Design the best FAA fighter to be in service by Jan 1940

Jack1971

Banned
Using what’s available component-wise and to the capability of Britain’s aeronautical designers, have a fighter competitive with land based designs in widespread FAA fleet service by Jan 1940. Specifications:

1) Replacement for Sea Gladiator.

2) Single seat, single engine. Every FAA fighter up to now (and after the Fulmar/Firefly) has been single seat (postwar jets aside). So this isn’t a huge POD.

3) Folding wings. Must fit down Ark Royal’s lifts.

4) Monoplane, closed canopy, folding and stout undercarriage. Sorry Gloster F.5/34, your undercarriage design excludes you.

5) >800 mile endurance on internal fuel.

6) 8 x machine guns or a mix of cannon and mg. Taking into consideration the need to address earlier the lack of belt fed cannons and the reliability issues of 1930s cannons.

7) >330 mph top speed, with rate of climb >2,500 ft/min. Hawker Hurricane was 340 mph and 2,780 ft/min.

8) Robust, rot/corrosion resistant construction, able to ditch sufficiently safely and float long enough. Included dinghy.

9) Good management of pilot workload, including single crew use of carrier locating RDF system. Is autopilot possible in this era?

10) Reliable engine operation, and ease of maintenance, conducive to distant sorties and extended ops.

11) To cause least disruption to RAF rearmament procurement. This doesn’t mean Merlins are absolutely out, but they’d be the hardest to justify.
 
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Hawker Hurricane
With the full production of Spitfires from Castle Bromwich coming on stream on time, Blackburn Aircraft Limited was directed in 1938 to design and modify and produce a wing design to deploy the now soon to be spare Hurricanes to Sea..... It was agreed that they could prioritize this over production of Roc's....

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Jack1971

Banned
With the full production of Spitfires from Castle Bromwich coming on stream on time, Blackburn Aircraft Limited was directed in 1938 to design and modify and produce a wing design to deploy the now soon to be spare Hurricanes to Sea....
Good plan. And the FAA would have experience in maintaining the Hurricane’s frame over canvas design, since the Nimrod, Gladiator and Swordfish shared the same.

How do we get the Sea Hurricane to meet the >800 mile endurance on internal fuel? Advanced propeller? Can we increase internal fuel capacity? Perhaps a longer nose for fuel behind the engine?

Does this lead to a naval Henley-based TSR?
 
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FAA fleet service by Jan 1940
A Sea hurricane in early 40 is going to be the best aircraft afloat in the world and can realistically just about fight the best land based even if at a disadvantage.

Butterflies over Norway potentially and defiantly in Med later?
 

Jack1971

Banned
A Sea hurricane in early 40 is going to be the best aircraft afloat in the world and can realistically just about fight the best land based even if at a disadvantage.

Butterflies over Norway potentially and defiantly in Med later?
The Med would be exciting for sure for the Sea Hurricanes. I’d love to see a what if model of one with wings folded.

I wonder if the FAA will be required to redeploy their Sea Hurricanes and pilots to RAF squadrons for the duration of the BoB. That would give the pilots excellent experience for use in the Med and IndoPac.
 
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I’d love to see a what if model of one.
Why its just really just a slightly modified OTL brought forward a bit?
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OK wing folding isn't hard or new and hurricane has a easy to convert stubs to work from.... Like OTL Roc

tmcroca.jpg
 

Jack1971

Banned
Why its just really just a slightly modified OTL brought forward a bit?
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restoration3-1140x426.jpg

OK wing folding isn't hard or new and hurricane has a easy to convert stubs to work from.... Like OTL Roc

tmcroca.jpg
Interesting. I hadn’t considered the rear folding for the Hurricane. I assumed it would be vertical fold like the Sea Fury.

597px-Hawker.sea.fury.folded.arp.jpg


But what of the greater internal fuel? Does that change the look from OTL Hurricanes? For example, the Spitfire grew longer in the nose as internal fuel between engine and pilot increased. The Hurricane’s wing does not leave much room for fuel.

3313044-20th-july-1938-factory-workers-assembling-the-gettyimages.jpg


Hawker-Hurricane-Wing.jpg


The rearward folding wing would be very compatible with the low hangar heights of the Implacables.
 
