The chief attribute the liaison/observation aircraft needs is the ability to operate from a farmer's field. It needs about 150hp and high lift wings with flaps and slats. Speed in unimportant, armament largely useless and must be no more difficult to maintain than a car. The best in the world for the role in the 1930's and 40's is the Fiesler Storch which even if you can't get a licence for is easy to
No Westland Lysander, Army gets two A/C types instead
- Thread starter tomo pauk
- Start date
From what I know, Lysander was able to carry a pilot and a passenger/observer, or pilot + a stretcher. Similar was the Fi 156.
Lysander, on the other hand, was also able to carry heavier external payload and was much more rangier.
Engine stipulated is max 350 HP type. That means the A-S Cheetah (probably the best choice), Napier Rapier (probably the worst, but it is not required for anything important), DH Gipsy engines or Bristol Neptune (low on power, but should suffice for a pilot+passenger A/C type), Bristol Neptune (if it is in series production).
The more powerful engines, like the Cheetah, Rapier or Neptune should be enough to power a 4-seat aircraft, something like the Vigilant, or the high-wing offspring of the Staggerwing.
I wrote an alt post about the Swordfish design being leveraged for close air support and liaison called a Fairey Claymore
And the Battle / Fulmar becoming a multirole carrier plane for the RN (effectively replacing the Swordfish/Fulmar/Skua on British carriers) - out of scope for this discussion of course.
Later in the war Miles produced this for the liaison role. It's a development of the pre-war Miles Whitney Straight via the Miles Mercury. They got in trouble for it because they did it without permission.
en.wikipedia.org
Miles Messenger - Wikipedia
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Looking at the applications of the Cheetah on wikipedia there's an interesting postwar british utility aircraft called the Edgar Percival E.P.9
How would have something in that sort of configuration with 1 pilot/1 passenger up front, with a rear cargo area with clamshell doors for 700kg of cargo, 2 stretchers or 4 passengers have worked in the role? Speed seems to have been in the right ballpark, but it's a bit bigger than the AOP.
Edit: Seems like it'd have been better than the Lysander in terms of supporting the French resistance, assuming sufficient STOL performance was possible
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Decided to have a go at doodling two light utility aircraft inspired by the above prompt with the bronco and EP9 being the main two inspirations.
Both are high-wing, twin-boom, twin engined aircraft of canvas and metal frame construction with fixed tricycle landing gear and rear clamshell doors with a top speed of 135-150mph. The top one is powered by any approx 150hp /115cm diameter radial engine (There's a few options) with say 250 sq ft of wing, and the bottom one is powered by AS Cheetah engines with say 350 sq ft. The bottom one could probably mount a dorsal turret easily enough, and both I can see being adapted to floats or skis.
Applications that come to mind:
Both are high-wing, twin-boom, twin engined aircraft of canvas and metal frame construction with fixed tricycle landing gear and rear clamshell doors with a top speed of 135-150mph. The top one is powered by any approx 150hp /115cm diameter radial engine (There's a few options) with say 250 sq ft of wing, and the bottom one is powered by AS Cheetah engines with say 350 sq ft. The bottom one could probably mount a dorsal turret easily enough, and both I can see being adapted to floats or skis.
Applications that come to mind:
- SOE support, both would be far better than the lysander at dropping or landing agents into France
- Liason
- Light Transport, the bottom one should be capable of transporting a full merlin engine with a payload of 800-900kg? Even post D-Day, these could be useful for aerial resupply.
- Medical evacuation, of which the top is probably better suited to than the bottom one.
- After Dunkirk, a few probably get bomb racks and MGs to turn them into beach strafers considering even the tiger moth was considered for that
- ASW, fit the bottom one with auxiliary fuel tanks and depth charges and it can patrol for hours
Well if you want a light transport to support the Army at the front you need to prompt Miles to produce this 5 or 6 years early.
en.wikipedia.org
Miles Aerovan - Wikipedia
Another post-war type, and workmanlike, too: DHC Beaver.
1+6 men for the Mk.II, or pilot + 2100 lbs of cargo, on 450 HP; the late-1930s aircraft of similar size can use 350 HP Cheetah and carry perhaps 1+4, or 1+ 1200-1500 lbs? Enough also for medevac or very valuable material, like spare parts, radios, batteries, special ammo etc.
1+6 men for the Mk.II, or pilot + 2100 lbs of cargo, on 450 HP; the late-1930s aircraft of similar size can use 350 HP Cheetah and carry perhaps 1+4, or 1+ 1200-1500 lbs? Enough also for medevac or very valuable material, like spare parts, radios, batteries, special ammo etc.
