Better British Aviation 1918-39

The Superdeen (Super 652 Aberdeen/Stretch 652) pretty much solves the RAF transport aircraft problem, and could maybe be used for matirime patrols.
 
"As I can't think of any other admirals with names beginning with the letter A I'm going to call it the Aberdeen."
Wikipedia has list of 40, including Amherst, and no less than 4 Arbuthnot's.
 

Driftless

Donor
"As I can't think of any other admirals with names beginning with the letter A I'm going to call it the Aberdeen."
Wikipedia has list of 40, including Amherst, and no less than 4 Arbuthnot's.

I know Arbuthnot is an venerable name in British history, but the first thing that comes to mind is the Honorable Freddy Arbuthnot from the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery series.
 
Thinking a bit about aircraft development and roles. OTL's Anson had a replacement spec as a frontline aircraft in 1935.
With Amerst's (?) improved speed and range, this type would probably not be completely obsolete as a maritime reconaisance aircraft by the start of the war,
although almost certainly up for replacement. Maybe the Blackburn Botha is abandoned or never accepted.

I'd imagine a slightly different evolution of the Blenheim series of aircraft in response.
With the Amherst as a passable maritime reconaiance/patrol aircraft, we might a specialised
MPA derivative of the Blenheim mark IV (the Bristol Beaulieu?) entering service by the start of the war
rather than just the Bolingbroke in the RCAF. The Amherst (?) would probably continue in the reconaisance role until
the Blenheim series starts to predominate in the front line squadrons.
 
Thinking a bit about aircraft development and roles. OTL's Anson had a replacement spec as a frontline aircraft in 1935. With Amerst's (?) improved speed and range, this type would probably not be completely obsolete as a maritime reconaisance aircraft by the start of the war, although almost certainly up for replacement. Maybe the Blackburn Botha is abandoned or never accepted.

I'd imagine a slightly different evolution of the Blenheim series of aircraft in response. With the Amherst as a passable maritime reconaiance/patrol aircraft, we might a specialised MPA derivative of the Blenheim mark IV (the Bristol Beaulieu?) entering service by the start of the war rather than just the Bolingbroke in the RCAF. The Amherst (?) would probably continue in the reconaisance role until the Blenheim series starts to predominate in the front line squadrons.
The Avro 652-TTL might be called the Avro Fourteen because it was a 14-seater and was equivalent to the Lockheed 14 Super Electra. There will also be an Avro 652-TTL Mk 2 with a stretched fuselage for 18 passengers and possibly marketed as the Avro Eighteen, which was equivalent to the Lockheed 18 Lodestar. The Avro Eighteen would be built in place of the De Havilland Flamingo and its derivatives.

I'm going to stick with Avro Aberdeen as the name of the General Reconnaissance version of the Avro Fourteen because it fits in with the tradition of naming multi-engine types after towns in the UK and Empire. This aircraft had the same performance as the Lockheed Hudson developed from the Lockheed 14.

You are nearly right about the Blackburn Botha, which is not abandoned or never accepted, because ITTL it is not begun in the first place. More Aberdeens would be built instead although not necessarily in the factories that built the Botha. There is likely to be a different allocation of contracts ITTL. There would also be more Aberdeens instead of the Hudson and Ventura.

G.R. derivatives of the Blenheim were planned IOTL, but ITTL they probably don't progress as far as the Aberdeen was superior and had more development potential. That is unless Bristol responds to the competition by designing something better.
 
Aberdeen it is then. Considering its longer use as a Reconaisance aircraft, perhaps
Blackburn designs a trainer to fill the main role of OTL's Anson. In anycase, it seems
that TTL's RAF will be considerably less dependent on US types for specialist roles.
 
Just wondering what engine is chosen for the new Avro 14 and 18? I presume this Avro business will preclude the Lord Rothermere business.
 
Just wondering what engine is chosen for the new Avro 14 and 18? I presume this Avro business will preclude the Lord Rothermere business.
IIRC the Lockheed 18 had a Wright Cyclone developing 900hp and the Lockheed 18 had a Cyclone developing 1,200hp. The De Havilland Flamingo belatedly developed to compete with the Lockheed airliners IOTL had Bristol Perseus engines rated at 930hp. The Lockheed Hudson Mk 1 had Cyclone engines producing 1,100hp, but some later marks had P&W Twin Wasps developing 1,200hp.

