Better British Aviation 1918-39

I didn't phrase it very well. What I meant was, "Is the history of interwar British aviation unalterable? What happened, happened because it was the only way it could have happened?"

I didn't phrase it that well either, but history is written, and the people who made it, made it because that is what they did.

Vickers expressed an interest in Michel Wibault's system of all-metal construction instead of Adolph Rohrbach's system. Yes, that's him of Harrier fame, but another system. The adoption of a system did not result in a long line of aircraft using the system, because a construction system is only part of the complex design process. Knowledge of the system, where applicable, can come in handy when faced with the need. The wing structure employed by Rohrbach, patented by an employee named Baumann, I think, did find a place in a Boeing wing, but didn't change history. Rohrbach's designs were usually built on the cheap, because after his Staaken design, it was on his own dime, and they were usually fairly heavy. He lamented the lack of engine power and reliability of the period, and his designs were planned with access by a mechanic in flight, and enough engines to fly when one failed. It didn't usually work. One of his flying boats left for a trans-Atlantic flight, east to west, with Ernst Udet, Kurt Tank, and a mechanic on board, but engine/propeller failure cut that short. Had Vickers been building his designs, would they have better luck?

Why would Vickers Wellingtons be sent to the Far East in 1939? Who would do such a thing? Not the RAF, the Air Ministry or the Government. People do things that they tend to do. None of the people who existed then seemed so inclined. Maybe I just read too much about trying to find out who's to blame. I read a nice thesis about the Air Ministry and how they were not stupid at all, just ignorant. They didn't know things we know. Who is going to tell them?
 
For example, the BMW VII, based on the BMW VI, in turn essentially 2 BMW IV banks attached to a common crankcase (and the BMW IV was in turn a scaled-up BMW IIIa from 1918)

and BMW VI kept flying as the Mikulin M-17, in production till 1941 in the USSR and in Japan as the Kawasaki Ha-9 till 1939 or so
 
Hmm - get someone from Vickers look what Lockheed is doing, no need for geodetic constrution techniques?

Thing was, canvas was a winner in low cost and later upkeep, despite the other drawbacks. I feel it was battle enough to stop using wood for structure, even with the Air Ministry wanting metal structure in the late '20s. Plus geodetic construction does give far more usable interior space in wings
 
Thing was, canvas was a winner in low cost and later upkeep, despite the other drawbacks. I feel it was battle enough to stop using wood for structure, even with the Air Ministry wanting metal structure in the late '20s. Plus geodetic construction does give far more usable interior space in wings
It's still a dead end, and it cost the British when they entered WWII with huge numbers of canvas-covered aircraft. They should at least have built metal aircraft starting in 1932 or so, instead of producing the Gloster Gauntlet, Gloster Gladiator, and Hawker Hurricane- those aircraft were severely handicapped by their outdated design. All they had to do was look overseas at the I-16, the Boeing Monomail, the Northrop Alpha, or (if they could get info on it) the Tupolev I-14 (a particularly advanced aircraft with all-metal structure, retractable undercarriage, 20mm armament, and an enclosed cockpit). All of those aircraft had flown by at least 1933, and they handily outclassed at least the Gauntlet and Gladiator.
 
It's still a dead end, and it cost the British when they entered WWII with huge numbers of canvas-covered aircraft. They should at least have built metal aircraft starting in 1932 or so, instead of producing the Gloster Gauntlet, Gloster Gladiator, and Hawker Hurricane- those aircraft were severely handicapped by their outdated design. All they had to do was look overseas at the I-16, the Boeing Monomail, the Northrop Alpha, or (if they could get info on it) the Tupolev I-14 (a particularly advanced aircraft with all-metal structure, retractable undercarriage, 20mm armament, and an enclosed cockpit). All of those aircraft had flown by at least 1933, and they handily outclassed at least the Gauntlet and Gladiator.

The construction type embodied by the Wellington was certainly limited, and yet the aircraft as a weapon of war, was superior to its brethren, the Hampden and Whitley, in several key fields, and overall. The Wimpy certainly possessed a greater percentage of metal than the Mosquito. I found the mention of the Tupolev fighter an odd choice, since it was a poor aircraft, and quickly scrapped despite its modern credentials.
 
It's times like this I get tenpted to write an AH based around a POD where, in the early 30's, the IRA blow up the Air Ministry killing a number of the Air Staff...

Leo, suggesting the staff were just ignorant is basically a cop-out. Some of them blatantly refused to even look at evidence that contradicted their precious theories, and kept on repeating their mistakes.
 
in 1940 the wood and canvas clad Hurricane could be repaired and returned to service much faster than the Spitfire by the Civilian Repair Organisation. So being outdated does have advantages in certain circumstances!
Astrodragon, please write your time line. My idea was to put the entire top brass of the AM (bar Dowding) on the R101
 
in 1940 the wood and canvas clad Hurricane could be repaired and returned to service much faster than the Spitfire by the Civilian Repair Organisation. So being outdated does have advantages in certain circumstances!
Astrodragon, please write your time line. My idea was to put the entire top brass of the AM (bar Dowding) on the R101

How about if we put the air staff on the R101 and then have it lost due to sabotage?
better still, have it fall on the Air Ministry...:)

This whole 'metal aircraft are better' thing is, well, wrong.
All the first line fighters in 1940 had wood or canvas bits - and they were even putting wood sections on the Me109 in 1944.
Given the metallurgy and construction of the day, metal wasnt THAT superior, as the Mosquito showed. Remember, we arent normally talking bits of wood here, we are usually talking composite plys of a particular construction.
 
