The motorjet was a perfectly reasonable idea at the time, and it was definitely not a problem to build an experimental aircraft to see whether it had merit in the real world. Anything that was only an experimental or test plane shouldn't be in this thread unless it was patently a bad idea even without the benefit of hindsight.
Military Aircraft that should have never been built?
- Thread starter S. Marlowski
- Start date
What about the "Bomber Destroyer," the Bell YMF-1 Aircuda? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_YFM-1_Airacuda
Here is one plane that thankfully never entered service.
Thankfully, only a pair were converted to the F-84H "Thunderscreech" configuration. Ground crews complained about painful noise levels. Republic learned why not to bother with supersonic propellers.
To this day, no one has learned how to turn a profit with supersonic propellers. The fastest turboprops are all sub-sonic (see Tupolev Bear bomber).
As @riggerrob noted, the concept of the "Thunderscreech" experiment was to have propellers that operated at supersonic speeds, and the approach, if I understand it at all correctly, was the rather radical one of spinning the short blades so fast that even at zero airspeed on the runway (or carrier deck, part of the idea was to achieve jet like performance with propeller like high thrust for take off and landing) the roots of the props were already going well above Mach 1. That's why the blades could not be too long; if the root of the blade is going well past the transonic range (above Mach 1.2 or so) obviously if we greatly multiply the radius the tips are going at approaching hypersonic speeds and melting!
So the propeller blades are not subsonic airfoils nor meant to try to cheat the transonic zone with sweep; they are designed to be past the transonic zone on the supersonic side. Supersonic airfoils are a different breed of cat; the blades are like miniature F-104 wings, very sharp leading and trailing edges, simple wedge or convex shape. The idea being, a propeller that starts out with parts of it having subsonic flow and parts being supersonic will have the godawful high drag and low lift and other nasty phenomena associated with the transonic transition range, but if the slowest airflow on the blades is already past transsonic, it will stay in a smoother more predictable and less terribly behaved region even if the airplane should happen to reach Mach 1 or exceed it. Of course being a pre-Century fighter, no one expected any variation of this Republic model to actually break the sound barrier in level flight. The idea though was to have a propeller that would not care if the plane came near sonic speed, as I am sure you could readily understand how any conventional plane prop would.
No one ever explained exactly why the prop produced such godawful noise. From descriptions I have read it was not just the magnitude of the noise that was a problem, but aspects of its sound quality--it caused severe gastric distress--"brown notes" and other havoc with ground crew (dunno if the pilot got any of this side effect).
My guess is that it was fundamental to the nature of the project; the magnitude and nature of the noise related to shock waves radiating from the prop. Presumably drag and therefore torque required was high due to irreversible shock heating, but I think if the noise and other vibration related problems had been something that could have been dealt with, the concept was not a bad one. The prop would create thrust with acceptable efficiency at all speeds, from static thrust to supersonic; I think the substantially larger mass flow would offset any extra inefficiency due to shock heating. It was the noise that terminated the project.
My short list
Short Sterling. Even if it could be justified if the Manchester failed it should have dropped when the Lanc was available
Curtis Seamew
Anything by Brewster post 1938
Curtis Helldiver. Could a navalized P-47 have done the job
Consolidated B-32 Dominator. It even looks like it was built out of the spares box.
Now aircraft that should have been built
An A-10 for Marine service
The Rotodyne. Think some of the V-22 capability 40 years earlier.
Short Sterling. Even if it could be justified if the Manchester failed it should have dropped when the Lanc was available
Curtis Seamew
Anything by Brewster post 1938
Curtis Helldiver. Could a navalized P-47 have done the job
Consolidated B-32 Dominator. It even looks like it was built out of the spares box.
Now aircraft that should have been built
An A-10 for Marine service
The Rotodyne. Think some of the V-22 capability 40 years earlier.
Plus, the Finns were a small, dedicated and professional force who fought the Soviet Air Force, a much less professional and skilled enemy. The American pilots wound up facing the much better trained and experienced Japanese pilots who tore them to shreds until the Americans could get more experienced pilots and better planes in the air.
