Faster development for British Jets

From Air Vectors

"By October 1940, the Air Ministry was interested enough in the Whittle engine to arrange for production of the W.2B by Rover. Unfortunately, the term "misarranged" is probably more appropriate, since Power Jets and Rover worked at all times at cross purposes, with the confusion aggravated by contrary instructions from the British Ministry of Production. The jet engine development effort slowly strangled on its own red tape until 1942, when Rolls-Royce's Ernest Hives took S.B. Wilks of Rover out to lunch and, as the story has it, asked Wilks: "Give us this jet job and we'll give you our tank-engine factory in Nottingham."
Rolls-Royce wanted the jet engine and knew what they wanted to do with it, and indeed, beyond the end of the millennium, still does. In fact, the company's own engineering staff had been working on jet propulsion since 1939, and in making the swap Rover was giving away something they didn't really want, while Rolls-Royce was obtaining a treasure.
A W.2B engine, plugged into the tail of a Vickers Wellington bomber, was test-flown that November, and after further improvements was test-flown in the second G.40 Gloster Whittle in March 1943. The W.2B was providing 7.11 kN (725 kgp / 1,600 lbf) thrust by this time. Rolls-Royce worked with Whittle to finally get an uprated version of the W.2B engine in production as the "Welland I".
* The Whittle WU, W.1, and W.2B were all "centrifugal-flow" engines, which used a turbine similar to a pump impeller to force air into a set of combustion chambers or "combustors" ringed around the engine core. The flow of air went through the combustors from back to front, with such a "reverse flow" arrangement reducing the length of the engine. These engines had only the broadest resemblance to a modern military turbojet engine, but the same design concepts would not be out of place in a modern helicopter turboshaft engine.
Rolls-Royce then reworked the Whittle design to feature straight-through air flow through the combustors and better fuel and oil systems, resulting in the "Derwent I", providing 8.83 kN (900 kgp / 2,000 lbf) thrust. The Derwent was refined in various versions up to the Mark IV, which provided 10.8 kN (1,100 kgp / 2,450 lbf) thrust.
* Stanley Hooker, who had been in charge of the Rolls-Royce design team that refined the Derwent, visited the US in the spring of 1944 and found that the General Electric company was developing two turbojet engines with thrust ratings of 17.6 kN (1,800 kgp / 4,000 lbf) or higher. Hooker, realizing that the British had been thinking small, went back to Britain and initiated a fast-track project to build a new, much more powerful centrifugal-flow engine. The result was the "RB.41 Nene", which was first bench-tested in October 1944 and provided 22.3 kN (2,270 kgp / 5,000 lbf) thrust. The Nene was the world's most powerful engine at the time, and it was also simple, cheap, and reliable. The Nene was manufactured in large numbers, with versions made in Canada, Australia, France, the US, and the USSR.
The Nene was such a good engine that Rolls-Royce decided to build a scaled-down version, which was designated the "Derwent 5", though it had little direct relationship to earlier Derwent marks. The Derwent 5 was first bench-tested in June 1945, with the test engine providing 11.8 kN (1,200 kgp / 2,650 lbf) thrust.
* In the meantime, since early 1941 de Havilland had been working on their own centrifugal-flow turbojet engine -- derived from earlier Whittle patents, not the W.1 design. The result was the de Havilland "Halford H.1", which was first bench-tested in April 1942. By late 1943, the H.1 had been refined into the "Goblin" engine, which provided 10.2 kN (1,040 kgp / 2,300 lbf) thrust and would power the de Havilland Vampire fighter. "

So, the POD is simple. Rolls Royce gets the job to produce Jet Engines from the start. This shaves at least one full year off development cycle. This gives a production Derwent in 1943, and a Nene and Derwent V in 1944. The Meteor F3 goes into action in late 1943 over France and in mid 1944 we have the Meteor F4 and the Nene Powered Vampire F2. Consequences for the LW?
 
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A lot more brown pants and red shirts. Beyond that, well a lot less V1s are landing for a start, the Typhoons were only just fast enough to catch them and even then they'd have to be in the air, but the Meteor, with a speed advantage of more than 180 mph over either, is going to be a lot better.

Mind you, the Vampire's a carrier bird, so it's not going to be just the Luftwaffe feeling the effect.
 
A lot more brown pants and red shirts. Beyond that, well a lot less V1s are landing for a start, the Typhoons were only just fast enough to catch them and even then they'd have to be in the air, but the Meteor, with a speed advantage of more than 180 mph over either, is going to be a lot better.

Mind you, the Vampire's a carrier bird, so it's not going to be just the Luftwaffe feeling the effect.

The Vampire was a lot more than a carrier bird. Ir was arguably the world's best fighter bomber of the 40s. Swiss vampires served until 1968. The Vampire F2 had a 2000Kg thrust engine on a aircraft that weighted a little more than 3000kg empty and great handling, so if carrier Vampire's were deployed in the Pacific in 1944 the IJN was in for a major shock. But range issues would prevent it from replacing Hellcats, Corsairs, Seafires and Fireflys as the RN primary carrier fighters.
 
Yeah, but the Swiss picked up the FB-6 not the F-2. And yes, range was a problem, although that's probably academic if they end up being used as say CAS.
 
Yeah, but the Swiss picked up the FB-6 not the F-2. And yes, range was a problem, although that's probably academic if they end up being used as say CAS.

The F2 was the first with the Nene. With provision for ground attack, it would have been equivalent to the Australian FB31, and arguably superior to the Goblin 3 (only 1500Kg of thrust) powered FB6. An easy aircraft to operate, it could have acelerated the destruction of LW air oposition over France and Italy within its range limits.
 
By mid '44 the Luftwaffe's almost gone anyway though isn't it?

Over ranges were early jets are an issue, pretty much, yes. The late model Allied piston powered fighters were superior to German ones, trainning of allied pilots was vastly superior, so except for a handful of "experten" the early arrival of Vampires over France would turn what was allready a dark picture for the Germans into a positively black one...
It would have a vast psychological efect. It would remove the German faith in wonderweapons for good, for starters.
 
The Vampire was a lot more than a carrier bird. Ir was arguably the world's best fighter bomber of the 40s. Swiss vampires served until 1968. The Vampire F2 had a 2000Kg thrust engine on a aircraft that weighted a little more than 3000kg empty and great handling, so if carrier Vampire's were deployed in the Pacific in 1944 the IJN was in for a major shock. But range issues would prevent it from replacing Hellcats, Corsairs, Seafires and Fireflys as the RN primary carrier fighters.

If I remember correctly, carriers also needed some (not major) modifications to operate jets effectively. Given that the RN didn't seem to have a lot of time to spare for overhauls of her major units (or got the US to do it for them), would there have been time enough even with a Vampire in service in 1944 to get a carrier refitted?
 
If I remember correctly, carriers also needed some (not major) modifications to operate jets effectively. Given that the RN didn't seem to have a lot of time to spare for overhauls of her major units (or got the US to do it for them), would there have been time enough even with a Vampire in service in 1944 to get a carrier refitted?

For small light jets like the Vampire, it was an easy job. Mixing jets with props was not really practical, diferent fuel, etc, but a dedicated jet carrier in a task group could be used to get an extra edge in Air to Air combat. And putting a squadron of Vampires on a fleet carrier was not hard.
 
Followed the breadcrumbs from What If: Earlier Jets...

I'd be interested to see where both of these go.
 
The biggest problem with British jets wasn't the engines but the airframes. More powerful engines will be hamstrung until it is shown what long nacelles do for mach number and a new rear fuselage (F Mk8) is produced.
 
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