What-If Air-Force -- How Would You Do It?

[KJ_Lesnick]

Sauragnmon,

I have to agree, it Could be done, even if it would be, to be frank, a practical exercise in the art of cluster-coital operations.

LOL

It'd be possible, but it'd be messy I think.  I wouldn't want to be in that army, certainly.

Even if you had a Defense Force model with each branch being a service, to an extent each service would have it's own chain of command right?

[Sauragnmon]

Kendra,

Thought you'd get a chuckle out of the euphemism.

The Defense Force model would be good for somewhat easing the divide, but there's still a step between the two arms of the force with that big rift between commands... more people you have to communicate through.  And yes, there would be a hierarchy to each branch per se, but my concept puts more of the direct assets in hand with the unit operating it.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Sauragnmon,

Thought you'd get a chuckle out of the euphemism.

True.

The Defense Force model would be good for somewhat easing the divide, but there's still a step between the two arms of the force with that big rift between commands... more people you have to communicate through.  And yes, there would be a hierarchy to each branch per se, but my concept puts more of the direct assets in hand with the unit operating it.

Understood

[KJ_Lesnick]

With the ground rules in place
- Start of in 1945
- Technology level equivalent to United States, UK, and France in aforementioned timeframe
- Can be any country on Earth, and can be a fictional country, but obviously must be located on Earth

How would you go about designing your first jet-fighter?   
- What roles would you use it for (interceptor only, air-superiority only, air-superiority and interception)? 
- Would it have one engine or two? 
- Would it have axial or centrifugal flow jets? 
- What basic configuration would you use for the design?
- What kind of armament would you use?

You can have a hypothetical jet-fighter in the air as early as 1942 (US) or 1943 (UK)


KJ Lesnick

[Sauragnmon]

First jet fighter, eh?

Probably a good first jet in my opinion would be something rather straight forward - an almost 109 conversion.  Low mounted inverted gull wing, wide, inward-retracting Main Gears.  Belly mounted nosebreathing jet, with ventral exhaust.  Long-ish nose, like a Ki-61-II almost.  Bubble top like the Ki-61-III.  Continuous belts down the outboard wing feeding four .50's in the wings.  Two 20's maybe a 30 in the former engine cowling.  With the ventral engine, weight might be aft of the gear more, so probably still a taildragger gear.

That's my thoughts on the subject, it's a lot like converted prop aircraft, so it should be quick to convert pilots over to, and rather effective in flight.  General purpose fighter, it's also got a little extra kick, and the focused heavy firepower would have some massive teeth for bomber hunting and fighter killing.  The inverted gull shortens gear length, lightening weight, and provides good wing area for shorter span...

[KJ_Lesnick]

I'm wondering for a single-engine which works better in terms of fuel-capacity and volume, as well as aerodynamics and weight
-A single straight through duct
-A bifurcated-duct?  

As for a twin-engine design, I'm wondering which engine configuration works better, aerodynamics, and weight-wise
-nacelle pods buried in the wings (a'la Gloster Meteor)
-Nacelles under the wings (Me-262)
-Engine pods mounted on the side of the fuselage under the wings (P-59/F-89)
-A side-mounted intake like the FH-1 Phantom?

Regardless for a 1942 first flight you'd almost inevitably have a centrifugal flow jet in the design with performance similar to the Gloster Meteor's engine or the J-33.  Unless you were developing a L-1000 like engine, but more conservative (no twin-spools and clutches, and stuff, but still axial) though I don't know if it would be feasable even then.  Centrifugal flow jets at this point in time would be more feasible since they are more responsive and more tolerant to airflow changes.

As for armament, I think I'd go for 4 x 20 mm cannons which, as I understand it, for the time would have considerable stopping power, yet a reasonably fast muzzle velocity and re-fire-rate.


KJ Lesnick

[Sauragnmon]

My concept was a straight duct, since it went nose and down to the engine under the pit and everything.  It depends on where your engine is in relation to other things, whether you use a straight duct or a bifurcated duct.  Of course, as you progress, straight or bifurcated is a bad idea all together, as you start getting faster.

Twin engine, I would bet that the closer they are to the C of G, the better - I'd probably look at the P-59 config, or the Meteor/Vulcan layout, barring a fuselage-mounted twin engine with root intakes or similar.

Engine itself, probably early centrifugal flow is best, though IIRC most are Axial Flow these days, and I tend to like axial flow in general, they seem to run better with the right establishment, but that takes time and testing, primarily.

My concept of a 4-2-1 layout was a little more conventional 1945 thinking - a few machineguns for the range or for strafing ground targets, then the big hitters right in the nose where you might as well just bolt a big iron crosshairs in the cockpit window and grin.  Nice, focused firepower - it's one of the best features of the P-38.

[Weaver]

I think that for an early jet, the Hawker Sea Hawk is hard to beat. You've got a relatively reliable centrifugal engine, but the split jetpipe means that you get a fuel tank behind the engine as well as in front of it, giving respectable range without the drag of drop/tip tanks. Pilot view is excellent and armament adequate and as the P.1052 and P.1081 showed, there's bags of relatively easy development potential there.

There is an argument that centrifugal engines were dumped too soon: there was more development potential to be had from them, and the early axials that looked better on paper ran into all sorts of difficult surge/metallurgy problems in practice which took longer than anticipated to sort out.

[Mossie]

The RAF were quite interested in the Sea Hawk, they thought it was a better design than the Meteor with almost identical performance with a single engine.  Trouble is, they were already tied into the Meatbox & it was easier to develop that aircraft than bring in an entirely new type.

I did some land based (Sea) Hawk profiles a while back:
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,19753.0/highlight,sea+hawk.html

[KJ_Lesnick]

Since the engines available when the Meteor flew weren't quite as powerful as the RR Nene, would it be practical to get some kind of design like the Sea-Hawk with two-engines?

[Mossie]

I dont see why not.  You could either mount them on the wings like the Meteor, or in a side by side arrangement, the design would probably resemble the CF-100 Canuck.  Gloster came up with a two engined design called the Rocket that kind of resembled a wide bodied Sea Hawk, it was a stepping stone towards the Javelin.

[Weaver]

De Havilland's Goblin was available at the same time as the early Meteor and one of those was capable of powering a Vampire in a useful way, so I don't see why a single-engined Seahawk-style aircraft couldn't have been built right at the very start of the jet age: it would just have been less powerful.

[Mossie]

Quite a lot less powerful, the Vampire was a much lighter aircraft.  Glosters had serious problems with the single engined E.1/44 Ace, to the point that it was cancelled.

[Weaver]

That's why I said "Seahawk-style" rather than a "Seahawk-with-a-Goblin". In other words, give a Goblin a split jetpipe and stick a fuel tank and fuselage onto either end of it, making the latter of whatever size and weight the Goblin can manage.

[KJ_Lesnick]

How much bigger would the intakes of the Sea-Hawk have to be to have been able to accommodate two engines the size of the J31, RR-Welland, and such?

BTW:  The two-engined Sea-Hawk actually looks a lot like the FH-1 Phantom...