and CW air forces in Korea to have something better than Meteors and Sea Furies in Korea. Hunter for the RAF swept wing Hawk for the FAA would be nice, or a same type for both services.

The Hunter wasn't rolled out until Korea was over, but I sometimes wonder if RN jets such as the Sea Vampire and Sea Hawk were kept out of the Korean theatre in order to deprive the USSR of knowledge how they'd fare against the Mig-15.

There was precedent for that thinking, with how the RAF kept the Meteor well away from possible confrontation with the ME-262 a mere handful of years earlier.

(Yes, those are different services, but I can imagine shared policy there.)
 

MatthewB

Banned
The Hunter wasn't rolled out until Korea was over, but I sometimes wonder if RN jets such as the Sea Vampire and Sea Hawk were kept out of the Korean theatre in order to deprive the USSR of knowledge how they'd fare against the Mig-15.
Because those two British types would get smoked by the MiG-15. The only aircraft made in the CW that could compete in Korea was the CL-13 Sabre. The Hunter should have been ready for Korea, only British bureaucracy and slowness made it late.
 

Pretaporter

Banned
Because those two British types would get smoked by the MiG-15. The only aircraft made in the CW that could compete in Korea was the CL-13 Sabre. The Hunter should have been ready for Korea, only British bureaucracy and slowness made it late.

Would they have fared worse than the Shooting Star, which the US initially put up in Korea?

That war took everybody by surprise, btw, it wasn't some inevitability which oh-so-slow British bureaucracy was supposed to be preparing for.

Not that the Hunter would ever have existed in the first place if the aforementioned bureaucracy hadn't issued specs to the manufacturers in the first place, btw.
 

Zen9

Banned
So Variant Type 508 with swept wings is offered to OR.228 (F.43/46) in '47 as a possibly refinement of the Type 508 should it be selected for the day fighter requirement.

The Committee viewed this Supermarine offering as less developed than Glosters and at the time no RN order had yet happend....however this type was clearly more develop-able for the introduction of Red Hawk AAM. It's of note that they thought the swept wing version would meet manoeuvrability needs, while the straight wing wouldn't.

They hoped that choosing it as a back up for the Glosters design, would be shared with the RN.

Later in '49 the Type 525 denavalised was offered and felt to be attractive.

So an AH scenario could well proceed with the Type 525 instead of the Swift. This would mean superpriority would fund the procurement of 450 though maybe the increased cost of a twin engine machine might reduce this figure.
This in turn forces the Hunter to be ordered with hooks for RN trials....

This could impact in a twin seater offered alongside the Type 511 to the FAW and drive out the DH110.to OR.227 (F.44/46).

This is becoming a Supermarine wank.....But the logic is there as the day and night fighter solutions merge together into single and twin seater versions of what we know as the Scimitar.

Type 537 was a Strike version but suspended due to lack of money in 1950.
Type 567 was a interim offering to cover the gap until Buccaneer arrived. However a lot of Type 556 and Type 562 could meet this with strengthening for the nuclear store and potentially kill off the Buccaneer.

Scimitar was rolling off the Marston factory. If this is occupying Vickers Supermarine staff, it could restrict them from contesting Or.339.
However the Type 571-single engine, still looks like the natural successor. But Vickers will be lured away by the benefits of VG and the lack of pressing need. In essence better AAMs, better radar and better engines would extend the useful life of these Scimitar variants well into the 70's.

Developments....firstly the use of reheat is going to expose the issues of vibration damage to the tail section of the fusilage. Either this will utterly kill the whole thing, or drive some solution. Likely making that part more substantial.
But since the OTL was built for 1,000 hours flight time the likelyhood is this would be applied to later production, rather than retrofitted to existing machines.

There was an issue with a fuel pump solenoid I seem to remember reading. Something likely to be fixed in later marks.

We can assume the FAW will get AI.18 and there is a clear path of developments upto and including SARH guidance function and AMTI for look-down shoot-down capability (with the right AAM).
AI.23 is more likely for the single seater, but a variant which became Blue Parrot would be used for Strike variants.
Though the RAF might want the TFR set for the MRI tasked machines....and no F4K or Jaguar.
Later the early FICMW AI.24 (not Foxhunter that's a later effort) might equip final production FAW machines.
We can see the RB.106 or later Spey as replacement powerplants for the Avons.

So we have F mk1 enter service '54? Followed by several marks of Day fighter. AI equipped version by '59. 450-ish in total
FAW mk1 IOC 1056 followed by several marks, early machines are likely equipped with AI.17? Later AI.22 (AN/APQ-43), then Ai.18 and ultimately AI.24. 600-ish total
S mk1 IOC '57-'58 modified F type for nuclear store delivery to the RN. 60-120-ish
RAF G(R)A version IOC potentially by '65 or even earlier as nuclear stores supply permit...? 70-155-ish.
 
Last edited:
The RAF and RN will be wanting replacements by 1970 but the usual fudging around will push that back to 78 - 80 and they end up with a slightly earlier Tornado which may be all British.
 

Zen9

Banned
The RAF and RN will be wanting replacements by 1970 but the usual fudging around will push that back to 78 - 80 and they end up with a slightly earlier Tornado which may be all British.

I don't see a Scimitar variant that does the LRI mission. So more likely that either repeats the TSR.2 fiasco or Vickers Type 571 single engine is chosen and variants progressively replace Strike and Attack Scimitars.

However it does set the RN and RAF up for a common successor to F, MRI, FAW, S and T versions of the Scimitar.
Something more like the Mirage G....Type 584/585.
Or if things are pushed back enough then an earlier FBW CCV RSS multirole type.
 
Something that might be noteworthy, and mentioned somewhere a while back. From 1963 to 1973 the RAAF had 4 Mirage squadrons, and had a two flying programmes: 2 sqns would do a ground attack programme and the other 2 an air to air programme. While the Mirage III is ostensibly a multi-role fighter the RAAF thought it necessary to train pilots specifically in one of the roles. I imagine this is true of single seat fighters in the 60s, although possibly less true in the case of a two seater.

Given the multiple (and quite disparate) requirements of the RAF and RN, the difficulty in conducting several of these roles with a single seater and the need for multi-role single seaters to have pilots specialise in a single role I'd suggest the British single fighter would have to be a big 2 seater along the lines of the Phantom.
 
Top