Better British Aviation 1918-39

We have a clear look at the production and traffic , what's happening with infrastructure and R & D here?
I haven't given that a lot of thought yet.

I'm re-writing the next update, which is about Imperial Airways aircraft in 1937-39. After that there are going to be some posts about British Airways Mk 1, Railway Air Services and the independents. If I haven't been diverted by writing posts on other threads then there is going to be a series of posts about the De Havilland, Handley Page and Shorts because they built most of the civil aircraft.

This was intended to be a discussion thread and not a timeline. Therefore feel free to make suggestions as long as it fits in with the financial framework.

The increase in funding for Civil Aviation comes from my improved British Armed Forces 1919-39 timeline, which was based on an extra £50 million being spent on them annually, with the split being 20:15:15 to the Air Ministry, Royal Navy and British Army. I wrote Air Ministry because that was responsible for Civil Aviation between the wars and its total budget was so low before 1935 that spending on civil aviation between 1919 and about 1935 can be quadrupled within the extra £20 million in the Air Estimates and still double the RAF over that period.

However, in this thread I don't want to throw money at the RAF and FAA because that would turn it into a Britwank and I have to find a plausible source for the money. The extra money I have found for Civil Aviation is still relatively small in the scheme of things and given the anti-military sentiment that existed between the World Wars in Britain it would be easier to obtain more funding for Civil Aviation than Military Aviation and Naval Aviation.
 
Interesting thread you got hear and I got a question. Don't know if the question could fit here but its about the swordfish torpedoe plane. Could the UK have gotten a better torpedo plane then the swordfish and what would it been called?
Thanx
 
Octupling and quadrupling the passenger miles flown means there must have been a lot of wealthier people around. What kind of fare structure is involved in enticing your average Brit to vacation at Bondi rather than Brighton?
 
Octupling and quadrupling the passenger miles flown means there must have been a lot of wealthier people around. What kind of fare structure is involved in enticing your average Brit to vacation at Bondi rather than Brighton?
It's aircraft miles, not passenger miles, but that aside you have made a good point. I wondered if there was the demand to meet the increase in supply myself.

The short answer is the airmail contracts pay for the aircraft miles because they specify that Imperial Airways has to fly to x destination y times a week. Whether there would be enough passengers and air mail to fill the aeroplanes if the service is four times a week service instead of once a week service is a different matter.
 
Interesting thread you got hear and I got a question. Don't know if the question could fit here but its about the swordfish torpedoe plane. Could the UK have gotten a better torpedo plane then the swordfish and what would it been called?
Thanx

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OTL Swordfish served throughout WW2 because they could lift a heavy load off even the shortest of carrier decks. Early in the war they sent Italian capital ships to the bottom of Taranto Harbour.
By late war, radar and rocket-equipped Swordfish scared U-boats away from North Atlantic convoys.
Swordfish's greatest disadvantage was all the struts and wires limiting top speed and range.

WI a British factory built a STOL monoplane torpedo bomber that could launch from the smallest escort carriers?
Hang all the fancy high-lift devices (leading edge HP slats or trailing edge flaps, spoilers, etc.) you want, but wing area is still key to short landings.
For short take-offs, large engines, large diameter propellers and large wings dominate.
I am picturing something between a Fulmar and a Bucaneer with 3 crew members. The primary reason for a 3 man crew is the third set of eyeballs during long patrols. For straight attack missions, you could reduce crew to one or two. Give the pilot a torpedo sight or dive-bombing sight. Include a large, internal torpedo bay, but plumb it for extra fuel tanks and wire it for radar. Wings should include mounting lugs for a dozen or so rockets and you need at least two forward-firing guns (.50 cal. or 20 mm) to suppress U-Boat AAA.
Most importantly, make it easy to bolt on a wide variety of weapons as the war evolves.
 
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As you wish.
 
However, in this thread I don't want to throw money at the RAF and FAA because that would turn it into a Britwank and I have to find a plausible source for the money. The extra money I have found for Civil Aviation is still relatively small in the scheme of things and given the anti-military sentiment that existed between the World Wars in Britain it would be easier to obtain more funding for Civil Aviation than Military Aviation and Naval Aviation.

Even without throwing money at the RAF/FAA, the general improvement in R & D and infrastructure will spill
over into the military sector. Transport Command would probably have more and better aircraft,
not to mention more planes to coopt directly from the civilian sector although I'm not sure what overall effect that would have.
A larger aircraft industry means a larger pool of skilled, experieced labour for production and training, so
we can avoid, or more likely mitigate some of the early war production fiascos.
 
Even without throwing money at the RAF/FAA, the general improvement in R & D and infrastructure will spill over into the military sector. Transport Command would probably have more and better aircraft, not to mention more planes to co-opt directly from the civilian sector although I'm not sure what overall effect that would have. A larger aircraft industry means a larger pool of skilled, experieced labour for production and training, so we can avoid, or more likely mitigate some of the early war production fiascos.
Yes. Those were the arguments of the committees whose advice Churchill rejected in 1920 when he said, "Civil aviation must fly by itself!"

