:eek: Mass Jet powered aircraft at the start of WW2

Back to the original question about jet power being available at the buildup of WWII: Even if the Alien Space Bats would offer each country to swap as many as they want of their own 1939 issue piston engines for 1947 issue jet engines... You would still be stuck with 1939 aircraft to put them in. The famous Messerschmitt 262 jet fighter of 1944 was in part so revolutionary because it combined jets with the latest aerodynamic research. Even a comparatively conservative jet like the Yak-15 was based on the yak-3 piston fighter who only got introduced in 1944.

Remember that in 1940 the main aircraft in US service was still the P40. Constructors had just gotten around to regarding retractible landing gear and enclosed cockpits as standard. Tricycle landing gears were still considered risky and laminar airflow wings were still untested.

As for armament, most fighters only recently doubled the number of machine guns from the 1918 standard of 2 to 4, or 2 machine guns plus one canon. Six guns like in the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire were still considered overkill.

So even if we had jet engines available before 1940, the best aircraft we would possibly get is a De Havilland Vampire with 6 machine guns buried in its wooden wings. The worst would be a 500 mph Brewster Jet Buffalo.
 
Back to the original question about jet power being available at the buildup of WWII: Even if the Alien Space Bats would offer each country to swap as many as they want of their own 1939 issue piston engines for 1947 issue jet engines... You would still be stuck with 1939 aircraft to put them in. The famous Messerschmitt 262 jet fighter of 1944 was in part so revolutionary because it combined jets with the latest aerodynamic research. Even a comparatively conservative jet like the Yak-15 was based on the yak-3 piston fighter who only got introduced in 1944.

Remember that in 1940 the main aircraft in US service was still the P40. Constructors had just gotten around to regarding retractible landing gear and enclosed cockpits as standard. Tricycle landing gears were still considered risky and laminar airflow wings were still untested.

As for armament, most fighters only recently doubled the number of machine guns from the 1918 standard of 2 to 4, or 2 machine guns plus one canon. Six guns like in the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire were still considered overkill.

So even if we had jet engines available before 1940, the best aircraft we would possibly get is a De Havilland Vampire with 6 machine guns buried in its wooden wings. The worst would be a 500 mph Brewster Jet Buffalo.


The US wishes its main service fighter in 1940 was the P40! ;)

While I get your point and its a fair one - the British fighters had 8 guns with very high RPM MGs and the RAF had considered this barely adequate

They wanted Cannon pre - war and while they went about it in a odd and inefficient way - they did eventually get to where they wanted to be and went 'mostly' cannon by mid war.

And poor old Brewster - at one point the Buffalo was the best fighter in the USN and had a superior performance to the earlier F4 Wildcats.
 
The trans-Atlantic Vampires did have the 100 gal drop tanks, and did fly at 30,000 feet. Range just isn't such a simple thing, and some people latch on to outstanding numbers that aren't necessarily representative.

Thats a fair point - but is it such a leap that had the need been identifed earlier then 1000 mile range Vampires might have been operational as Escorts in 1945?
 
How does this come about? One possibility that I can think of is greater interest in their application to naval aircraft because of the reduced fire hazard. That might come about in a timeline where the Royal Navy expands its aircraft carrier force to the limits allowed by the Washington and First London Naval Treaties.

If there is a larger FAA and more cash available for R&D turboprop engines for naval aircraft might be what the extra money was spent on. IIRC from the British official history of the design and development of weapons the Air Ministry stopped working on gas turbines in 1926. Therefore ITTL the POD could be that work on gas turbines continued after 1926.
 
Thats a fair point - but is it such a leap that had the need been identifed earlier then 1000 mile range Vampires might have been operational as Escorts in 1945?

Indeed! My mistake. Of course, they would have come up with Venom by then, with tip tanks and perhaps high-bypass turbofans. Sometimes, I suffer from tunnel vision and fail to see the big picture. They would even create a re-starter for the Vampire so it could re-light the engine if the flame went out.

With a pre-war start to jet engine development, Germany would have a chance to stockpile all those metals required for those high-temp alloys they hadn't developed yet.
 
How does this come about? One possibility that I can think of is greater interest in their application to naval aircraft because of the reduced fire hazard. That might come about in a timeline where the Royal Navy expands its aircraft carrier force to the limits allowed by the Washington and First London Naval Treaties.

If there is a larger FAA and more cash available for R&D turboprop engines for naval aircraft might be what the extra money was spent on. IIRC from the British official history of the design and development of weapons the Air Ministry stopped working on gas turbines in 1926. Therefore ITTL the POD could be that work on gas turbines continued after 1926.

I've always wondered what would have happened if the RN had been able to keep control of the RNAS in 1918.
If Whittle had decided to join the Navy in those circumstances, he would have been in an organisation that had institutional experience with high pressure turbines and still had it's own organic air service. It may have been possible to get Naval jet fighters and turboprop patrol bombers by 1940.
 
Indeed! My mistake. Of course, they would have come up with Venom by then, with tip tanks and perhaps high-bypass turbofans. Sometimes, I suffer from tunnel vision and fail to see the big picture. They would even create a re-starter for the Vampire so it could re-light the engine if the flame went out.

