Alternative history powerplants

[lancer21]

Speaking of french jets, i was comparing them with various soviet contemporary engines, and somewhat to my suprise the Atar 09 and M53 seem to be inferior to their soviet contemporaries.

The 9K50 has pretty much the same power as the R-25, but is 250kg or so heavier. The M53 seems to be about same size and weight as the AL-31, but has over 2500kgf LESS power. Am i missing something?

It seems based on the above that they could have uprated the 09K to at least 8000-8200 kgf, and the M53 to 10,500-11,000kgf, that of course would have helped the Mirage F1 and 2000?

 

[Deltafan]

Speaking of french jets, i was comparing them with various soviet contemporary engines, and somewhat to my suprise the Atar 09 and M53 seem to be inferior to their soviet contemporaries.

The 9K50 has pretty much the same power as the R-25, but is 250kg or so heavier. The M53 seems to be about same size and weight as the AL-31, but has over 2500kgf LESS power. Am i missing something?

It seems based on the above that they could have uprated the 09K to at least 8000-8200 kgf, and the M53 to 10,500-11,000kgf, that of course would have helped the Mirage F1 and 2000?

At least since the 1920s, engine power is a weakness of French aircraft.

But, what are the lifetime of the Atar 9K50 and the M53 compared to the R-25 and the AL-31 ?

 

[steelpillow]

Being available sooner, in bigger numbers and with better reliability is a thing for the military hardware. A working 'poppet-Sabre' available in good numbers might mean a de-bugged Typhoon already for early 1942 instead of 1943.
Sabre as-is was not that easy to manufacture, leaving it to power just two types of aircraft in ww2. If it was available sooner, in better numbers and with better reliability, it would've been a good engine that is actually available for the FAA.

Our Calum Douglas has just done a study of the Napier Sabre with poppet valves. He reckons that, using contemporary technology, it would have been about four inches wider overall.

https://www.facebook.com/TheSecretHorsepowerRace/photos/a.183947085357262/1373091039776188

=AZWTUZcIGrB_KKsyMJ_hyNdRW0xr3Cr5zxkmB-kaRDu3-9_-nk4fw2NdZNVk1aSMuLGgw6ilgipPRNmTTnr_rjh2FDdpUOvs3rcheOUfAmfyP6oh7TmKjEu6RkHm-5ob86oz4IeErTnZKksZVcLz6t3X_VZ12zRjG-Tb3zShZ8T0AkT_uZeJnJhiGbZmEMXFuSY&__tn__=EH-R]View: https://www.facebook.com/TheSecretHorsepowerRace/photos/a.183947085357262/1373091039776188/?__cft__[0]=AZWTUZcIGrB_KKsyMJ_hyNdRW0xr3Cr5zxkmB-kaRDu3-9_-nk4fw2NdZNVk1aSMuLGgw6ilgipPRNmTTnr_rjh2FDdpUOvs3rcheOUfAmfyP6oh7TmKjEu6RkHm-5ob86oz4IeErTnZKksZVcLz6t3X_VZ12zRjG-Tb3zShZ8T0AkT_uZeJnJhiGbZmEMXFuSY&__tn__=EH-R

 

[tomo pauk]

Our Calum Douglas has just done a study of the Napier Sabre with poppet valves. He reckons that, using contemporary technology, it would have been about four inches wider overall.

Yes, I've seen this at his facebook page this morning.
If the increased width due to poppet valves means the Sabre is 100% working and it is in mass productionn by 1941, I'd take the trade in a heartbeat.

 

[Hood]

Would still be 11in narrower than a Centaurus though.

 

[red admiral]

Would still be 11in narrower than a Centaurus though.

There's a Sabre next to a BMW801 at RR Derby and it looks tiny in comparison. For more power.

 

[steelpillow]

Moving on to the jet age again, it is well enough known that Whittle, Rover and Rolls-Royce struggled to get the W2/Derwent into service for so long that the prototype Gloster Meteor flew on a pair of Halford H1's (de Havilland Goblin). I only just found out that the supply situation continued and Gloster offered a batch of 50 Meteor F.2's with the H1 designed in, to get the plane into service sooner. The Air Ministry was nervous about that holding back the DH Vampire, so they declined.

It is not a big step to a parallel universe in which the Air Ministry decided that the Meteor was further advanced and therefore the higher priority. They diverted the first 100 production Goblins and instructed Rolls-Royce to dump the troublesome W2 and license-build the H1 instead.

The Ministry's longstanding priority for R-R as its prime engine manufacturer now shifted to DH, with the result that the heart of the British jet engine establishment grew up not in Derby but in Hatfield. R-R's industrial weight was accordingly also thrown behind Halford's designs, with for example the Ghost replacing the Nene and the developed Gyron Junior filling the space that we think of as Avon territory. Although R-R licensed the designs, they developed them in different directions from DH and tailored them to different markets as sales opportunities arose, and the engine names paralleled ours. But if you were accustomed to an R-R engine in one universe and took the covers off its namesake in the parallel universe, you would be in for a surprise.

In time, as post-Halford clean-sheet designs emerged, the engine designs in the two Universes re-aligned, with one exception: when the great industry mergers were enforced, it was the DH Engine Division that subsumed R-R not the other way round. The Bristol division's engines were of course unchanged, except for the model designation and company logo, as were all the later DHB211's and Trents from Hatfield.

 

[zen]

Prior to the cancellation of the OR.330 Recce Bomber Avro 730. Armstrong Siddeley was poised to produce the P.176 engine for this. Potentially 1,000s of engines and a substantial profit/investment into AS.
AS was putting substantial effort into new supersonic turbojets.
P.163 development of Sa.10? Was the stepping stone to P.172, P.159 and P.176.

 

[Hood]

It is not a big step to a parallel universe in which the Air Ministry decided that the Meteor was further advanced and therefore the higher priority. They diverted the first 100 production Goblins and instructed Rolls-Royce to dump the troublesome W2 and license-build the H1 instead.

An interesting scenario and one that throws up a lot of potential changes for the first/second generation jets, especially the Avon versus Sapphire tussle. It would seem Hunter/Sea Vixen would be Sapphire powered unless DH got a move on with axial flow. Where that might leave the Canberra and Mk1 V Bombers is also interesting to speculate. In fact AS might have made a packet out of Sapphires - maybe we'd see a AS-DH merger instead that leaves RR out in the cold?

 

[zen]

Hmmm.....
DH-AS kinda catchy

I always wondered what if DH or AS turned one of their jets into marine GTs.