Edit

AFAIK Churchill by his own admission didn't understand economics and thought he was a poor Chancellor of the Exchequer. If that's true, What if Churchill was a better economist? would be an interesting thread.
 
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The Treasury receives a lot of criticism on this forum for not spending enough on the armed forces between 1919 and 1934. I am one of the people doing the criticising.

Winston Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 6 November 1924 – 4 June 1929, about one third of this period therefore he deserves some of the blame. Or if someone else had been Chancellor would less have been spent on the armed forces?
 
The Treasury receives a lot of criticism on this forum for not spending enough on the armed forces between 1919 and 1934. I am one of the people doing the criticising.

Winston Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 6 November 1924 – 4 June 1929, about one third of this period therefore he deserves some of the blame. Or if someone else had been Chancellor would less have been spent on the armed forces?
Churchill was the father of the ten year rule wasnt he?
 
Even without throwing money at the RAF/FAA, the general improvement in R & D and infrastructure will spill over into the military sector. Transport Command would probably have more and better aircraft, not to mention more planes to co-opt directly from the civilian sector although I'm not sure what overall effect that would have. A larger aircraft industry means a larger pool of skilled, experieced labour for production and training, so we can avoid, or more likely mitigate some of the early war production fiascos.
Having said that it would not take much more money to produce a big improvement in the FAA because relatively small sums were spent on it in the first place.

However, the problem about spending a bit more money on this, some more money on that and a relatively small sum on the other is that they add up to a large sum of money.
 
Phase 3 - 1937-39 - Imperial Airways Aircraft

As already explained Imperial Airways inherited 120 aircraft from its predecessors ITTL instead of 15. That is 60 from the airlines operating the European routes and another 60 from the firms operating the Imperial air routes.

According to Davies the Airline had 22 aircraft in 1931 which quadrupled to 88 in 1939 owned by Imperial Airways (71) and British Airways Mk 1 (17) IOTL. The book he wrote ITTL would say that Imperial Airway had 176 aircraft in 1931, which was octuple IOTL. However, for 1939 British Airways and Imperial Airways would "only" have had 352 aircraft between them (68 British Airways and 284 Imperial Airways), which was double the 1931 TTL figure, but quadruple the 1939 OTL figure.

The number of aircraft delivered to Imperial Airways in the period 1924-37 was octupled from 77 to 616.

In the post on Imperial Airways from 1924-37 I had written that octuple the number of aircraft were acquired 1924-34, which was an increase from 59 to 472 and quadruple 1934-37, which was an increase from 18 to 72. The total for the whole period would have been 544. However, I have now decided that the number acquired would be eight times more than OTL throughout the period, which increases the total to 616.

In the period from 1924 to 1931 this was due to the eight fold increase in Government support because there was no Imperial Airship Scheme. From 1931 until 1937 Government support was only quadruple OTL, but the unit cost of the aircraft was cheaper so that eight times the number could be afforded with four times the subsidy. The reduction in the unit costs was because the R&D costs were spread over a larger number of aircraft and the larger number built allowed more economical construction methods to be used. IOTL aircraft were ordered in handfuls and were virtually hand built as a consequence.

This trend continued into the 1937-39 period allowing Imperial Airways to order 4 times as many aircraft with double the subsidy.

IOTL a total of 69 were ordered (only 60 delivered by 1st April 1940) as follows:
7 De Havilland Albatross - 2 not delivered by April 1940
14 Armstrong Whitworth Ensign - 2 not delivered by April 1940
43 Short Empire Flying Boat - 2 not delivered by April 1940 and the 43rd aircraft was not completed.
3 Short Golden Hind - 3 not delivered by April 1940
1 Short Mayo Upper Component
1 Short Mayo Lower Component​

ITTL a total of 276 aircraft were ordered as follows:
28 De Havilland Albatross - all delivered by April 1940
56 Armstrong Whitworth Ensign - all delivered by April 1940
180 Short Empire Flying Boat - all delivered by April 1940
12 Short Golden Hind - at least some delivered by April 1940​

ITTL I have ordered 8 extra Empire Flying Boats instead of 4 Mayo composites because I think the former was a dead end. In addition to reducing the unit costs the adoption of larger scale production techniques meant the aircraft were delivered closer to schedule.

IOTL some of the Empire Flying Boats were being used for a Transatlantic service using Handley Page Harrow bombers converted to air-to-air refuelling tankers operated by Flight Refuelling Limited. ITTL the more intense service operated by Imperial Airways might mean that up to 4 times as many Harrow tankers were required.

There will be another post about the Short Empire Flying Boat and Golden Hind.
 
Just a few problems. Croydon and Southampton are going to be much more crowded that OTL.

The AW Ensign was developed with a screwy wing incidence problem and poor engines. It would be better if someone with experience in fowler flaps had shown John Lloyd the ropes before designing the airplane. It would be better if AW built better 2-row engines, or many more American engines will have to be re-fitted.

With 4 times the aircraft, there will be 4 times the crashes. 8 of 12 G-class are going to come to an inglorious end with fatalities.
 
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