I heard the F/A-18 was the result of politics. Basically, due to inter-service rivalry, the Navy wanted a plane they could call their own, and thus broke away when the USAF took the F-16 Falcon and went after the F-17. Furthermore, the F-17 was designed by Northrop, who got on the Navy's bad side during the Admirals' Revolt, so the USN effectively took the plane from them, and gave it to people they liked better; McDonnel-Douglas (Hornet) and Boeing (Super Hornet).
There was one joke associated with the B-36. For most bombers of the time, the term was 'two burning and two turning' (i.e. two going full power and two others shifting speed to allow turning). For the B-36? "Two turning, two burning, two smoking, two joking, and two unaccounted for'. The damn thing was so over-complicated for its time it was utterly unreliable; it would take a few more decades to get giant strategic bombers right.
The noise was so bad on that one people were shitting themselves, literally. Way too much vibration and bass, it literally caused massive discomfort to everyone in range of it, pilot included. 'Thunderscreech' was an apt name.Here is one plane that thankfully never entered service.
The aircraft might be subsonic but the propeller tips are not. They routinely exceed Mach 1 with a fair amount of ease/brute strength.
I disagree with the Sterling being on the list. It was basically a good design and proved the worth of the four engine bomber and did Sterling work till the end of the war (pun intended). The Lancaster only happened due to the failure of the Manchester. Now if the Sterling had been built to the Original S29 design instead of having some twelve foot chopped of the wingspan by the Dorks then residing in the Air Ministry it could well have gone on to greater fame.
One of the big driving factors behind the second generation of Tomcat and A-6 for that matter was to drive the maintenance way way down. In Tomcats case a HUGE part of the cost savings would have been from replacing the maintenance heavy engine.
And looking at one aspect only (maintainability cost) vs full life cycle is a bit biased. And frankly could sque things very easily. You need to take in things like the fact that you. billion plus carrier with its thousands of crew members has to get closer to shore and you have to run more refueling missions. So you are killing other aircraft life cycle hours. As well as maintenance cost of the adit fueling mission hours.
I have often wondered if the whole litororial combat bit wasn’t started I r at least influenced by having to bring your battle group in a bit closer to try and get a bit more range inland..
And if you rebuid/ Redesign the F-14 as extensively as Hornet/Super Hornet then you sure could radically cut costs.
Replace the Avionics and the engines and the cost is going to drop like a rock. Remember that Hornet is a generation newer the Tomcat and Super Hornet a generation after that. So you have a lot of room for improvement. And if you go as radical as Super Hornets Redisign you can do almost anything you want as long as you keep twin tails and wildly spaced engines. You could dump any one of the following if you really wanted. 2nd crew member, or even the swing wing itself. The sky is the limit really.
Add in you have to consider what that aditional money buys you. More range, spread, better air suppiorority combat abilities and more ordinance per flight, to name but a few.
The Navy originally expect it was getting an ATF variation but had that rug pulled out from under them. And Super Hornet is NOT a replacement for Tomcat much less an F-22. And getting forced to dump Tomcat for Super Hornet did not help. I don’t think you will find very many folks that will tell you that a carrier with Super Hornets is a better/more effective weapon in Combat then one with A-6 and F-14s. Much less improved models of those that got the Super Hornet level of revamping.
The reality is that am improved F14 and A-6 glass aircraft equipped carrier is just simply a more effective weapon then a Super Hornet only Carrier.
Dont get me wrong and improved F-14 is not the perfect solution and it has its issues as well but it is a better solution the Super Hornet and when your Airfield cost billions has a crew of thousands and can SINK that can be VERY important.
And as for cost. Nothing is as expensive as having the second best fighter in a combat mission. And do you really think that a Super Hornet can take a modern fighter in a fair fight? The US has been very lucky the last 25 years in never having to go against someone with modernfighters but someday that will change and then the Super Hornet is going to get VERY expensive and the cost is going to be in lives not dollars. And we better hop it is just air crews and not carrier crews.
And looking at one aspect only (maintainability cost) vs full life cycle is a bit biased. And frankly could sque things very easily. You need to take in things like the fact that you. billion plus carrier with its thousands of crew members has to get closer to shore and you have to run more refueling missions. So you are killing other aircraft life cycle hours. As well as maintenance cost of the adit fueling mission hours.
I have often wondered if the whole litororial combat bit wasn’t started I r at least influenced by having to bring your battle group in a bit closer to try and get a bit more range inland..
