Westland Whirlwind fighter for FAA

MatthewB

Banned
Carrying on from https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/ahc-westland-whirlwind-in-faa-service.454480/

Given the LA fighting for the FAA, the Peregine’s flaws at HA can be overlooked.


My fixes....

1) Design and implement serpentine belt fed magazines with belts traveling below and behind pilot, like the B-17 twin .50 cal belts that make several turns from box to gun.

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This will increase the ammunition from 60 rounds per gun. AIUI, this is a real challenge, as no one had made a belt fed version of the Hispano-Suiza 404 cannons. Also we’re impact the CoG, so will need to move the radio, fuel or other weight to the nose.

2) Folding wings. Can we get down to 22ft wide to fit on Ark Royal and the Illustrious class’ narrow lift? Otherwise we’re restricted to the Illustrious larger lift and the Outrageous ships.

3) Fuel sharing valve between wing tanks.

4) Bigger or improved flaps. We need to improve the low speed performance. Otherwise we need the change the wing.

5) RDF feature added to radio. Single crewman capability needed. Another technical challenge to overcome.

6) Need to increase range on both internal and external fuel. Putting fuel in nose would help.

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Zen9

Banned
Well considering the cockpit and visibility over the nose the effort would be worth it. A two seater would be nice as well.
Pretty much resolves a lot but at some increases in costs and resources.
 
Making it a two seater makes it bigger though and its already big and would be cutting down on the number of planes aboard a RN Carrier even more so. And they already had dinky air wings.
 
A navalised Whirlwind might be heavier than the RAF version and it wouldn't be as fast.

The same thing happened when the Fairey P.4/34 was turned into the Fairey Fulmar. The same would have happened with a navalised Hawker Henley, which has been suggested.

A navalised Whirlwind built instead of the Fulmar would have to have a second crewman because the FAA would specify that it needed a navigator. It might also need additional fuel to meet the Royal Navy's range requirements.

Having written all that a navalised Whirlwind would still be faster than the Fulmar and possibly as fast as the early Fireflies.

The other stumbling blocks are it's size, take-off speed and landing speed. That is what would it's folded wingspan be? Were it's take-off and landing speeds slow enough for it to operate from British aircraft carriers.
 
A navalised Whirlwind might be heavier than the RAF version and it wouldn't be as fast.

The same thing happened when the Fairey P.4/34 was turned into the Fairey Fulmar. The same would have happened with a navalised Hawker Henley, which has been suggested.

A navalised Whirlwind built instead of the Fulmar would have to have a second crewman because the FAA would specify that it needed a navigator. It might also need additional fuel to meet the Royal Navy's range requirements.

Having written all that a navalised Whirlwind would still be faster than the Fulmar and possibly as fast as the early Fireflies.

The other stumbling blocks are it's size, take-off speed and landing speed. That is what would it's folded wingspan be? Were it's take-off and landing speeds slow enough for it to operate from British aircraft carriers.

Aye its basically got the same problems as crop up here;

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/bristol-beaufighter-carrier-variant.469795/

The Beau's a freaking HUGE plane for the period and navalizing the Whirlwind would, as you said, result in a longer, heavier, slower plane. Nowhere near as massive as the Beau, but sure as hell not a small or light thing either.
 
The FAA did accept aircraft with two piston engines later on.

There was the Sea Mosquito, whose wingspan folded from 54ft 2in to 27ft 3in.

The Short Sturgeon's wingspan folded from 59ft 9in to 22ft 5in.

The Thetford's British Naval Aircraft Since 1912 doesn't have a folded wingspan for the Sea Hornet. However, I measured the line drawing of the Sea Hornet and it fold from exactly 45 feet to 27.5 feet.

Thetford doesn't give the folded wingspan of the Fulmar either. However, by measuring the line drawings it folds from 46.5ft to less than 16 feet.

The Firefly Mk 1 folded from 44ft 6in to 13ft 3in.

These measurements are important because the hangars of the Ark Royal and Illustrious class aircraft carriers were 60-62 feet wide.

Therefore they can fit in 4 Fireflies abreast, 3 Fulmars abreast or 2 Sea Mosquitos/Sturgeons/Sea Hornets/Sea Whirlwinds abreast.

I suspect that hangar width is why the later Fairey Gannet had a Double Mamba engine instead of two single Mambas.

The OTL Gannet had a folded wingspan of less than 20 feet so it could be stowed 3 abreast in the Audacious, rebuilt Victorious and Centaur class carriers (hangar width 62-67ft) and two abreast in the Colossus and Majestic classes (hangar width 52ft).

