The Lockheed L-133 Starjet and its L-1000 engines. Premature ambition?

Either the engines are at the end of very long intake ducting or the engines are exhausting through very long jet pipes but either way a lot of power would be lost, theres a reason why the first gen jets had podded engines with minimal ducting. Nowadays with 70 years of wind tunnel testing and computer aided design we still dont see many aeroplanes with long tortuous ducts or jet pipes.

Also I dont know if its the picture but those wings look horribly thick. 600mph with wings of a similar profile to a P38 nope nope nope.


Consider the F-100 and the F-8, both of these 1950s fighters had long intake ducting. In the case of the F-8 it was very long more than 40 feet. They weren't the only planes with a long throat.

It's hard to say about the blended airfoil. Wind tunnels tests would have been nice. I'm guessing it could have reached 600 MPH true airspeed at high altitude level flight. Maybe more. I really wonder how it would've behaved in the transonic regimen.
 
The L-1000 never existed, nor ran, in entirety - the PoF exhibit is a Lockheed's own mockup.
My understanding is that it went through at least three major design stages before being sold off to Wright to be developed as the T-35 Turboprop. The PoF example is just one of them. Three later working examples of the J-37/T-35 were eventually delivered to the AF but not until the early 50's when it was no longer needed or competitive.

...very long intake ducting or the engines are exhausting through very long jet pipes...
Long intake ducts, I believe. Something that I am certain would have been discovered in high speed testing and fixed in the pre-production period.

600mph with wings of a similar profile to a P38 nope nope nope.
Again, I think this would have been fixed as soon as more information on Compressibility became available. The 4412 outer wing of the P-38 really wasn't that much of a problem though. Even when the high speed shockwave formed it simply reduced roll response and from the looks of the L-133 design it wouldn't be much different. With the pitch control handled by the canards Mach Tuck / Compressibility Stall shouldn't be an issue. The blended body/wing area should reduce formation of shockwaves at the wing roots and should allow the area to maintain some level of lift even as the wingtips stall out at high speed. The wings definitely need to be improved and replaced but they aren't the most horrible design and shouldn't pose a major roadblock to the airframe.

The bigger concern to me would be the canard design and placement. I think they will need to move them up, above the main wing line, add the intakes behind and below the canards, and most likely make the canards larger.
 
So was the airfoil a 4412 or 65-213? The XP-80 used one airfoil, unknown, and the XP-80A used another, the 65-213. Does a paper airplane have an airfoil? When drawn, the L-133 did not have a 65-213 airfoil.
 
So was the airfoil a 4412 or 65-213? The XP-80 used one airfoil, unknown, and the XP-80A used another, the 65-213. Does a paper airplane have an airfoil? When drawn, the L-133 did not have a 65-213 airfoil.
4412, is my understanding. I have read that the L-133 adapted the outer wings of a P-38. The wing was later reused again in the XP-80 before being replaced in the larger XP-80A, iirc. Incidentally, Johnson again used a scaled up version of the wing n the early Constellation designs...he really liked that wing.
 

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This is a very interesting thread, I haven't much to add except that (IMHO) the real lost opportunity wasn't the L-133 (too radical) but the L-1000. It is a shame it wasn't funded and the bugs ironed out. Imagine a P-80 with a L-1000.

As I said in another thread, first time I heard of the L-1000 was reading this magazine (December 2001)

$_57.JPG


I use that magasine information on the L-1000 for France Fights On. What I did was to give the L-1000 to Turbomeca.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safran_Helicopter_Engines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Szydlowski

Here is how I proceded. In 1938 Szydlowski and Planiol designed an advanced compressor for the D-520. After the French government moves to Algiers in August 1940 (screw Pétain) French engineers are dispactched across the world. There is no aircraft industry in Algeria.
Planiol is send to Lockheed to solve the P-38 compressor issue, since British P-38s were delivered without chargers, ruining the aircraft. Wortking with Lockheed Planiol and Szydlowski discovers the advanced L-1000.
In the end Turbomeca helps developing the L-1000 and (to Marcel Dassault delight) provides an alternative to SNECMA ATAR. In the 50's and beyond derivatives of the L-1000 powers Ouragan, Mystere, Mirage and Etendards.

It is not too much of a stretch compared to OTL. In the 50's SNECMA had the ATAR but they had two competitors. Hispano suiza bought licences on a British jet engines (Nene and Tay) while Turbomeca designed the Gabizo for the SO-4050 Trident, Breguet TAON. But the Gabizo went nowhere, and turbomeca soon got back to helicopter turbines, with tremendous results.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_RB.44_Tay

What is sure is that Dassault hadn't much affection for the Atar and M53, nor for SNECMA. It wasn't until the Rafale M88 that SNECMA was able to build a world-class military turbofan. Even today, the M88 is far less powerful than the EJ-200.
 