And if you rebuid/ Redesign the F-14 as extensively as Hornet/Super Hornet then you sure could radically cut costs.
Replace the Avionics and the engines and the cost is going to drop like a rock. Remember that Hornet is a generation newer the Tomcat and Super Hornet a generation after that. So you have a lot of room for improvement. And if you go as radical as Super Hornets Redisign you can do almost anything you want as long as you keep twin tails and wildly spaced engines. You could dump any one of the following if you really wanted. 2nd crew member, or even the swing wing itself. The sky is the limit really.
Add in you have to consider what that aditional money buys you. More range, spread, better air suppiorority combat abilities and more ordinance per flight, to name but a few.
The Navy originally expect it was getting an ATF variation but had that rug pulled out from under them. And Super Hornet is NOT a replacement for Tomcat much less an F-22. And getting forced to dump Tomcat for Super Hornet did not help. I don’t think you will find very many folks that will tell you that a carrier with Super Hornets is a better/more effective weapon in Combat then one with A-6 and F-14s. Much less improved models of those that got the Super Hornet level of revamping.
The reality is that am improved F14 and A-6 glass aircraft equipped carrier is just simply a more effective weapon then a Super Hornet only Carrier.
Dont get me wrong and improved F-14 is not the perfect solution and it has its issues as well but it is a better solution the Super Hornet and when your Airfield cost billions has a crew of thousands and can SINK that can be VERY important.
And as for cost. Nothing is as expensive as having the second best fighter in a combat mission. And do you really think that a Super Hornet can take a modern fighter in a fair fight? The US has been very lucky the last 25 years in never having to go against someone with modernfighters but someday that will change and then the Super Hornet is going to get VERY expensive and the cost is going to be in lives not dollars. And we better hop it is just air crews and not carrier crews.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Yes you could radically cut costs, Super Hornet cut 25% of maintenance costs, I was assuming 58-42% cost reductions over the D model Tomcat when I did my math. Hence why I said I was being conservative, if I wasn't you could be talking a Quarter Billion per aircraft in lifetime maintenance cost in favor of the Super Hornet. Cost per flight hour is the main driving cost for full lifecycle assuming similar acquisition costs ( and the more radical Tomcat variants were rather more expensive)
Hornet and Tomcat are both 4th gen Platform's, Super Hornet is 4.5 Gen, F-22 and 35 are 5th gen
And you have to consider where are you getting that additional money from? What are you giving up to get that?
Tomcat Squadrons that didn't get inactivated transferred to Super Hornet so yes it was the replacement. F-22 is an Air force platform and not really relevant. NATF was dead before the decision to make Super Hornet over Tomcat was made, and probably a good thing. A Super Hornet equipped carrier is most certainly better than a Tomcat/Intruder equipped, as the Super Hornet's electronics and munitions are much newer. Against upgraded A-6's and F-14's, depends on what metric, unconcerned by budgets the A-6/F-14 is better, concerned by budgets, the Super Hornet may be better as one would have to cut airwing numbers to the bone to afford them, it depends on the exact costings, which are complicated to calculate, but you don't want to take a 24 aircraft wing against a 48 aircraft wing even with better aircraft, wheras a 40 vs 48 matchup is good enough
Improved F-14 is a much worse solution than Super Hornet, given the budgets to pay for that require cutting a lot more elsewhere. How low is airwing size going to have to go to pay for that? Super Hornet is not a perfect solution, but with budgets as they were, it is a better compromise
Super Hornet is competitive enough against its contemporaries (Typhoon, Rafale, Gripen). It's not as good as next gen Fighters (F-22, F-35) but the F-35C is already in squadron service for that. Cost is relevant as that determines how many you have and what you have supporting them
Yes dear Saint 007,
Perhaps we were too harsh on the F-86H Thundersreech.
Building a pair for flight testing was the correct move. The USAF was also wise to terminate the program after encountering problems during test flights. They were never going to learn how badly noise affected ground crew until they got one or two on the tarmac.
Many new concepts deserve a prototype or two, but not production.
Perhaps we were too harsh on the F-86H Thundersreech.
Building a pair for flight testing was the correct move. The USAF was also wise to terminate the program after encountering problems during test flights. They were never going to learn how badly noise affected ground crew until they got one or two on the tarmac.
