WI: Gloster Gladiator Mk.II, the monoplane fighter

Per OTL, the Gladiator II was just like the Mk.I, with another mark of Mercury installed. However - what if Gloster made the monoplane version of the Gladiator, still retaining the fixed U/C, by 1937/38? In service by late 1938.
Basically, the British take on Fokker D.XXI/Nakajima Ki-27/Mitsubishi A5M theme (but with better engine than the Japanese duo) - 280-290 mph fighter that uses technology of yesterday to quickly improve RAF & other friendly AFs inventory of relatively modern fighters for use both abroad and at home.
 
Per OTL, the Gladiator II was just like the Mk.I, with another mark of Mercury installed. However - what if Gloster made the monoplane version of the Gladiator, still retaining the fixed U/C, by 1937/38? In service by late 1938.
Basically, the British take on Fokker D.XXI/Nakajima Ki-27/Mitsubishi A5M theme (but with better engine than the Japanese duo) - 280-290 mph fighter that uses technology of yesterday to quickly improve RAF & other friendly AFs inventory of relatively modern fighters for use both abroad and at home.

Would this aircraft be carrier capable? If so it could be useful for the Royal Navy
 
It should be possible to design a set of monoplane wings for the Gladiatior, after all Grumman did it for the F4F Wildcat. The resulting aircraft would be roughly equivalent to the Fokker D.XXI and would provide a useful stopgap for both the RAF and the Fleet Air Arm. Not only could they build new Gladiator MK.II and Sea Gladiators but the could also be used to convert existing airframes, and possibly even any surviving Gauntlets.
 

Driftless

Donor
Wouldn't it be easier to build the gorshawk?

Many of the tools, dies, jigs etc for the original Gladiator could be re-used. The wing and it's spar engineering would be different (I'd guess...), but the fuselage, tail surfaces, engine mounts, landing gear, cockpit & controls assemblys would be largely replicated IMO.
 
Remember please that the Gloster Gladiator was to all intense and purposes no more than Folland cleaning up his previous Gauntlet design and developing it as much as possible. With the F5/34, Follond took everything he new and basically designed a metal monoplane fighter as a logical progression from his earlier designs.
To get an earlier Gloster monoplane earlier you would really need to miss out the Gladiator completely and go strait from the Gauntlet to the F5/34 and call that the Gladiator.
 
Would this aircraft be carrier capable? If so it could be useful for the Royal Navy

Best case - it is a "better A5M".

Remember please that the Gloster Gladiator was to all intense and purposes no more than Folland cleaning up his previous Gauntlet design and developing it as much as possible. With the F5/34, Follond took everything he new and basically designed a metal monoplane fighter as a logical progression from his earlier designs.
To get an earlier Gloster monoplane earlier you would really need to miss out the Gladiator completely and go strait from the Gauntlet to the F5/34 and call that the Gladiator.

I like the idea of Glosters going straight to monoplane after Gauntlet, I have a thread about that from perhaps two years ago here (also includes Fury monoplane from the get-go, instead of biplane from OTL).

The premise of this thread is a bit different, and the part I took liberty to underscore is a quirk here - instead of going for all new shiny stressed skin metal A/C (not unlike Bristol went with Bleheim->Beaufort, or Hawker with Hurricane->typhoon), Gloster just makes another, more refined version of the existing A/C that can be built ASAP - thus having tens of them available in 1938, and hundreds in 1939.
 
Remember please that the Gloster Gladiator was to all intense and purposes no more than Folland cleaning up his previous Gauntlet design and developing it as much as possible.
And other than the addition of the cockpit canopy (which wasn't on the prototype) and a different undercarriage the airframe is the same. The difference was in the wings and a more powerful version of the same engine.

Gladiator Prototype

upload_2018-9-28_23-57-44.jpeg

Gloster Gauntlet

full
 
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Per OTL, the Gladiator II was just like the Mk.I, with another mark of Mercury installed. However - what if Gloster made the monoplane version of the Gladiator, still retaining the fixed U/C, by 1937/38? In service by late 1938.

Basically, the British take on Fokker D.XXI/Nakajima Ki-27/Mitsubishi A5M theme (but with better engine than the Japanese duo) - 280-290 mph fighter that uses technology of yesterday to quickly improve RAF & other friendly AFs inventory of relatively modern fighters for use both abroad and at home.
It could probably be done, but it would probably have been possible to have the Gloster F.5/34 in service by late 1938.

Furthermore Gloster built 200 Hawker Henleys and the first of them were delivered in late 1938. I'm not a fan of the Henley and I think more Hurricanes should have been built instead. If Gloster had built 200 Hurricanes instead of the Henley I think it could have built another 336 Hurricanes instead of the last 336 Gladiators. See the table below which is from an Appendix from the Putnams book on Gloster aircraft.