A Gannet with single Mamabas mounted on the wings could have had a wider fuselage with more space for sensors, weapons and a larger crew. However, in common with its contemporary the Grumman Tracker it would have a folded wingspan of about 27.5 feet. Which is only wide enough for 2 abreast in the Audacious, rebuilt Victorious and Centaur classes and one abreast in the Colossus and Majestic classes.
 
The Whirlwinds as wide as the Hornet, a bit shorter (that would change if they put another person in there) but there's no weight on Wiki and I can't really do a deep dive to see how heavy it was. But whatever that weight, navalisation will add more as you'd need to put the wing folding gear in there, probably strengthen the body to take the harder impacts of landing, the belt fed guns would be heavier, and then there's the other crewman, any changes to fuel tanks to increase range, adding RDF or more powerful radios etc it all adds weight.
 
The Whirlwinds as wide as the Hornet, a bit shorter (that would change if they put another person in there) but there's no weight on Wiki and I can't really do a deep dive to see how heavy it was. But whatever that weight, navalisation will add more as you'd need to put the wing folding gear in there, probably strengthen the body to take the harder impacts of landing, the belt fed guns would be heavier, and then there's the other crewman, any changes to fuel tanks to increase range etc.
Which weights do you want? They might be in my reference books.

The second crewman might not have an adverse effect.

IIRC it was the slow take-off & landing speeds and range requirements that made British naval aircraft slower than other aircraft with engines producing the same horsepower.

IIRC from reading Friedman's British Carrier Aviation the Fairey Firefly and Blackburn Firebrand were designed to the same requirement. The single-seat Firebrand was ordered to prove that the second crew member wasn't the cause of the inferior performance.
 
Lets go with empty and loaded if you can find 'em. According to wiki the Sea Hornets 5,122 kg empty and 7,167 kg when loaded (not counting external ordinance) and if the two planes are roughly the same size then we might be able to extrapolate what the effects of navalising in terms of weight are.
 
Lets go with empty and loaded if you can find 'em. According to wiki the Sea Hornets 5,122 kg empty and 7,167 kg when loaded (not counting external ordinance) and if the two planes are roughly the same size then we might be able to extrapolate what the effects of navalising in terms of weight are.
Thetford only gives weights in pounds.

The Whirlwind Mk I - 2 x 885hp RR Peregrine I
8,310lb empty
10,356lb loaded (with 2x500lb bombs)

The bombs reduce the maximum speed from 360 to 270mph.​

De Havilland Hornet F Mk 3 - 2 x 2,030hp RR Merlin 130/131
12,880lb empty
20,900lb loaded​

De Havilland Sea Horner F Mk 20 - 2 x 2,080hp RR Merlin 130/131
11,700lb empty
17,782lb loaded​

Which surprises me. I thought the Sea Hornet would have been heavier.

Also Westland Welkin - 2 x 1,650hp RR Merlin 73/72 or 77/76
no empty weight, but 17,500lb loaded weight
dimensions 41ft length and span 70ft 4in. It didn't give the height, but...
maximum speed 387mph at 26,000ft,
climb 3,850ft/min,
Range, 1,200 miles​
 
Hrmm...lets say that it adds another 3000 lbs to give us a round number to navalise it giving us an 11,310 lb aircraft when empty. I guess its doable? Also the FAA was worried about fairly low level attacks and this is where the Whirlwind had its best performance. Still slapping on an extra 3,000 lbs (ish) is going to cut into the performance and there's going to be various aerodynamic changes at a guess. Its still heavy, heavier than an Avenger when empty. But it would be doable. But would it be worth it? That's another question.
 
The Royal Navy might want a change of engines too.

I think that it would want the 890hp Bristol Perseus XII, which was fitted to the Roc and Skua.

A Whirlwind redesigned for a more powerful engine like the Bristol Taurus (Ablacore), RR Merlin (Fulmar) or RR Exe (projected for the Barracuda) would really be a new aircraft.
 
Well assuming backing the Perigrine would have probably had its flaws worked out, but RR shifted all their focus onto the Merlin to make that the best they could and basically stopped working on the Peregrine. So this might have had them swap over to the Merlin earlier, or going for something like the Perseus first due to supply issues with the Merlin from the start. Then it would look more like a mini-Beau or a weird looking Gloster Reaper - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_F.9/37
 
But would it be worth it? That's another question.
Probably not.

I think they would be better off with a clean sheet of paper design with 2 Bristol Perseus, 2 x Bristol Mercury or 2 x RR Peregrine engines.

A good starting point would be Specifications O.27/34 and O.30/35 that produced the Skua and Roc respectively.
 