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But what of the greater internal fuel? Does that change the look from OTL Hurricanes?
Perfect is the enemy of good, if you are look at getting something in service simply adding folding wings and a hook to the best available land fighter is sufficient, anything else risks not being ready.

I would take a competitive 600m fighter in service in Jan 40 over something better and >800m tomorrow. A 1 Jan 40 Hurricane is the best aircraft afloat in the world at that date.

The RN is very time critical in 1940/41 so even a few months and any slowing of production will have huge effects, the advantage of Sea Hurricane is that production will be fast with little risk of hold ups due to it being very similar to the land fighter and the crews (Pilots and ship/ground crew) can be trained on RAF land aircraft to be read very quickly.
 
Sea Service Spitfire

Start development in 1938 - when it should have started and its development is several years in advance of what it was when introduced as an emergency measure in late 42

Of course several things have to align first

The main one is that the RN gets earlier control of the FAA

Secondly the Shadow Factory scheme is slightly advanced - principly Castle Bromwich is able to be stood up earlier and be at maximum capacity by Jan 1940

Subcontracting of the earlier Sea Service Spitfire (mmm that name won't last) to Folland Aircraft Ltd on the Hamble and low rate initial production of the Mk1 Seafire (production = modification of Older Mk1 Spitfires) is stood up in 1939 with the MK2 Seafire the first with Vickers designed Folding wings starting production in Sept 1939 with support from Owen Cunliff, Westlands and Air Training (also on the Hamble)

The MK2 differed from Spitfire Mk2 with the obvious tailhook, in having slightly extended Oleos, De Havilland reduction gear (which slightly moved the COG rear wards), the internal fuel tanks being 2 x 44 Gallon tanks fitted forward of the Cockpit with 2 x 33 Gallon tanks fitted aft of the Cockpit (these rear tanks often used with PR Spitfires) for a total of 154 Gallons - nearly doubling its fuel load.

Conformal slipper tanks would later increase this by up to a further 90 Gallons but that would come later....

Production of 58 Mk1s (34 remaining operational Jan 1 40) and 128 MK2s (104 remaining operational Jan 1 40) is enough to equip 3 Squadrons and 3 training / replacement squadrons with a mix of Mk1 and Mk2 seafires by Jan 1940 and 2 of these are embarked on Glorious and Furious (replacing the Skua Squadrons) with the 3rd Working up for Ark Royal (Will not join until late Feb 1940 when she returned to the UK with the damaged HMS Exeter).

Armament for the Mk1 and Mk2 was the standard 8 x .303 Browning Mk2

Production of Seafire MK2 (with 277 airframes built) was halted between June 1940 and Nov 1940 with all resources committed to Spitfire Production (it being the principle fighter of the RAFs fighter command) and this impacted the ability of the RN to keep the then 8 Seafire units at front line strength until production resumed in Nov 1940 at those 4 sites.


Location of Fuel tanks

spitfire9-fuelsystem-lr.jpg
 
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Wasn't the Spitfire a bad candidate for Navalisation because of the narrow undercarriage made it a bad candidate for Carrier Landings?
 
Sea Service Spitfire. Start development in 1938 - when it should have started and its development is several years in advance of what it was when introduced as an emergency measure in late 42
1938 was the date IOTL when Their Lordships actually asked for a Sea Spitfire and were told no.
 
If Britain was able to design a naval aircraft from scratch there is no need to navalise a land fighter. The only potential problem I'd foresee is what engine to choose;
  • the Perseus used in the Skua and Roc was not very powerful at 930hp, there was a bored-out version that made 1200hp but not until much later, but was light at 1000lbs
  • the Taurus used in the Albacore was better at 1060-1130hp, but was unreliable and not developed much because of that. But is more was at stake then I think these problems would be addressed
  • The Hercules was the best from a development perspective, starting at 1290hp in 1939 and going to over 1700hp, but at 1900lbs is almost twice as heavy as the Perseus and 600lbs heavier than the Taurus so maybe not suitable for a 1940 fighter, more a 1942-3 model.
 

Jack1971

Banned
Perfect is the enemy of good, if you are look at getting something in service simply adding folding wings and a hook to the best available land fighter is sufficient, anything else risks not being ready.
I can agree with that position IF the goal was to avoid the risk of not being ready. But that’s not the goal here, we’re giving the British sufficient time pre-War to design something to meet the spec. My objective is to test the best of British design to meet the Spec.
If Britain was able to design a naval aircraft from scratch there is no need to navalise a land fighter.
Exactly.
 