With a pre-war start to jet engine development, Germany would have a chance to stockpile all those metals required for those high-temp alloys they hadn't developed yet.

Thats the Spirit!
 
Thats the Spirit!

And yet my tunnel vision mirrors those who attended the 5th Volta Conference in 1935, with presentations by Jacobs, Ackaret, Prandl and Busemann, on topics dealing with high-speed flight. Theodore von Karman recalled an Italian sketching what he called a Busemann airplane on the back of the menu card. He chuckled, and forgot about it. Two of the presenters talked of supersonic wind tunnels, and yet the British wind tunnel which validated Sydney Camm's Hurricane, with its 19% thickness/chord ratio wing, was not proven crap until 1942. Perhaps, they should have attended, and taken notes.
 

CalBear

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The US wishes its main service fighter in 1940 was the P40! ;)

While I get your point and its a fair one - the British fighters had 8 guns with very high RPM MGs and the RAF had considered this barely adequate

They wanted Cannon pre - war and while they went about it in a odd and inefficient way - they did eventually get to where they wanted to be and went 'mostly' cannon by mid war.

And poor old Brewster - at one point the Buffalo was the best fighter in the USN and had a superior performance to the earlier F4 Wildcats.

Poor old Brewster? More like poor customers.

The company was so flat out incompetent that the FBI actually conducted a spy hunt at the factory. They could not believe that there was any way that a company could put out such crappy product without having intentional sabotage.

Brewster managed to go bankrupt, as an arms manufacturer DURING a total war, when the U.S. government was throwing money at anything that could be painted Fleet Blue, Olive Green, or Steel Gray.

One of the worst managed manufacturing businesses of the 20th Century.
 
My question is, why does anybody do this? What's the benefit?

Fast-climbing interceptor? Build P-38s or something. Heavy armament? Not before mid-'42 or so; RAF was fixated on .303s.
 
Poor old Brewster? More like poor customers.

The company was so flat out incompetent that the FBI actually conducted a spy hunt at the factory. They could not believe that there was any way that a company could put out such crappy product without having intentional sabotage.

Brewster managed to go bankrupt, as an arms manufacturer DURING a total war, when the U.S. government was throwing money at anything that could be painted Fleet Blue, Olive Green, or Steel Gray.

One of the worst managed manufacturing businesses of the 20th Century.

I would like to formally apologise if my post in any way gave the impression that I was suggesting that Brewster's was a good company or was well run and I am mortified that I may have caused you some distress as a result.

However the Buffalo when introduced in 1939 could have /might have been a contender...... and in the right hands with unnecessary equipment removed (like half of its fuel and ammo, Armour, some guns and the Dinghy) could mix it up with the Zero.

The Finns liked it as well.

And if there is one thing I've learned in life it never argue with a Finn.
 
My question is, why does anybody do this? What's the benefit?

Fast-climbing interceptor? Build P-38s or something. Heavy armament? Not before mid-'42 or so; RAF was fixated on .303s.

I keep hearing this British "fixated on the .303" thing - its not true - it was a stop gap - the RAF realised that Machine guns were unlikely to down a bomber by the late 30s and even after upping from 2 to 4 then to 8 guns where looking to get 20mm cannon on all of their fighters - but went about it in an odd and craptastic fashion and didn't get properly sorted until 42

If you look at what planes were armed with in 1939 then you can probably lay that MG fixated tag on all of the Principle air forces

Bf109 A to E - many of these were built with 2 or 4 Machine guns and after hearing that the British were fitting their Aircraft with 8 guns the Germans upped the guns to 2 MGs and 2 Cannon with mixed results - only by May 1940 were nearly all were being built or subsequently modified to the E4 Standard - 2 MGs and 2 cannon

P36 Hawk had 1 .50 cal MG and 1 .30 cal MG

Fiat G.50 - had 2 machine guns

M.S. 406 - 1 cannon and 2 MGs

Nakajima Ki-27 - 2 x 7.7mm Machine guns

As for the British they managed to get 4 x 20mm cannon into the nose of a Whirlwind by 1940.
 
Especially considering this beauty; link is to a modelling site with a picture and description- http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234937581-english-electric-p10-sr2/

could be considered, in fact, a jet- Ramjet, yet- powered biplane. Burning chamber for the jets is the space between the wings; and odder still, considering the design team, this is effectively Grandson of Whirlwind. Take just a teensy ittle tad of development to get from here to there, though.

Back on topic- cannon; there was a specification issued for a cannon armed fighter in may 1935, F.37.35, with several designs proposed including basically a twin engined Spitfire, Supermarine 313, which probably should have got the nod. Problems were at factory floor level, not at the ministry. (For once.)
 
In Europe early jets aren't going to do much because Britain and Germany will pretty much cancel each other out. However in the Pacific things would be very different. Japan matching Britain and maybe the US for jets by late 1941 was implausible because they didn't even have the metallurgy to make powerful piston engines. So a few squadrons of Pioneer or Meteor F1 or F3 would be untouchable to the Japanese Oscars and Zeros and within the limits of their range hold air superiority pretty easily.
 
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