Better British Aviation 1918-39

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.
Of course there will be more crashes and there would have been 8 times as many over 1924-37 because there were 8 times as many aircraft flying over that period.

OTOH more crashes in that period lead to lessons being learned earlier than OTL and an improvement in safety in the 1937-39 period leading to a lower accident rate. One of the lessons of more crashes might be that an air sea rescue service operated by the RAF is needed. That might be a good investment if it goes on to save dozens of RAF fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain that would otherwise have drowned.
There are likely to be more powerful and more reliable engines available by 1937 too. That might reduce the number of accidents caused by insufficient power and engine failures.

The Ensign isn't going to be any better than the OTL version when it enters service, it will merely enter service nearer its scheduled date of 1936 and there will be 4 times as many of them. However, Imperial Airways might have them re-engine sooner.

I haven't done airports yet. So how do you know that the capacity of the airports wasn't increased? In any case the Imperial Airways was only flying once or twice a week to most of the destinations IOTL so quadrupling the frequency to once or twice a day isn't going to turn the skies over Croydon and Southampton airports black with stacks of airliners waiting for landing slots.
 
Some interesting AW 1934 projects posted over on the Secret Projects website

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Intresting idea on the Westland Lysander, Might giving it folding wings be a bit of a problem?
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Wing-fold can be simple and light on strut-braced mono-planes because vertical loads can be spread widely between wing roots and struts. So you don't need the heavy, complex, precisely-machined, forged hinges used as hinges on Grumman airplane's.
For example, look at the 1929-vintage DH-80A Puss Moth. Folding the wings only requires pulling locking pins from front spars. Wing struts stabilize wings as they are folded straight act and secured to the vertical fin.
Puss Moth's wing fold method is still popular with Avid, Kolb and Zenith kitplanes.

Thanks to Just Leo for a great 3-view!
 
Phase 3 - 1937-39 - Part 4 Flying Boats
IOTL the Principal Flying Boats of the 1930s were (the dates are their first flight dates)

Short Singapore Mk II March 1930
Short Singapore Mk III June 1934
Short Sarafand June 1932 - 1 built
Short Knuckleduster November 1933
Short Empire Flying Boat July 1936
Short Sunderland October 1937
Short Golden Hind July 1939

Supermarine Scapa 1932
Supermarine Stranraer July 1934
Supermarine Type 179 which did not fly because it was cancelled in 1932

Saro London 1934
Saro A.33 October 1938
Saro Lerwick November 1938

ITTL the extra effort put into civil aviation leads to qualitative improvements in flying boats in the first half of the 1930s.

Supermarine Flying Boats

The Type 179 was not cancelled ITTL. It was put into service as an airliner on Imperial Airways transatlantic service, which began in 1936. Supermarine built about at least a dozen instead of the Scapa and Stranraer. It is at least a dozen because 37 production Scapas and Stranraers were ordered IOTL (but only 31 were built) and I am estimating that one Type 179 with six engines would take as much effort to build as three twin engine Scapas or Stranraers.

Saunders Roe Flying Boats

IOTL it built 31 Londons and 21 Lerwicks. Furthermore production of the Supermarine Walrus and Sea Otter was subcontracted to them so that Supermarine could concentrate on Spitfire production.

ITTL the London wasn't built because the RAF bought more flying boats from Short Brothers. Instead the Air Ministry transferred production of the Walrus to Saro earlier to allow Supermarine to concentrate on the Type 179 and then the Spitfire.

There weren't any Lerwicks ITTL either because the Air Ministry decided to order another 21 Sunderlands from Short Brothers in their place. To compensate Short Brothers subcontracted the order for 12 Short Golden Hinds to them.

Short Flying Boats

ITTL Short Brothers built a big six-engine monoplane instead of the Sarafand. It did not go into production because the Imperial Airways contract went to the Supermarine Type 179.