Jack1971

Banned
The Hercules was the best from a development perspective, starting at 1290hp in 1939 and going to over 1700hp, but at 1900lbs is almost twice as heavy as the Perseus and 600lbs heavier than the Taurus so maybe not suitable for a 1940 fighter, more a 1942-3 model.
Since the Hercules never made it into a later war 1942-43 fighter, is there something inherently unsuitable in its design? British radial-powered fighters seem to go straight from the Blackburn Skua’s Bristol Perseus to the Fury’s Centaurus.

Perhaps the performance of the Merlin and Griffin canceled out the benefits of the Hercules?
 
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Since the Hercules never made it into a later war 1942-43 fighter, is there something inherently unsuitable in its design? British radial-powered fighters seem to go straight from the Blackburn Skua’s Bristol Perseus to the Fury’s Centaurus.

Perhaps the performance of the Merlin and Griffin canceled out the benefits of the Hercules?

The Beaufighter was sort of a fighter, but there was a huge demand for these engines in the massive 4 engine heavy bomber programme.


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I can agree with that position IF the goal was to avoid the risk of not being ready. But that’s not the goal here, we’re giving the British sufficient time pre-War to design something to meet the spec. My objective is to test the best of British design to meet the Spec.
What are the constraints on our program? When can we start diverging from OTL and if we can have a clean sheet and anything we want what limits us?

I was thinking that a Sea Hurricane is easily reasonable, its already mostly developed and in production, easy to build, production capacity is available, the wing modifications are easy and can be copied from existing aircraft and engines can be taken from any of the useless Battles....

But if we want Great what about a Griffon powered via a contra-rotating prop all metal monoplane with inward folding landing legs, quad 20mm cannon, LR tanks and fitted with.........and give it a good mac number even if we don't know why to do this yet?
 
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Wasn't the Spitfire a bad candidate for Navalisation because of the narrow undercarriage made it a bad candidate for Carrier Landings?

It was one of the first carrier aircraft that had to be 'flown on' to the carrier - as I understand it previously carrier pilots would cross the stern and cut the throttle and the aircraft would almost instantly drop onto the wires.

Cut the throttle on the Spitfire and nope it just keeps on flying - hence the problems with Spitfires floating into the Island or the Crash Barrier etc - it literally had to be flown onto the deck and this took a completely different method of landing on.

An earlier inception of Seafire equals an earlier development cycle which equals an earlier resolution to its foibles while gaining all of its fortes.

Since the Hercules never made it into a later war 1942-43 fighter, is there something inherently unsuitable in its design? British radial-powered fighters seem to go straight from the Blackburn Skua’s Bristol Perseus to the Fury’s Centaurus.

Perhaps the performance of the Merlin and Griffin canceled out the benefits of the Hercules?

Britain focused the lion's share of its efforts on the Merlin and later the Griffon - which was almost 100% the smartest decision - so the power output of those Engines improved far more quickly than their peers and post fall of France a number of projects went on hold except for those vital for the defence of the realm and all that so things like improved AT guns, other engines etc all got delayed during the 'invasion panic' with more focus made on those projects that were more likely to bear fruit or mass production of existing engines.
 
The Hurricane does have a number of advantages over the Spitfire, and its a perfectly good fighter against everything until at least 1940.

Its more robust, and the way it breaks down means dissasembled spare aircraft are easier to store. The Spitfire was delicate, and the launch to intercept concept it was used for wasnt really around before 1941.

It does (like the Spitfire) need something bigger that a 0.303, as one of its jobs will be to take out recon planes. 2 cannon+ 2mg would be ideal, if not look at a 0.5"
The range isnt as bad as often thought. The Hurricane could take quite large auxilliary tanks, and with them the range is not far off the Wildcat with tanks.

So I'd go for a folding wing Hurricane.
It can stand up to the Me109, and is better than anything else,in Norway in 1940
It is likely better than anything its likely to encounter in the Med in 1941 (Me109's had a short range).
The other advantage is that production of Hurricanes is good, so more chance of it getting released to the FAA.
 
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