British WW2 Multi-role Plane

[Rickshaw]

The Battle did at least give us the wonderfully ugly K9370 airframe that flew with the Fairey Monarch though.

The Monarch was an interesting engine and if been developed to its full potential may well have answered a lot of the questions being asked here. Putting such a big engine in the centre of mass of a fighter in the style of the P-39 would have had interesting results I think.

 

[Rickshaw]

True - the rate of progress in the second half of the 1930s was phenomenal. Which makes the continued success of the Spitfire (and to a lesser degree the Bf 109) all the way through WW2 all the more remarkable.

Well, the Spitfire that emerged didn't owe very much to the Spitfire that entered WWII, apart from the general configuration and the name. The latter marks were essentially complete redesigns, with each component having evolved several times from the original Mk.1.

 

[Tony Williams]

Well, I think that the control harmony was pretty well shot by all the weight increases anyway. By all accounts the later 109s were pigs to fly. Adding more wing area should have helped.

Depends upon whom you read. Green makes that claim but several German pilots who flew the late model 109s appear to know otherwise. Narawa (?sp) who interviewed them records that they preferred the 190 for low altitude work but the 109 for high altitude combats. I suspect it had, had it's day by about 1944 and was obsolescent but not quite quite obsolete

I have a slightly different take on it. The late-war Luftwaffe fighter pilots were broadly divided into two groups: the surviving Experten, who had great experience, and the novices, most of whom didn't last long. Many of the Experten preferred the 109 because they knew the plane inside out, knew all its strengths and weaknesses and could get the best out of it. In the right hands, it was a formidable killing machine to the end of the war. The novices mostly died before achieving that level of expertise - and not just in combat: I have read that 1500 pilots were killed while trying to learn how to fly the 109. The late-model versions in particular were not good planes for novices, whereas the Spitfire seems to have retained good flying qualities to the end (while being constantly improved and updated, of course - everything was).

 

[robunos]

Regarding the use of fuselage mounted engines and extension shafts; How about the system designed for the Bugatti 100 Racer :-

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1100.0.html

This was designed and patented in the immediate pre-war period, so the timescale is right...

cheers,
Robin.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Regarding the use of fuselage mounted engines and extension shafts; How about the system designed for the Bugatti 100 Racer :-

Thanks for mentioing this. I did not know about this plane and its very interesting, even without a 'what if' scenario.

 

[Rickshaw]

Well, I think that the control harmony was pretty well shot by all the weight increases anyway. By all accounts the later 109s were pigs to fly. Adding more wing area should have helped.

Depends upon whom you read. Green makes that claim but several German pilots who flew the late model 109s appear to know otherwise. Narawa (?sp) who interviewed them records that they preferred the 190 for low altitude work but the 109 for high altitude combats. I suspect it had, had it's day by about 1944 and was obsolescent but not quite quite obsolete

I have a slightly different take on it. The late-war Luftwaffe fighter pilots were broadly divided into two groups: the surviving Experten, who had great experience, and the novices, most of whom didn't last long. Many of the Experten preferred the 109 because they knew the plane inside out, knew all its strengths and weaknesses and could get the best out of it. In the right hands, it was a formidable killing machine to the end of the war. The novices mostly died before achieving that level of expertise - and not just in combat: I have read that 1500 pilots were killed while trying to learn how to fly the 109. The late-model versions in particular were not good planes for novices, whereas the Spitfire seems to have retained good flying qualities to the end (while being constantly improved and updated, of course - everything was).

I agree, it depends upon whom you read. The same for the Spitfire. The latter marks weren't one for the novices either, according to what I've read, being referred to as "brutes" by some who had flown the early marks. The addition of the Griffon in particular, greatly upset the harmony of the controls, with the long nose and long tail. Rather similar to what happened to the Fw190 from the "A" to the "D" variants. What had been an excellent turning fighting was forced to become very much an energy fighter. Of course, that just might be a consequence of higher speeds - the faster you went, obviously the harder it was to change direction.

The difference between the experten and the novice was huge, as you note. Training attrition was high both in and out of combat as less fuel was available for training and so more was done on gliders than in initio trainers and so they often ended up climbing into a 109 cockpit before they were truly ready. It was a case of brutal Darwinism. The Allies OTOH had the fuel and hence the opportunity to train their pilots properly so they were better prepared to handle the higher performance aircraft when they got in one for the first time.

 

[mkurt]

Random discussions in Turkish forums suppose the Fw-190As were good at low altitude but quickly lost "breath" with height, supposedly 7000 meters was a definite limit above the '109 was clearly superior. Russians are reported to be dismissive of the 190 as a fighter even when it first appeared. Might be a reason for the experts to prefer the Me as the radial engined Fw types would "lack" performance to surprise and be surprised at altitude.

 

[Rickshaw]

The BMW801 definitely lacked performance at altitude. Hence the search for a reliable turbocharger and supercharger for it in the Fw190C series and why the D adopted an inline engine with one inbuilt.

 

[Sbiper]

I would have loved to see the 801R with a two stage - four speed Supercharger, Bingham's Major Piston Aero Engines of WW2 attributes this version with 2000hp at take off.

 

[mboeller]

My two cents:

why not use japanese Torpedo bombers as a starting point for a british MRCA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_B6N

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aichi_B7A

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokosuka_D4Y

At least the last two bombers should fulfil a lot of the requirements but not the time frame.

 

[Tony Williams]

Yes, I did something like that in my alt WW2 novel The Foresight War (in which present-day British and German historians wake up in 1934). My starting point was the historical Bristol Type 153 Hercules-powered cannon fighter project ( http://freespace.virgin.net/john.dell/AArt3.html ), which formed the basis of a fighter bomber which I dubbed the Beaufighter, as the historical one would not have been built. This was used by both the RAF as a Hurricane replacement and by the FAA. This then led to a stretched 2/3 seat version (the Beaufort), with as much technical commonality as possible, as the standard carrier-based multi-role plane. The B6N was the performance comparator I had in mind.