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This is a very interesting thread, I haven't much to add except that (IMHO) the real lost opportunity wasn't the L-133 (too radical) but the L-1000. It is a shame it wasn't funded and the bugs ironed out. Imagine a P-80 with a L-1000.

That's how it looks to me too. Getting an engine like that working and in production in 1943 would have been a plus. If it had happened that way however I wonder just how useful the new jet powered fighters, L-133s or some other types, would have been for offensive operations because of their limited range. They would have been perfect used for defensive interceptors. For other types of missions how long the range is the limiting factor. I don't think close support missions would be a good role.

If the Americans had reliable L-1000 engines in full production in 1943 than install them on the B-29. Not sure how many. Would 4 be enough? How about 6 or 8? The B-29 is pressurized so they can happily fly along at 40,000 feet or so cruising at what? 400 MPH? They wouldn't need to redesign the wing to utilize jet engines to gain a better than 100 MPH increase in airspeed. They may have to develop some humongous drop tanks though for those Pacific missions.
 
If the Americans had reliable L-1000 engines in full production in 1943 than install them on the B-29. Not sure how many. Would 4 be enough?

If the US could get the L-1000 debugged, the USAAF pretty much have a working 2/3rds scale J-57 turbojet in 1944

8 J-57s were used on the B-36 to get to the YB-60

Having an engine like that would be huge across the board for Fighters, Attackers and Bombers
 
If the US could get the L-1000 debugged, the USAAF pretty much have a working 2/3rds scale J-57 turbojet in 1944

8 J-57s were used on the B-36 to get to the YB-60

Having an engine like that would be huge across the board for Fighters, Attackers and Bombers

I'd prefer to replace those R-3350 engines entirely. If the L-1000 engine is reliable enough. What it would do to the B-29s' (probably new number) range is a question. I think external droppable tanks could be worked up. With the increased power from an all jet engine version a higher takeoff weight is achievable for carrying more fuel.
 
My previous posting here #29 was meant as a reply to your suggestion instead of marathag.

I'll answer.
I'm guessing, given that the J-52, what that L-1000 would be close in performance to, would be 4 of them, rule of thumb was 6.5 pound of aircraft per pound of thrust
A B-29 had 6800 gallons of fuel, each jet engine would burn around 500 gallons per hour. Using the rear bomb bay with a fuel bladder, that gives you 2800 gallon more

Now how fast would the cruising speed of a Jet B-29 be?

Roughly, Thrust *.66 = HP so four L-1000 at 6700 pounds thrust is 17,688 HP, vs 14,000 HP on B-50 with Wasp Majors, so would be faster, and fly higher where drag is less, but not enough to make up for the thirsty engines, would still be less than the B-29

Now you see why the B-47 was a flying fuel tank, with 17,000 gallons, even though the L-1000 would have at least 30% better fuel economy than the J-47
 
I'll answer.
I'm guessing, given that the J-52, what that L-1000 would be close in performance to, would be 4 of them, rule of thumb was 6.5 pound of aircraft per pound of thrust
A B-29 had 6800 gallons of fuel, each jet engine would burn around 500 gallons per hour. Using the rear bomb bay with a fuel bladder, that gives you 2800 gallon more

Now how fast would the cruising speed of a Jet B-29 be?

Roughly, Thrust *.66 = HP so four L-1000 at 6700 pounds thrust is 17,688 HP, vs 14,000 HP on B-50 with Wasp Majors, so would be faster, and fly higher where drag is less, but not enough to make up for the thirsty engines, would still be less than the B-29

Now you see why the B-47 was a flying fuel tank, with 17,000 gallons, even though the L-1000 would have at least 30% better fuel economy than the J-47


Thanks marathag, you make a believable calculation of the fuel consumption per hour of an ATL B-29 with 4 L-1000s jet engines. About 2000 gallons of fuel per hour at cruise. And faster than OTL B-50. But what do you think its true airspeed at 40,000 feet would be? Than we can pin down the range a little better. Do you think 400 MPH TAS cruise speed at 40,000 fully loaded is too optimistic?
 
Thanks marathag, you make a believable calculation of the fuel consumption per hour of an ATL B-29 with 4 L-1000s jet engines. About 2000 gallons of fuel per hour at cruise. And faster than OTL B-50. But what do you think its true airspeed at 40,000 feet would be? Than we can pin down the range a little better. Do you think 400 MPH TAS cruise speed at 40,000 fully loaded is too optimistic?

I'd say less. The B-45 had 20,800 pounds of thrust for a max load weight of 90,000 pounds it had a 365mph cruise for a 89' wing with 1175sq.ft. wing
A B-50 had 165,000lb MTO for a 141 ft higher aspect wing with 1720Sq.ft. still more surface drag, but a lot less overall from no props, so I'd guess 300mph cruise, vs the OTL 244mph with props only.

Now top speed, I'd say it would be near 500 above 40,000 feet
 
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