I wanted to make the Singapore Mk II the TTL Sunderland prototype, but I thought that was pushing things too far. Therefore ITTL the Short Sunderland prototype was built to Specification R.24/31 in place of the OTL Knuckleduster. It was ready to go into service in 1935 instead of the Singapore Mk III. In addition to the 37 built instead of the Singapore Mk III another 31 were built instead of the Saro London and another 37 were built in place of the 14 Supermarine Scapas and 17 Supermarine Stranraers built out of 23 ordered. That brought the first production batch of Sunderlands up to a total of 105 aircraft instead of the 99 last generation biplane flying boats.

As explained earlier 180 Empire Flying Boats were built instead of 42 and the Short Mayo Composite. IOTL the Empire Boat looked similar to the Sunderland, but they were different aircraft built with different production tooling. ITTL the Empire Flying Boat was really the Short Sandringham and was built on the same production line with the same production tooling as the Sunderland.

Part of the reason why Short Brothers had the ability to build so many aircraft of the Sunderland family was due to the RAF and Imperial Airways ordering a larger number of aircraft of a single type, which allowed the firm to use larger scale production methods. Another reason for this was that it had a bigger factory in the middle of the 1930s. This was principally through building more aircraft for the civil market between 1925 and 1935. In particular the 80 flying boats for Imperial Airways that it built instead of the 5 Calcuttas, 3 Kents and 2 Scylla landplanes of OTL. The firm built 6 Rangoon flying boats for the RAF IOTL, which was the military version of the Calcutta family. ITTL it might have built 15 instead of 6 because building so many flying boats might mean it can offer a better price than Blackburn and therefore secure orders for another 9 aircraft at the expense of the 5 Iris and 4 Perth flying boats built at about the same time by Blackburn IOTL.
 
The Type 179 looks to be a bit oversized for its role, something more like the OTL Type 306 1935 design (4 engines) might be better.
 
The Type 179 looks to be a bit oversized for its role, something more like the OTL Type 306 1935 design (4 engines) might be better.
If it wasn't the Supermarine Giant it was going to be the big monoplane flyting boat built instead of the Sarafand - effectively a Golden Hind with 6 engines in the 800hp class or 4 Twin Pegasus instead of the Hercules.

In that case production of the Sarafand substitute would have been subcontracted to Saro and a pre-production batch of Spitfires (or even Type 224 fighters) ordered from Supermarine instead of the OTL Scapa and Stranraer to keep its factory going.
 
Large number of large flying boats suggests that Coastal Command will be more self sufficient in terms of maritime patrol craft.
 
Phase 3 - 1937-39 - Part 5 British Airways Mk 1

I am referring to this airline to British Airways Mk 1 to distinguish it from the present British Airways created in the early 1970s by the merger of B.O.A.C. and B.E.A.

This airline was formed in October 1935 by the merger of Hillman Airways, Spartan Airways and United Airways. One of the firms the Airline took over before it was merged with Imperial Airways to form B.O.A.C. was British Continental Airways, which according to some sources wanted to buy 12 Douglas DC-3s from Airspeed, which had a manufacturing license of Douglas aircraft via Fokker.

The Government selected British Airways Mk 1 to be its "Second Chosen Instrument" to take over Imperial Airways underdeveloped and unwanted network of European routes. The Government wanted British Airways to expand the European network and to develop a route to South America via Lisbon and Bathurst in West Africa. ITTL it was different because Imperial Airways was operating a bigger network of European routes and had established a line to South America by 1930, but the Government decided that the Firm had become too big and decided to transfer Imperial's European Division to British Airways.

According to Higham the Airline operated 58 aircraft during its existence, comprising: 7 Spartan Cruisers; 2 D.H.84; 11 D.H.86; 11 D.H.89, 8 Fokker F.VIII, 3 Ju 52/3m, 7 Lockheed 10 Electras and 9 Lockheed 14 Super Electras. According to Davies in A History of the World's Airlines it had 17 aircraft in 1939 consisting of 3 Junkers 52/3m, 13 Lockheeds and one Fokker.