I was going to go for the Bristol Pegasus for the Avro Fourteen because the Empire Flying Boats developed at the same time to an Imperial Airways specification had Pegasus engines rated at 930hp and it would make sense from Imperial's point of view to standardise on one engine. However, can the Pegasus be developed to produce the 1,200hp needed for the Avro Eighteen and Aberdeen for that matter? In the latter case I thought there might have to be an Aberdeen Mk 1 entering service in 1936 with 900hp Pegasus engines and a Mk 2 entering service in 1938 or 39 with 1,200hp engines.

OTOH if the OTL Imperial Airways was interested in standardisation why didn't it buy Ensigns with Pegasus engines instead of the OTL AS Tigers? IOTL Imperial Airways did replace the Tigers on the Ensign with Cyclones and re-engine its surviving Empire Flying Boats with P&W Twin Wasps, which the RAF also did with the Sunderland Mk V.

There have been threads discussing the possibility of Bristol developing a Twin Mercury and Twin Pegasus instead of going into sleeve valve engines and IIRC the consensus was that it would have been better than what happened IOTL.

So based on that I'm going to go for Imperial Airways ordering initial batches of 120 Empire Flying Boats, 60 AW Ensigns and 16 Avro Fourteens fitted with Twin Pegasus engines in about 1934 for delivery from 1936. For Bristol that's an initial order for about 750 engines plus spares.

If that is pushing things too much, then the Avro Fourteen, the 120 S.23 Empire Flying boats, 60 Ensigns and Aberdeen Mk 1 would have had 900hp Pegasus engines. Then the Avro Eighteen, 60 S.30 and S.33 Empire Boats, any follow on batches of Ensigns and the Aberdeen Mk 2 would have the Twin Pegasus engines. In the second case the 105 Sunderland Mk 0 built in place of the last generation of biplane flying boats would have 900hp Pegasus engines, while the Sunderland Mks 1 and 3 would have Twin Pegasus engines.

Is the Lord Rothermere business the Bristol 142, which became the basis of the Blenheim? If so probably not and the Blenheim Mk IV of TTL might have Twin Mercuries rated at 1,200hp. Twin Pegasus engines might also be fitted to the Hampden and early marks of Wellington.
 
Wot? No Centaurus? :-D

The Sleeve valve, from what i've read, had greater thermal and volumetric efficiency
than the poppet valve. Napier used sleeve valve with the Sabre, although that was initially unreliable.
If Bristol doesn't go with sleeve valve radio, does this mean another company might?

Perhaps instead of copying/adapting Gnome-Rhone engines that led to that led
to the abortive Pilades, perhaps Alvis starts developing sleeve valve radials from
the mid 30s?
 
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Wot? No Centaurus? :-D

The Sleeve valve, from what i've read, had greater thermal and volumetric efficiency than the poppet valve. Napier used sleeve valve with the Sabre, although that was initially unreliable. If Bristol doesn't go with sleeve valve radio, does this mean another company might? Perhaps instead of copying/adapting Gnome-Rhone engines that led to that led to the abortive Pilades, perhaps Alvis starts developing sleeve valve radials from the mid 30s?
ITTL there aren't going to be any Napier sleeve valve engines either or at least not as we know them because I'm planning to have the firm taken over by Rolls Royce in about 1930. The parent company is going to have its new subsidiary concentrate on its range of diesel engines, but mainly for marine and railway applications. However, the parent company might transfer the Exe and two-stroke engines out to Napier to allow Rolls Royce to concentrate on the Griffon, Merlin, Peregrine and Vulture.
 
What happens to the older Napier designs like the Lion? Will we see diesel engines in tanks?
I want there to be a Sea Cutlass or Sea Culverin in place of the Napier Sea Lion, but the Lion aero engine will probably be the last OTL Napier engine to be produced. Could the Napier Cutlass or Culverin have been converted into tank engines? I simply don't know. I should know, because I'm sure it's been discussed before.
 
Just wondering what engine is chosen for the new Avro 14 and 18? I presume this Avro business will preclude the Lord Rothermere business.
The other an answer is an engine in the 1,000 to 1,200 class that didn't exist IOTL or wasn't based on an OTL engine like the Pegasus.

