Realistically how long would it take for gloster to build the gorshawk?
Hercules engined Spitfire developed by Fairey. In 1940 it would be the best carrier fighter in service and even by 1945 would be a nasty prospect for anyone.
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You also have to shorten the wings. Basically you unscrew the nameplate and put it on a completely new aircraft.Shorten the fuselage to reduce weight.
Install a Malcolm hood.
Dimensionally it is a larger engine, it is 38cm taller and 62cm wider, it is also 131kg heavier in dry weight. While you would get some of this difference back from not needing radiators, the radiators are located much further back on the airframe which if anything would make the CoG issues of putting a significantly heavier engine right on the nose of the aircraft. That's not even taking into account the significant engineering difficulties of having to re-engineer the entire fuselage from the probably the cockpit forwards to suit the much larger engine, and the strengthening that would be required due to weight changes.
You would be better off starting from Scratch.
Just Leo previously suggested twinning Bristol's Perseus radial to create an 18-cylinder 3,040 in³ displacement engine similar to Pratt & Whitney's R-2800 Double Wasp, he referred to it as the the Bristol Orion. To achieve that however would require the Air Ministry to decide that they wanted an engine like that and then heavily lean on Bristol's board and management to get them to develop it.Radial engine for it?
Just Leo previously suggested twinning Bristol's Perseus radial to create an 18-cylinder 3,040 in³ displacement engine similar to Pratt & Whitney's R-2800 Double Wasp, he referred to it as the the Bristol Orion. To achieve that however would require the Air Ministry to decide that they wanted an engine like that and then heavily lean on Bristol's board and management to get them to develop it.
You would be better off starting from Scratch.
Without going back to the threads I think he chose the Perseus for technical reasons, he also thinned out the engine range. As for Napier & Son that might do more harm than good. As I understand things they were good at developing new experimental products but not so great at the production engineering side of things, case in point Bristol having to second staff to them to help get the Sabre to work properly which slowed their own work. You might be better off simply having them go to English Electric earlier.The 18-cylinder radial, that will be using some parts of existing British radials, has many merits e.g. 'twin Mercury' - again a 3,040 in³ engine, should be capable of making of 1,850+ hp already on 87 octane fuel, and another 100-150 hp on early 100 octane. Not too shabby, and not too big a diameter. 'Twin Pegasus' - 3,500 in³, 2,000 hp on 87 octand fuel.
The 'twin Perseus' will be a sleeve-valve engine, thus later in coming vs. derivatives of Mercury or Pegasus. The our timeline Centaurus was not that far away in dimensions and appearance. Say - Napier folds, or it is bought by Bristol, meaning Sabre is not concieved, and engineers coming from Napier can be 'thrown' at Centaurus?
Without going back to the threads I think he chose the Perseus for technical reasons, he also thinned out the engine range. As for Napier & Son that might do more harm than good. As I understand things they were good at developing new experimental products but not so great at the production engineering side of things, case in point Bristol having to second staff to them to help get the Sabre to work properly which slowed their own work. You might be better off simply having them go to English Electric earlier.
One of the problems with Napier was the factory was an Edwardian museum. Some of the main machine tools were 50 years old. The machinists could produce one off hand built engines to specifications but couldn't manage to produce production line engines.