Well assuming backing the Perigrine would have probably had its flaws worked out, but RR shifted all their focus onto the Merlin to make that the best they could and basically stopped working on the Peregrine. So this might have had them swap over to the Merlin earlier, or going for something like the Perseus first due to supply issues with the Merlin from the start. Then it would look more like a mini-Beau or a weird looking Gloster Reaper - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_F.9/37
I think what we really need to do is wank the development of the RR Griffon so that's in production for naval aircraft in 1940.

That would have effectively turned the Fulmar of OTL into the Firefly Mk I

AIUI the Griffon was begun at the same time as the Merlin, but it had lower priority and development was suspended at least once.

With hindsight I think it would have been better if all the effort put into the Exe, Peregrine and Vulture IOTL had been put into speeding up the development of the Griffon. However, if @Just Leo was still here he would have scornfully pointed out how that couldn't have been done.
 
Probably not.

I think they would be better off with a clean sheet of paper design with 2 Bristol Perseus, 2 x Bristol Mercury or 2 x RR Peregrine engines.

A good starting point would be Specifications O.27/34 and O.30/35 that produced the Skua and Roc respectively.

Oh I agree :) But lets say that in this case, that's what they do. Instead of going for the Skua (keep trying to type Stuka) and the Roc, the FAA argues for a twin engined, two crew aircraft of high performance that can act as a fighter and a bomber (but perhaps not a full dive bomber as that's gonna add more weight at a guess?) and the result is a kind of naval Whirlwind. Sure its not going to be the OTL whirlybird but something different but it could happen I guess?
 
Too wide. The only joint for the wing fold is outboard of the wing tanks. Not sure about the height.
A pair of Taurus/Perseus/Mercury will free the inner wing for extra tanks where the OTL radiators go.
It already had a higher landing/take off speed than it's single seater contemporaries so, at best, will only fit the larger fleet carriers.
What is it's role? As a fleet defence fighter it needs no TAG to operate the homing beacon finder so a single seat is fine. As a two seater for long range work there will be centre of gravity issues and the fuselage structure is ill suited to an extra large hole.
Martin Baker developed and air tested both a 4x20mm belt fed Hispano nose and a 12x.303 nose.
Extra 'flappage' or wing area to reduce the landing speed, plus the wing fold etc. would almost make it easier to make a new wing so, while you are at it amend the fuselage, tankage etc. By which time you have a new aeroplane.
I have severe doubts that the magnesium rear fuselage is suited to repeated deck landing cycles so there is another weight and centre of gravity issue. Let alone salt water contamination. No deck parking for a start.

I am convinced that the Whirlwind could have been in useful service throughout the war with better initial production management, no Lysanders, and a regular development programme but not from a carrier without routine catapult launching and a high attrition on landing.

I think that the AH conclusion might be that the OTL Whirlwind shows that a purpose built design as a fleet defence/strike/reconnaissance as a light twin engined aeroplane could have subsumed most of the roles that OTL required three types. However, the Blackburn Firebrand is an awful warning of how it can go horribly wrong.
 
Oh I agree :) But lets say that in this case, that's what they do. Instead of going for the Skua (keep trying to type Stuka) and the Roc, the FAA argues for a twin engined, two crew aircraft of high performance that can act as a fighter and a bomber (but perhaps not a full dive bomber as that's gonna add more weight at a guess?) and the result is a kind of naval Whirlwind. Sure its not going to be the OTL whirlybird but something different but it could happen I guess?
That would make sense because the RN preferred multi-role aircraft to make up for the small capacity of its aircraft carriers. The problem was that multi-role aircraft were heavier than single-role types, which degraded their performance even further.

The OTL Skua was a FDB type (Fighter Dive Bomber) and the Roc was a FF type (Fleet Fighter).

The TTL "Twin Skua" with two Perseus engines would still be a FBD type. AFAIK the OTL "Single Skua" carried it's bombs externally, but the TTL aircraft probably has a wider fuselage, which would allow internal stowage reducing drag.

The TTL "Twin Roc" with two Perseus engines would be an FTB type (Fighter Torpedo Bomber). The OTL "Single Rocs" weren't built by Blackburn, they were built by Boulton Paul. So we may see the RAF buying it in place of the Defiant.
 
I really like those designs and the sound of that :) And it helps homegenise the equipment, one type of engine, one base airframe (one's bulged to carry its bomb intnerally the other can carry a torp), same radio kits etc.

The problem then becomes how small would the FAA's air groups be? An AFD could carry 48 ish aircraft without deck parking, this might reduce that to about 36 ish? This is tiny for a large carrier to haul and well below forign contempoararies and with such a small air group it surely defeats the purpose of a carrier.
 
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