I haven't decided how much bigger than OTL the domestic airlines would be ITTL yet so I'm not going to make an estimate of how many aircraft British Airways Mk 1 operated, except for the ones operating on overseas routes on contract for the British Government. In common with Imperial Airways in the last years of peace I'm going to guesstimate that it had a fleet 4 times bigger than OTL in 1939. All other things being equal it would have had 68 aircraft consisting of 12 Junkers 52/3m, 52 Lockheed airliners and 4 Fokkers in 1939.

ITTL it would have bought at total of 64 Lockheed airliners consisting of 28 Electras and 36 Super Electras.

Except that ITTL nothing of the sort happened.

The POD is 1933 when Imperial Airways issues a specification to Avro (strictly speaking Avro Whitworth ITTL, but more of that in a later post) for an airliner to operate on its European routes. The requirements of the specification were as follows:
Crew: 2
Capacity: 12-14 passengers
Maximum Speed: at least 250 mph
Cruising Speed: at least 200 mph
Range: 850 miles​

The aircraft produced was the Avro Type 652-TTL (TTL = This Time Line). In common with the Avro 652-OTL (OTL = Our Time Line) the first aircraft flew on 7 January 1935, and the type was certificated in March 1935. Imperial Airways bought 16 of them, which were transferred to British Airways Mk 1 when it took over the European routes. ITTL British Airways Mk 1 acquired another 64 of them on its own account instead of the 64 Lockheed airliners that it would otherwise have bought making a total of 80 Avro 652-TTL plus sales to other airlines.
 
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An aircraft not mentioned is the Airspeed Envoy. It was an OTL success, a real one. In a movie, with Ralph Richardson, "Q 'planes", it was said to fly 300 mph. That's movies for you. Before AH, there was movies. It was said that the Richardson character was the basis for John Steed. Richardson starred in another airplane movie, "Breaking the Sound Barrier", featuring an aircraft that didn't, the Supermarine Swift.

Pity about the Short Sarafand, a marvelous, capable aircraft that was just too expensive, and old fashioned. Funny thing about the Supermarine 179 is that there are two artist drawings, one with three twin engine nacelles, and one with four nacelles, two twin and two singles. Glad to see it turned out better than the Air Yacht. Lucky there's so much money available.
 
OTL Supermarine proposed for the 21/28 Specification for a Civil Mail Carrier a twin engine monoplane of metal construction powered by two Kestrel engines with evaporative cooling. There is a picture of it in Ralph Pegram's 'Beyond the Spitfire: The Unseen Designs of R J Mitchel.

It looks quite neat, apart from the evaporative cooling and the undercarriage wheels that project through the top of the engine nacelle, there are no dimensions but the book compares it to the Boeing 249 and Lockheed model 10 Electra.

It was one of a number of very different designs sharing the Type 178 designation, in this case Type 178 01.
 
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Large number of large flying boats suggests that Coastal Command will be more self sufficient in terms of maritime patrol craft.
According to the tables in the back of Putmans Aircraft of the Royal Air Force Since 1918 the RAF had 108 flying boats in September 1939 as follows:
  • 29 London of 31 built - 2 were struck off charge
  • 19 Singapore Mk III of 37 built - 10 had been struck off charge, 3 were damaged beyond repair, one ran aground and 4 crashed.
  • 3 Scapa of 14 built - one had become an instructional airframe, 7 had been struck off charge and 3 crashed.
  • 15 Stranraer of 17 built - one was struck off charge and one crashed
  • 4 Lerwick
  • 38 Sunderland - Another 2 aircraft had been written off in crashes by September 1939
ITTL there would be 132 Sunderlands.

6 extra Sunderlands were built in place the order for 6 Stranraers that in OTL was cancelled to allow Supermarine to concentrate on Spitfire production. 18 Sunderlands built in place of the Scapa and Singapore Mk III that had been struck of charge by September 1939 had instead been refurbished for further service.

At present I am still planning for a force of 10 flying boat squadrons. AFAIK the 6 Coastal Command squadrons had 6 aircraft each and the 4 squadrons overseas had 4 aircraft each. ITTL all squadrons would have 6 aircraft each. Priority would be given to expanding Coastal Command's operational training organisation, which AFAIK was virtually non-existent or at least inadequate before the war.