Many new concepts deserve a prototype or two, but not production.
Planet of Hats
Donor
I was wondering when the Firebrand would show its face in here. The fact that they actually fielded the thing at all, despite the myriad delays and changes in its development process, still baffles me somewhat. Totally my pick.
As I understand it the tips of the Bear's props normally exceed the speed of sound in operation but the fact that they are counter-rotating pairs (and therefore you have overlapping opposing shock waves) keeps them from becoming noise and/or structureal problems.
As I understand it the C-133 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_C-133_Cargomaster) had a similar problem in that the propeller tips often exceeded the speed of sound causing vibration and other issues.
Thanks, didn't now that stuff though to be fair I DID try and do a lot of research on the "Thunderscreech" once it was used as an example of supersonic propeller's during discussions on the Roton concept.
Had to be the shockwaves blending and reflecting from the ground and aircraft structure into 'uncomfortable' frequencies. Oddly none of the pilot reports I've seen have them really even noticing the noise or reporting any discomfort. Similarly anyone standing directly in front or behind the aircraft didnt' have issues OTHER than the noise level.
I'm not so sure the 'noise' could be solved since it's an effect of travelling at supersonic speed, but as I noted the basis of the original Roton concept was a very high speed rocket powered rotor the was expected to push the vehicle to supersonic speeds inside the atmosphere. HIgh speed props (or as they more technically known "Un-Ducted Fans") were heavily studied in the 70s and early 80s but few have actually flown and all have the 'scimitar' shape to delay going supersonic BECAUSE of the known noise issues. So I guess we can thank the "Thunderscreech" for that at least
Randy
SsgtC
Banned
This is actually a myth. American and Japanese pilots, in the early stages of the war, were equally well trained. And once the USN worked out the tactics, even the supposedly inferior Wildcat could tear through a Japanese Zero formation. The problem was, early in the war, that the USN did not believe that the A6M was in service on Japan's carriers. They were expecting to still fight Claudes, which the Wildcat could literally fly circles around. So the Zero came as a shock thanks to Naval Intelligence missing it. Once American pilots saw the Zero's handicaps, they very rapidly worked out how to beat it (Thatch weave, Boom and Zoom).
I'd argue the B32 is only a waste in hindsight. The basic reason for it's existence was that the B29 program was pretty buggy and there was some real concern that it wouldn't be capable of actually seeing service and fulfilling it's primary mission (bombing Japan). So the B32 program (which admittedly was also pretty buggy and near mediocre) continued to give the US a opt out if the B29 turned out to be a bust. Obviously we know now the B29 ended up being a pretty good aircraft (still kind of buggy and obviously needed to be Silverplated to carry Fat Man/ Little Boy) and the B32 wasn't needed. Yet at the period that the B32 got approved/ developed the rationale made sense. Of course this was for the US which had the financial, technical, and industrial resources to fund development and production of two new massive cutting edge tech and uber expensive strategic bombers for the same role at the same time. If it was pretty much any other country it wouldn't really have been possible or sane. But this was the US in WW2 the equivalent of a Liger amped up on amphetamines, Steroids, HGH, cocaine, and pure old fashioned American Ass Whuppin'.
Driftless
Donor
Mostly with you here...
A navalized P-47 would have been a very interesting alternative to the SB2C Helldiver.
The Rotodyne should have happened. Maybe it needed to arrive a few years later, after some more technical advances?
The Stirling may have had more use with a wider wingspan, but it was kind redundant in hindsight.
The Rotodyne in military service could have thumbed its nose at the noise issue. Which wasn't as much of an issue as its opponents made it out to be.
P-47s were launched from carrier. How heavily loaded I don't know.
The B-29 and B-32 shared one major issue. The Wright engine. The Allison 24 cylinder might have been a better choice.
I'll add another aircraft to my Short list. The Westland Welkin.
The noise level on the Rotodyne is much overplayed. When they were testing the aircraft, at the Battersea Heliport in London they didn't receive a single complaint about the noise. Today, the V-22 Osprey is in operational service with the USMC it flies routinely with noise levels exceeding the prototype Rotodyne. No complaints there. Fairey Aviation felt they could have licked the noise problem with further research. The world did miss out on an innovative aeroplane with the Rotodyne.