So there is the basis for expansion during the war in terms of infrastructure, but at the very start the main difference
compred to OTL is quality rather than quantity.
compred to OTL is quality rather than quantity.
If the RN insists on a two seat reconnaissance fighter there's another Bristol aircraft that could possibly be the basis for one. The Bristol 148B. Designed as an Army Co-operation aircraft it lost out to the Lysander mainly because it was a low wing monoplane. The high wing Lysander gave the crew better vision of the ground. The 148B built to compare the Taurus engine to the Perseus the 148A was powered by had a very respectable performance when compared to the Fulmar. I've played about a bit with the design as you can see below but the one on the left's fairly close to the actual aircraft as all I did was add carrier equipment and quesstimate the effect on its performance. Believe it or not the actual aircraft could reach 290mph, and could carry 500lb of bombs, it could also match the Lysander's landing and takeoff speed and runs. When Bristol built it they did it right.
View attachment 296211
I can make you an X24 engine more powerful than that by joining 4 Buzzard cylinder blocks to a common crank case.What ever brings a V12 1500 HP engine for 1939.
Once again the Armstrong-Siddeley Anaconda rears it's ugly, adequately reliable and high-powered for its time head.While A-H Motors Co. Ltd. engines always perform perfectly, R-R motors did not. Peregrine or Kestrel-based X engines result in Vulture, one of the did-nots, although the Exe X performed with great adequacy, but was a sleeve-valve and was not proceeded with because it was for the navy. The Pennine was developed with great heaping piles of disinterest, so nobody knows or cares. R-R did finally come up with a brilliant idea, an H-24, like the Sabre, and they called it the Eagle. They didn't even bother to come up with a fresh name, because turbines were in the wings.
Funny thing about the 24 cyl X engine was that it was theoretically supposed to out-perform a V-12, like the Griffon, which was deemed as large as a V-12 could get. The cost would be complexity and maintenance woes. In the end, the Griffon was a moderate winner.
I can make you an X24 engine more powerful than that by joining 4 Buzzard cylinder blocks to a common crank case.
Sticking the cylinder blocks of proven V-12 engines together around a common crank case to produce an X-24, seems to be an obvious and sensible way to get more power. Having said that the Daimler Benz coupled engines seemed like a good idea in theory, but didn't work in practice.
IIRC the first Rolls Royce X engine was an experimental X-24 version of the Eagle, which could produce 1,000hp. If they had continued with that and built a few experimental X-24 Kestrels they would have designed a better Vulture.
Mr Pick's prediction soon turned became true, because: Germany blocked the route to Prague; France and Italy managed to prevent the Imperial air service from becoming fully airborne until the late 1930s; Persian obstinacy caused the long-delayed route to India to be moved to the south side of the Persian Gulf. By the late 1920s Britain was arguing for freedom of passage at the I.C.A.N. meetings.That both commercially and strategically Great Britain was in an entirely different position form that which she enjoyed as a maritime power. He further pointed out that France, Italy, and Spain could effectively block the expansion of British air routes along the natural avenues of aerial commerce to the Empire and South America. Under these circumstances it was essential that Britain try as soon as possible to get the international questions settled in order to get freedom of passage for her aircraft. Since in 1918 the range of the average aircraft which could be used for air transport was only about 250 miles, there was at that time no possibility of an all-British route.
Another report that the Government ignored was the Report on Imperial Air Routes of 1919 prepared by the Advisory Committee on Civil Aviation. It said that the first priority should be given to developing the route to India and ultimately thence to Australia and second priority to the route from the UK to South Africa. The section on the Indian route to be developed first should be Egypt to Karachi as the conditions for aerial navigation on that section were judged to be the most favourable.1. Interesting observations were made on a number of routes of commercial importance picked arbitrarily, and the conclusions reached upon their feasibility have, one the whole, proved sound. The routes were:
2. Considering the future of the aircraft industry the Committee felt it essential to the future security of the Empire that civil air transport be developed to create a market for the products of the aircraft industry. This would in turn stimulate it to produce newer and better aircraft and accessories which would rebound to the benefit of the R.A.F.;a. London-Edinburgh-Glasgow-Dublin-London;
b. London to the Riviera;
c. London-South Africa, with the suggestion that both East and West African routes be operated;
d. The Atlantic Route, preferably by the Azores and using aircraft carriers rather than risking fog off Newfoundland;
e. London-Norway-Sweden-Russia. Both this and the Atlantic Route, it was thought, might be operated by existing airships.
3.The Committee put it up to the Cabinet to decide whether the air transport was to be either State-owned or State-aided. Air transport, they held, was unlikely to be of any large extent for some years to come and in consequence the Government must aid the aircraft industry to weather the period while surplus war stocks were being used up and civil aircraft were being developed.
This was sound advice. Unfortunately, the Government chose to ignore it and to muddle through. Winston Churchill announced in the House of Commons in 1920 that "civil aviation must fly by itself." It did not. And so in the end the Government was forced to pay subsidies. To anticipate, in 1924 Imperial Airways was created as the "chosen instrument" as a result of the Hambling Report of the previous year. Finally in 1939 the British Overseas Airways Corporation (B.O.A.C.) came into being, but it was too late, for war came before this new public company could do the great things for which it had been created.
The committee next had to determine who could best perform the initial work. The R.A.F. was ruled out as improper, a semi-public company because it would be apt to become overly bureaucratic, but, because no company was likely to undertake the work without State aid, they voted for a private company aided by the State providing W/T, Met', and, possibly, "Air Ports."
Equally sensibly, they recommended that primarily mails be carried, with passengers and freight regarded as ancillary business. Unfortunately, this latter advice was neglected by London, but adopted by Washington with great success.[\QUOTE]
That's probably too many airlines.I can't get the wording right with this, but here goes.
which would increase the total fleet of the British airlines from 15 IOTL to 150 ITTL.
I presume that when you wrote airlines it was a typo for airliners.That's probably too many airlines.
From the Flight International article dated 28th January 1937 about the Maybury Report via the Flight Archive.Airliners would be most valuable if they flew over densely-packed cities and over across-Channel ferries.
Excellent typo! If you are going to make a mistake, that's the way to do it!The De Haviland Flamenco with twin Perseus engines fills that slot, pity it did not fly till late 1938. Somehow butterfly that aircraft forward a couple of years could make a real difference.