Gloster Production 1936-41.png
 
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The Hurricane was a logical extension of Camm's line of Hawker ighter aircraft and when first build had both canvas covered fuselage and wings, so was therefore was of a 'traditional' aircraft construction technique unlike the 'bleeding edge' Spitfire that had stressed mettle fuselage and wings.
 
It could probably be done, but it would probably have been possible to have the Gloster F.5/34 in service by late 1938.
...

Perhaps I haven't repeated it enough times - I don't suggest the brand new, featuring retractable U/C and all-metal F.5/34, but an old school, partially canvas-wrapped monoplane version of Gladiator, all together with fixed U/C. In other words, something that can enter production ASAP.
 
Perhaps I haven't repeated it enough times - I don't suggest the brand new, featuring retractable U/C and all-metal F.5/34, but an old school, partially canvas-wrapped monoplane version of Gladiator, all together with fixed U/C. In other words, something that can enter production ASAP.
I understood what you wrote in the OP. What I wrote was that it could be done, but the Gloster F.5/34 (which was better) could probably have been put into production at the same time as the fighter that you are suggesting.
 
Perhaps I haven't repeated it enough times - I don't suggest the brand new, featuring retractable U/C and all-metal F.5/34, but an old school, partially canvas-wrapped monoplane version of Gladiator, all together with fixed U/C. In other words, something that can enter production ASAP.
Or put another way it could be done, but I think it would be better to build the F.5/34 as it is likely to have been ready at the same time as the aircraft that you are proposing.

Furthermore I know that it would have been even better for Gloster to build Hurricanes instead of the Gladiator Mk II and Henley, which with a POD in 1936 is perfectly plausible.
 
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Perhaps I haven't repeated it enough times - I don't suggest the brand new, featuring retractable U/C and all-metal F.5/34, but an old school, partially canvas-wrapped monoplane version of Gladiator, all together with fixed U/C. In other words, something that can enter production ASAP.

I'm seeing a combination.

In the design phase (kind of like with the Wildcat) it is decided to make the Gladiator a fixed undercarriage monoplane with 300 airframes built in 1937 and 1938 while in 1938 they decide to move forward with the F5/34 with 300 o those produced in 1938 in 1939 with the switch made to the Hurricane in 1939.

Due to the reliability of the radial engine Gladiators and F5/34s, the FAA ends up getting a significant number of these for carrier use while others are sent to colonial stations.
 
Perhaps when Folland is reworking the Gauntlet into the Gladiator he makes the decision to do two versions, 1 biplane and 1 monoplane. Given this choice it seems likely the RAF would opt for the almost certainly fast monoplane. As it's a quick fix for what will essentially be a stopgap fighter there's no need for the complexity of the more advanced F.5/34.
 

Driftless

Donor
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I'm seeing a combination.

In the design phase (kind of like with the Wildcat) it is decided to make the Gladiator a fixed undercarriage monoplane with 300 airframes built in 1937 and 1938 while in 1938 they decide to move forward with the F5/34 with 300 o those produced in 1938 in 1939 with the switch made to the Hurricane in 1939.

Due to the reliability of the radial engine Gladiators and F5/34s, the FAA ends up getting a significant number of these for carrier use while others are sent to colonial stations.

And sell off a few as export models on the tail end of the production run, as it becomes clear that more modern aircraft start to become available. With the easy conversion of fixed landing gear to skis, the Nordic & Baltic countries are natural buyers - as they did OTL with the bi-plane Gladiator.
 
And sell off a few as export models on the tail end of the production run, as it becomes clear that more modern aircraft start to become available. With the easy conversion of fixed landing gear to skis, the Nordic & Baltic countries are natural buyers - as they did OTL with the bi-plane Gladiator.

Basically anybody who bought the Gladiator is a customer to include the Chinese.
 
According to the Putnams book on Gloster aircraft 302 of the 747 Gladiators built (including the prototype) were exported as follows:

Gladiators Exported.png
 
Basically anybody who bought the Gladiator is a customer to include the Chinese.
I doubt that because the OP has the Gladiator Monoplane entering service with the RAF in late 1938 and most of the 165 "new" Gladiators that were exported were delivered 1937-38.
 
I doubt that because the OP has the Gladiator Monoplane entering service with the RAF in late 1938 and most of the 165 "new" Gladiators that were exported were delivered 1937-38.

My suggestion was that the monoplane enters service when the OTL biplane did because they so with the monoplane straight away.
 
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