Two of the reasons behind the increase in state support for civil aviation were to provide a market for the aircraft industry to sell its products to and to stimulate the aircraft industry into developing better products including more powerful engines. The engine manufacturers will be doing more R&D work because they were building more engines and making bigger profits, some of which was spent on expanding their R&D departments. On top of that there is the additional R&D being done by the engine department of the RAE to help the engine manufacturers. Meanwhile the Civil Aviation Department of the Ministry of Transport had been forcing the development of faster and bigger airliners, which would have required more powerful engines. It did this directly by issuing ever more demanding specifications and indirectly through tougher air mail contracts.

The end result of the above is that the British aero engine industry would be capable of building production engines in the 1,000 to 1,200hp class in the second half of the 1930s. Or that is my intention.
 
To supplement Post 43 here is some information from Robin Higham's history of the British Overseas Airlines, which was my main source for Post 43.

The first figure is the Net Air Estimates for the financial year and the second is Vote 8 - Civil Aviation. The third figure is the amount I propose to spend ITTL. Note that the increase in spending is not quite what I proposed in Post 43. It is quadrupled from 1922-23 to 1936-37 and doubled in the other years.

I'm not sure if Vote 8 is the gross or net figure. Furthermore Higham's figures might not include supplementary estimates as I have not crosschecked them against my other source, which is the articles on the Air Estimates from Flight Magazine which can be downloaded from the Flight Archive website.

The spending from 1924 to 1931 may or may not include the cost of the Imperial Airship Scheme, which might have been in the vote for research and development.

The overall increase from 1919-20 to 1938-39 is nearly £30 million, but the Government should get some of that back through increased taxes collected from the aviation industry and indirectly from the expansion of commerce that the speeding up of the mails was intended to create.

1919-20 - £ 54,030,850 - nil - £2,000,000
1920-21 - £ 21,056,930 - £ 894,540 - £ 1,789,080
1921-22 - £ 18,411,000 - £ 880,000 - £ 1,760,000
1922-23 - £ 10,895,000 - £ 364,000 - £ 1,456,000
1923-24 - £ 12,011,000 - £ 287,000 - £ 1,148,000
1924-25 - £ 14,511,000 - £ 355,000 - £ 1,420,000
1925-26 - £ 15,513,000 - £ 357,000 - £ 1,428,000
1926-27 - £ 16,000,000 - £ 462,000 - £ 1,848,000
1927-28 - £ 15,500,000 - £ 464,000 - £ 1,856,000
1928-29 - £ 16,250,000 - £ 415,000 - £ 1,660,000
1929-30 - £ 16,200,000 - £ 450,000 - £ 1,800,000
1930-31 - £ 17,850,000 - £ 500,000 - £ 2,000,000
1931-32 - £ 18,100,000 - £ 470,000 - £ 1,880,000
1932-33 - £ 17,400,000 - £ 473,000 - £ 1,892,000
1933-34 - £ 17,426,000 - £ 490,000 - £ 1,960,000
1934-35 - £ 17,561,000 - £ 513,000 - £ 2,052,000
1935-36 - £ 20,650,000 - £ 595,000 - £ 2,380,000
1936-37 - £ 39,000,000 - £ 760,000 - £ 3,040,000
1937-38 - £ 56,500,000 - £ 2,315,000 - £ 4,630,000
1938-39 - £ 73,500,000 - £ 2,925,000 - £ 5,850,000
1939-40 - £ 66,561,000 - £ 4,787,000 - £ 9,574,000
I found an interesting statistic whilst doing some research for the next post, which is that while the British gave £85,000 in subsidy to their companies in 1921-22, the French gave £1,328,600 to theirs.
 
An early move towards 2-row engines of 40-45 liters gives 1200 HP even on low octane fuel (77 oct), and possibly 1500 on 87 oct, provided the central bearing design is used. The plain vanilla poppet valve engine will suffice, and will probably be quicker, cheaper and easier to produce in quantity, so it can be exported thus returning plenty of money used for development.
On the other hand, 2x1000 HP, as available with Pegasus, will suffice for 'DC-3 light' type of transport, actually it is much more than the DC-2 had.
 
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.
 
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