Wi: Fairey Fulmar

Deleted member 9338

But would the lack of range been an issue for a Spitfire

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.

cc618449cd91581055e2772832e59f2e.jpg
 
But would the lack of range been an issue for a Spitfire

PR Spitfire could fly to the German Polish Boarder and back!

There were additional Fuel tanks that could be fitted (during construction) behind the pilot above the radio set plus Slipper tanks and later drop tanks that could more than double the effective range of the plane.

Later varients of the Spitfire and Seafire carried a lot more fuel than the MK 2 so it is not an insurmountable issue.
 
Was it Napier who were degrading their sleeve valves by pushing the carts across cobbled roads within the factory while the valves were still cooling?

Or was that Bristol?

Sabre program was saved by Bristol in the short run, who was better in making sleeves needed for valves (sleeves for Taurus were luckily of same diameter as it was needed for Sabre), and, for the long run, by importing special machine tools from the USA.

But would the lack of range been an issue for a Spitfire

Unless RAF changes the mantra ("fighters are short ranged A/C", and, later, "it is impossible to have a rangy performer on just one engine"), the issue is not present to begin with.
 
The big question is when is the decision taken?
If its later, the obvious choice is a Sea Hurricane, which is fine until 1941

Alternatively, have the RAF decide that the vital fighters under development depend on one not-yet-developed engine, and ask for a 3rd prototype using a radial engine. The OTL descision was more risky than they usually accepted.
Such a plane would be similar size andperformance to the Hurricane/Spitfire, and when its seen that they are working, it can be passed over to the RN for navalisation.

Of course, this assumes a certain amount of common sense from the AM...:p
 
Sabre program was saved by Bristol in the short run, who was better in making sleeves needed for valves
Although to be fair to Napier (much as it pains me) that was largely because Bristol stumbled across the ‘massaging’ techniques for rounding sleeves. They didn’t know how it worked or why it worked, but it did.
Why so mucg hate for sleeve valves ?
They are a perennial butt-chafe if you want to buff the brits in WW2 because all their leading aero engine firms decided to bet big on a radically different technology that took huge effort to get working and then ended up offering little or no practical advantage. No sleeve valves might conceivably get you a Bristol “R3350” in late 1940 and a Bristol “801” for the start of the war, if you look at poppet equivalents of their engines and assume they lost a couple of years due to the diversion.
 
Perhaps the cooperation of Napier and Fairey would've brought an engine in H-16 layout with poppet valves for the RAF. Say, 40 L design, without two-propeller feature, a bit wider and taller than Sabre, but shorter. Perhaps 1600-1700 HP on 87 oct fuel, 1900-2000 HP on early 100 oct. Avoids duplication of design staff & resources (= designed instead of Sabre, Prince H-16, Prince H-24/Monarch), uses known tech = saves money and most precoius comodity: time. By 1942/43, introduce the 2-stage supercharger + intercooler, combined with 130 grade fuel should be doing 2300 HP under 12000 ft, and perhaps 1800 at 25000 ft?
 
I wouldn’t bet much money on the results of those two in combination. Napier - design and engineering such a strength that they had to hire an external consultant to design the Dagger and then the Sabre. Production facilities Victorian. Track record of successful engines - 1 designed in 1917 and flogged for 20 years.

Fairey-design and engineering strength unknown but likely small since it was a cost centre run in pursuit of a dream. Production facilities - nonexistent. Track record of successful engines ever - 0.

Keep it as simple as possible is a good engineering principle and if you compare successful designs with the two mechanical puzzle-pieces that the Sabre and Monarch represent, neither inspires much confidence. Combining the two efforts is more likely to get you something like a sleeve valve monarch than anything quickly useable - because both efforts were all about building a better mousetrap to outmanoeuvre the big boys and their more mainstream (and sensible) designs. Personally I think it would make more sense to hand over both engine teams to someone like Ford of Britain and tell them to make a poppet valve Hercules right quick. Then if “Ford Aeroengines” luck out you can hopefully graft their solution onto the Centaurus and Perseus as well, and sidestep the whole sleeve valve debacle in Somerset.
 
I don't think that going with sleeve valve was that much of a debacle at Bristol's (on the flip side, I also don't share the opinoin that sleeve valves were the Holy Grail of aero engine design). Hercules gave excellent service during the ww2 (and after), with reasonable power and reliability. Much better reliability than BMW 801, or even some American twin row, big radials. That Saro Lerwick was a deathtrap, and that Short Stirling was too big & heavy were not Hercules' mistakes. At any rate, 1939 is waay too late for the 'poppet-valve Hercules', while Perseus is probably a redundant engine with Mercury and Pegasus available, granted it served without problems in OTL. We can also recall that neither Alvis nor Armstrong-Siddeley didn't design a production-worthy 1000 HP engine for ww2, let alone a 1500-2000 HP engine, the companies that were supposed to compete with Bristol in radial egine business.

With that said - a 40-45L classic V12 should've been a welcome addition for the needs of the RAF from, say, 1941 on.
 