Blowing up the AM staff might easily fire back.
Let's assume that people that favored monoplane fighters, powered by V12 engine, with retractable UC and armed with an octet of machine guns are dead, and replaced by people favoring biplane fighters, powered by a radial engine of 900 HP and armed with 2-4 machine guns. Radars replaced by infra red detectors (check out the sbiper's excellent 'And they shall reap the whirlwind' TL, there is some mention of it there). Park and Dowding are not in their historical places. Pilot training limited as what Germans did. Thus - RAF looses the BoB.
Or - replace british AM with German, Japanese or Italian AM staff. <shudders>

The canvas-clad aircraft are great in the time of relative peace, and with aircraft rarely going above 250-300 mph. Once the major war begins, with performance goals set at 350 mph and above, the metal-clad stuff is better. And British were proven apt to at least achieve parity with Germans in production of metal aircraft.
Mosquito was not a canvas aircraft.
 
Blowing up the AM staff might easily fire back.
Let's assume that people that favored monoplane fighters, powered by V12 engine, with retractable UC and armed with an octet of machine guns are dead, and replaced by people favoring biplane fighters, powered by a radial engine of 900 HP and armed with 2-4 machine guns. Radars replaced by infra red detectors (check out the sbiper's excellent 'And they shall reap the whirlwind' TL, there is some mention of it there). Park and Dowding are not in their historical places. Pilot training limited as what Germans did. Thus - RAF looses the BoB.
Or - replace british AM with German, Japanese or Italian AM staff. <shudders>

The canvas-clad aircraft are great in the time of relative peace, and with aircraft rarely going above 250-300 mph. Once the major war begins, with performance goals set at 350 mph and above, the metal-clad stuff is better. And British were proven apt to at least achieve parity with Germans in production of metal aircraft.
Mosquito was not a canvas aircraft.

Except that it was the OTL Air Ministry that tried to do exactly that - build more rubbish bombers and a few biplane fighters. Ironically it was politicians who had a better idea - which show just how stupid some of the Air Marshalls were.

No, the Mosquito was wood. The Bf109, as an example, had canvas bits. As did another terribly ineffective design, the Wellington.
 
I'm sure you will have the source that will prove that British politicians that went for all of these things, not the people at AM.
Nobody said that Wellington was innefective. Canvas bits on the Bf 109 don't make it canvas aircraft, just like the canvas-clad ailerons on the Corsair don't make it canvas A/C.
 
The Corsair used fabric covering on the outer wing panels from the spar back. The Hurricane came out with fabric covered wings which were recognized as crap and slowly changed to metal. Spitfire ailerons were changed from fabric cover to metal skin for effectiveness. Thunderbolt elevators were changed from fabric to metal covering after the death of a test pilot. Wood aircraft were banned from commercial aviation use after fatal crashes caused by rot. Mossies delaminated in tropical climates. Death by cheese.

I've never known good politicians myself, but they have been heard in the field of aviation through various committees which issue reports, such as Hambling, Cadman and Brabazon. They advise the Air Ministry, which was neither stupid nor ignorant. They just did stupid and ignorant things.
 
It was Thomas Inskip as Minister for the co-ordination of Defence who insisted that more fighters than bombers were built in 1937 despite fierce opposition from both the RAF High command and the AM,
 
Could you get a commercially viable aircraft at this time that offered the levels of comfort that the airship was supposed to give?

This level of comfort is a dead end I know but it is what would be looked at if the airship was to be replaced by a heavier than air craft.
 
Could you get a commercially viable aircraft at this time that offered the levels of comfort that the airship was supposed to give?

This level of comfort is a dead end I know but it is what would be looked at if the airship was to be replaced by a heavier than air craft.

The first commercially viable air transport was the DC-3. All passenger air transport was subsidized in various degrees, which also meant controlled. Trains and ships were greater competition to passenger aircraft than was the dirigible which was still pricey.
 
Something that might be addressed in a thread about better British aviation is this.
PIC_1-M-265-2.jpg


When the Prime Minister went to Munich, he flew on British Airways.
 
The first commercially viable air transport was the DC-3. All passenger air transport was subsidized in various degrees, which also meant controlled. Trains and ships were greater competition to passenger aircraft than was the dirigible which was still pricey.
Junkers did very well throughout the 20s and 30s selling transport aircraft all over the world. All of them were of all metal construction with cantilever wings.
 
The first commercially viable air transport was the DC-3. All passenger air transport was subsidized in various degrees, which also meant controlled. Trains and ships were greater competition to passenger aircraft than was the dirigible which was still pricey.
The DC-3 was developed from the DC-2 and DC-1, which were also viable, and those were designed to compete with the Boeing 247, one of the first truly successful large airliners. At about the same time the Armstrong Whitworth Atalanta also first flew. Even before that there was the famous Zeppelin-Staaken E4/20, about the same size as the DC-2, built in 1919, and scrapped under the Inter-Allied Control Commission because of its potential as a bomber. Unsurprisingly, the Commission wouldn't allow the E4/20 to be sold or even given away to an Allied country- that would make too much sense.
 
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