IOTL the RAF requisitioned all 3 Short Golden Hinds and several Empire Flying Boats, which it converted to general reconnaissance aircraft. ITTL four times as many of both were available to requisition. There were also the Harrow tankers operated by Flight Refuelling Limited. IOTL it was suggested that they be used to extend the range of the Sunderlands, but AFAIK the proposal was turned down because it was thought that the resources could be better used elsewhere. ITTL there would have been 4 times as many Harrow tankers to support Imperial Airways transatlantic service and the proposal might therefore have stood more chance of being accepted.

OTOH No. 10 Squadron, RAAF might have already departed for Australia, because Short Brothers had built the Sunderlands at a faster rate. I also think that the RCAF would have bought 60 Sunderlands from Short Brothers instead of the 20 (IIRC) Consolidated Catalinas and 40 Supermarine Stranraers built by Canadian Vickers because Short Brothers could offer lower prices and earlier delivery dates ITTL. The 60 aircraft includes aircraft built to contracts placed after September 1939.

Plus nobody seems to have spotted what I've done to the Avro 652 or at least nobody has commented on it.
 
More/More develped Anson earlier?
Better trained Bomber command?

Your efforts at keeping prewar military improvements relatively modest
makes it more interesting, I think.
 
IOTL the Alvis Pilades engine was never adopted due to having no military use. Maybe civil aviation
might invest in development and there's a homegrown alternative for the Bristol Taurus.
 
Just googled the specs for OTL's 625 & Anson. Looks like it outperforms the DC
in terms of speed (the Douglas still wins out in range though).

I suspect the follow on type (whoever designs and makes it)
would be an improvement on that score.

Either way you have a solid basis for a transport/trainer/maritime reconaissance aircraft.
Maybe a light/maritime bomber for export in a pinch.
Perhaps improved characteristics for carrying ASW equipment.
It's pretty fast so RAF Transport (Ferry?) command would also have a pretty
good logistics aircraft.
 
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Looking at the overall prewar military picture, we have a much more balanced RAF
with good training and transport aircraft.
 
Just googled the specs for OTL's 652 & Anson. Looks like it outperforms the DC in terms of speed (the Douglas still wins out in range though).

I suspect the follow on type (whoever designs and makes it) would be an improvement on that score. Either way you have a solid basis for a transport/trainer/maritime reconnaissance aircraft. Maybe a light/maritime bomber for export in a pinch. Perhaps improved characteristics for carrying ASW equipment. It's pretty fast so RAF Transport (Ferry?) command would also have a pretty good logistics aircraft.
The specification Imperial Airways issues in 1933 ITTL is roughly the specification of the Lockheed 14 Super Electra on Wikipaedia. The differences were that cruising speed of the Super Electra was actually 215mph and the ferry range was 851mph.

This is the relevant part of Post 152.
The POD is 1933 when Imperial Airways issues a specification to Avro (strictly speaking Avro Whitworth ITTL, but more of that in a later post) for an airliner to operate on its European routes. The requirements of the specification were as follows:
Crew: 2
Capacity: 12-14 passengers
Maximum Speed: at least 250 mph
Cruising Speed: at least 200 mph
Range: 850 miles?​
Therefore the TTL Avro 652A Anson (which was based on the Avro 652 airliner) would have the same performance as the Lockheed Hudson or it is my intention that is should.

There will also be a stretched Avro 652-TTL airliner with at least 18 passengers called the Super 652, which would be equivalent to the Lockheed 18 Lodestar and De Havilland Flamingo. This might be ordered for the RAF instead of the Bristol Bombay and De Havilland Hertfordshire. There will also be an unsuccessful light bomber development of the Super 652 to parallel the Lockheed Ventura developed from the Lockheed Lodestar.

To avoid confusing it with the TTL Avro 652A with OTL Avro 652A I want to give it another name. As I can't think of any other admirals with names beginning with the letter A I'm going to call it the Aberdeen.

However, the RAF will still need an aircraft like the OTL Anson as an advanced trainer and communications aircraft.
 
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