There is no practical reason why if the need was perceived, why both the aerovan and its four engine big brother the merchantman could not be designed and built in the 1930's .
The problem is getting someone in the AM to actually have the imagination to write a requirement for them, there in lies the problem
The problem is getting someone in the AM to actually have the imagination to write a requirement for them, there in lies the problem
I'm not sure whether it was AM or War Ministry, but someone tried to have a do-everything aircraft in a single type even against a peer opponent. That didn't worked back in ww1, and it will not pass any serious test in the 1930s.
A dedicated transport like the above Miles designs are not a 'do every thing' aircraft, a bomber transport like the Bombay is more in that line.
The JU 52 started as a bomber transport and became the backbone of the Luftwaffe air transport capability.
The JU 52 started as a bomber transport and became the backbone of the Luftwaffe air transport capability.
I'd argue that Britain had a very good "Do Anything" Aircraft in the 1930's. The Hawker Hart/Hind family did every job but transport and torpedo bomber, and did those jobs very well. Fighter, Bomber, Naval strike fighter and scout, Army Co-operation, trainer. The only thing wrong with them was they were kept in service too long seeing front line use in East Africa as late as 1941.
Hawker Hart - Wikipedia
Just based on this thread, was there ever any debate in England about splitting the air forces into a Strategic Air Force (for strategic bombing and the halting of opposing nation's strategic bombing of the UK) and an Army-managed Tactical Air Force (for defense of army units, tactical bombing of opposition land forces, artillery spotting, transportation, etc.)?
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FWIW introduce the Auster a few years earlier is my "solution of choice". This is the relevant section of Post 15.
If anything it was too good as a fighter (Demon) and naval strike fighter (Osprey) because that's part of the reason why we got the Defiant and Roc.
According to my British Military Serials spreadsheet 2,716 members of the Hart family were built for the RAF & FAA with the aircraft built by Armstrong-Whitworth, Avro, Boulton-Paul, Bristol, Gloster, Vickers and Westland as well as Hawker. That included 878 army co-operation versions (653 Audaxes, 47 Hardys (or should that be Hardies) and 178 Hectors) which is nearly a third of all members of the Hart family.
I'd argue that Britain had a very good "Do Anything" Aircraft in the 1930's. The Hawker Hart/Hind family did every job but transport and torpedo bomber, and did those jobs very well. Fighter, Bomber, Naval strike fighter and scout, Army Co-operation, trainer. The only thing wrong with them was they were kept in service too long seeing front line use in East Africa as late as 1941.
Hawker Hart - Wikipedia
Hart was good, but not that good.
As a fighter - it showed to anyone willing to see that biplane fighters are behind the curve. The P-26 was 50 mph faster than the Hart, despite the Peashooter not being that refined a monoplane in the 1st place. Even the biplane Fiat CR.30 was 30 mph faster than the Hart.
tl;dr - when the Hart was seen as an useful fighter in the UK, it was because the current fighter type was outdated, not because Hart was a splendid performer.
Granted, keeping the Hart/Hind family in servicce by 1941 was a mistake.
Not exactly what you meant, but...
Between 1920 and 1925 the Metropolitan Air Force (i.e. the RAF based in the UK) was divided into two commands.
- The Coastal Area which had all the naval co-operation units. These included specialist training formations like the School of Naval Co-operation as well as the the shore-based coastal reconnaissance & torpedo-bomber squadrons and the FAA units when they were ashore.
- The Inland Area that had everything else.
In the reorganisation of 1936 ADGB became Bomber Command, the Coastal Area became Coastal Command and the Inland Area became Training Command. Fighter Command was formed at the same time and No. 11 (Fighter) Group & No. 22 (Army Co-operation) Group were transferred to it.
According to RAFWEB No. 22 (Army Co-operation) Group was raised to Command status on 24.06.40 and expanded to form Army Co-operation Command on 01.12.40.
ADGB/Bomber Command was the Strategic Air Force and No. 22 (Army Co-operation) Group was the closest that HM Forces had to an Army-managed Tactical Air Force.
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I would swap the Lysander one for one with the Bristol 148, have it built by Westland using the same engines as allocated in OTL production to the Lysander.
Give Miles and Percival a specification for a high wing STOL aircraft using the Gipsy Queen 210hp engine, Basically a high wing Miles Whitney Strait or Percival Proctor as your flying OP.
Give Miles and Percival a specification for a high wing STOL aircraft using the Gipsy Queen 210hp engine, Basically a high wing Miles Whitney Strait or Percival Proctor as your flying OP.
Does that mean that there's an Army Aviation equivalent of the Inskip Award ITTL? That is the Army Co-operation squadrons are transferred from the RAF to the Army in the second half of the 1930s?