Deerhound versions are kinda underscoring the point I was trying to make - when 'other' manufacturers were testing ~1000 HP engines, RR and Bristol have had them in production. Te story repeats with 1300-1400 HP and 1700-1800 HP engines - RR and Bristol have them in production, while others were either testing their prototypes, or promissing but not delivering, or have throw in the towel and concentrated on 700-minus HP engines.
The only exception of this is Napier with Sabre - granted, the Sabre was almost killed if it was not for Bristol that agreed to cooperate, as well as for the people that made the deal with Bristol and the Americans.
 
I don't think that going with sleeve valve was that much of a debacle at Bristol's (on the flip side, I also don't share the opinoin that sleeve valves were the Holy Grail of aero engine design). Hercules gave excellent service during the ww2 (and after), with reasonable power and reliability. Much better reliability than BMW 801, or even some American twin row, big radials.
I think it’s telling that you are comparing with BMW (a second or third rate player in the aero engine industry), rag-tag losers from the U.K. and engines from the US makers that were focused on the civilian market well after rearmament was fired up in Europe. Bristol was an absolute top league global player in a country that had been rearming hard and betting its hand on air power. It should have been absolutely at the front of the pack in terms of not just engine capabilities but engine production, and the reason it wasn’t was IMO sleeve valves. I mean, their main domestic competitor stepped on their dicks with the whole “ramp head” nonsense and STILL Bristol could not come out convincingly ahead.

RR and Bristol were right up there with P&W and Wright, but with a book of blank government cheques years before the Americans got theirs. So why didn’t they punch their weight?
 
I think it’s telling that you are comparing with BMW (a second or third rate player in the aero engine industry), rag-tag losers from the U.K. and engines from the US makers that were focused on the civilian market well after rearmament was fired up in Europe. Bristol was an absolute top league global player in a country that had been rearming hard and betting its hand on air power. It should have been absolutely at the front of the pack in terms of not just engine capabilities but engine production, and the reason it wasn’t was IMO sleeve valves. I mean, their main domestic competitor stepped on their dicks with the whole “ramp head” nonsense and STILL Bristol could not come out convincingly ahead.

RR and Bristol were right up there with P&W and Wright, but with a book of blank government cheques years before the Americans got theirs. So why didn’t they punch their weight?

I will not say that anything RR and Bristol were doind was great, like all companies that have had their share of flops. Like the Goshawk, or Hydra. There was certainly lots of overlap in models range, like the Exe and Peregrine, or did really Bristol needed 4 twin-row engines with sleeve valves, plus Perseus to compete with Mercury and Pegasus?
A part of the blame lays IMO on the AM's half of the field, that could've stepped in already by early 1930s and strongly suggest that they will buy and support just a couple of engine types from each producer, not any type they produce. Bristol was offering 4 designs just in 800-1000 HP range in late 1930s, plus wasted time on Aquila, all while designing Hercules and Centaurus. With both Aquila and Taurus not designed, we'd probably saw Hercules in volume production well before ww2, and Centaurus in early ww2. Similar with RR - no Goshawk, Exe, Peregrine and Vulture will mean earlier concentration on the Merlin and Griffon. My favorite alt-RR engine is/was the militarized 'R' engine for 1938, however.

My conclusion is that we can probably share the blame on the AM and engine producers, in probably equal ratio, and then recall that many other Air Ministries and engine companies also made plenty of mistakes in aero engine business. Thus I'd not overly blame the AM, RR and Bristol here, since German, Japanese, Italian and Soviet AMs and AFs woud've gladly swapped their engines for quantity and capability of UK-made aero engines.
 
The Simplest way I know to stop all the work on sleeve valve engines in the UK is to some how nobble the influence of Sir Harry Ralph Riccardo. Stop him persuading other engineers that poppet valves are limiting engine power then you might get more big British radials like the Wrights and the PW's from the USA.
 
The Simplest way I know to stop all the work on sleeve valve engines in the UK is to some how nobble the influence of Sir Harry Ralph Riccardo. Stop him persuading other engineers that poppet valves are limiting engine power then you might get more big British radials like the Wrights and the PW's from the USA.

Sleeve valves are not a subsitute for increase of cubic capacity, or increase of RPM (usually coming from having small pistons with small stroke), or increase in supercharger capacity (a main 'source' of altitude power); they don't enable for smaller and/or lighter engines. Once Bristol has Perseus in testing & use, people in charge (at Bristol's, or RR, or Napier, or AM, or a combination) can see that sleeve valves will do not yield an appreciable increase in power vs. the poppet-valve radial engines of similar capacity and RPM, while needing a whole new set of sophisticated gears, cranks and pushers to be designed and produced.
At the end of the day, a 14-cylinder derivative of Pegasus was IMO feasible in early 1930s, with benefits to the British and Allied war effort. A 44.6L (2735 cu in) engine, 1400+ HP already on 87 oct fuel in late 1930s. Stick it on the Herucles, Henley and Fulmar ASAP.
 
Top