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

[Weaver]

Funny you should say that Kendra: one project I've had in mind ever since I found this place was a "Phantomised" Seahawk with 2 x Metrovick Beryl axials in the wings roots. Not as simple as it looks, however.

[Mossie]

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.

Ah, right, getchya!

[Mossie]

Almost certainly worse than the Sea Hawk.  The Sea Hawk had comparable, in fact better performance in some respects, than the Meteor.  One of the problems the Meteor had was with it's wing, it was large & caused drag, leading to the cut down version from the F.4 onwards.

It would probably have been similar to the Meteor.  The more streamlined fuselage might have eeked a bit better performance, but like I mentioned earlier, most of it was down to the wing.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Mossie,

One of the problems the Meteor had was with it's wing, it was large & caused drag, leading to the cut down version from the F.4 onwards.

Apparently one source says that it also lead to excessive stress on the wings.  What I'm wondering is what was the wing-area of the early (pre F.4) Meteors?  One source lists the F.4 as having a wing-area of 350 square feet, and a span of 41-feet (earlier models were 4 feet 10 inches larger in span, but I don't know what the area differences worked out to)  

Should you have the answer, do you know if the aeronautical knowledge possessed in the US, France, or UK (1942/1943) in that timeframe knew the wisdom of using that kind of wing-tip shape?


KJ Lesnick

[Mossie]

The F.I & F.III Meteors had a span of 43ft (13.1m) & a wing area of 374ft² (34.8m²).  The wing span I found for the F.4 for was 37ft 2in (11.3).

As to the aeronautical knowledge, I can only offer conjecture.  In Britain at least, there seemed to be a glut of design work in the '42/'43 period I would sugesst it was similar in the US.  France was behind for obvious reasons (although they didn't waste time catching up post war).  It seems designers were beginning to realise exactly what worked & what didn't based on hard data from research & combat experience & wing shape especially was understood better.  Some manufacturers such as Hawker that had huge fighter experience seemed to be in a better position, Gloster was maybe a little bit behind.  In summary, yes, the kowledge was probably around, but it was dispersed.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Mossie,

The F.I & F.III Meteors had a span of 43ft (13.1m) & a wing area of 374ft² (34.8m²).  The wing span I found for the F.4 for was 37ft 2in (11.3).

Thank you

As to the aeronautical knowledge, I can only offer conjecture.

Well, these are hypothetical designs...

In Britain at least, there seemed to be a glut of design work in the '42/'43 period I would sugesst it was similar in the US.

What problems were there with the P-59's wings?  They had the square-tip kind of design...

Some manufacturers such as Hawker that had huge fighter experience seemed to be in a better position, Gloster was maybe a little bit behind.

Then why didn't Hawker build the first jet?


KJ Lesnick

[Mossie]

What problems were there with the P-59's wings?  They had the square-tip kind of design...

I don't fully understand the reasons behind the P-59's so I don't know about any problems with the wing.  The way I understand it, the Airacomet's problems were many but the lack of power was the main concern.

Some manufacturers such as Hawker that had huge fighter experience seemed to be in a better position, Gloster was maybe a little bit behind.

Then why didn't Hawker build the first jet?

Almost certainly due to workload.  Hawkers were busy with production of the Hurricane, as well as design work for the Tornado, Typhoon, Tempest & Fury.  Glosters on the other hand didn't have much going on.  Most of their books were taken up with contract work for other manufacturers so there design team was free to work on jet aircraft.  It's probably for similar reasons that Bell worked on the XP-59.

[Weaver]

Also:

a) Gloster had already established a good working relationship with Whittle,

and

b) The Ministry made a specific decision to cancel Gloster's Reaper (twin-engined night-fighter) work to free up design resource for the Meteor, when it became apparent that the Mosquito could do the night-fighter job.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Mossie,

I don't fully understand the reasons behind the P-59's so I don't know about any problems with the wing.  The way I understand it, the Airacomet's problems were many but the lack of power was the main concern.

But didn't the Meteor have the same T/W ratio as the P-59?  Both weighed about the same, and engines were about the same level of thrust...

I do remember hearing some information about the British test-flying the XP-59 and saying that they preferred the Gloster Meteor's handling characteristics.


KJ Lesnick

[Mossie]

I guess that proves I don't fully understand the problems with the P-59!

[KJ_Lesnick]

Does anybody have anything on the early L-133 design evolution?  I'd almost swear I remember seeing some design proposals that had a conventional aft-tailed configuration rather than a canard, which became the final configuration.  Anybody have any pictures of this?

KJ Lesnick

[KJ_Lesnick]

So far here's what I've come up for my WHIF Air-Force.  

- As per the ground rules, it comes into being in 1945 at the end of WW2
- The new Air-Force would be formed out of the air-corps which were formerly under the control of the Army and Navy and integrated into a single service
- The new Air-Force would therefore include land-based, as well as carrier-based aviation.  Pilots (and certain ground-crews) who worked in carrier-based aviation would remain in carrier-based aviation, where as pilots who flew off land-bases would remain working off land-bases regardless of whether they were Army or Navy Prior.
- I'm not sure if Air-Cavalry would still be under the Army, or would be included in the Air-Force, although I would think at least some helicopters (Attack Helicopters at least) would be under the Air-Force's control.
- Integration would be important, so from the very beginning of the WHIF Air-Force's creation, it would be vital to integrate with the Army and Navy.  Since people who would be in the new Air-Force would be former Army and Navy guys, this would probably be easier than you think.  Training would be important to integrate everything reasonably smoothly.
- For aircraft with multiple air-crew, a crew-system would be used with flight-officers as well as pilots.
- Since an Army and Navy could potentially have different designations for their aircraft, a uniform designation system would be created.  All aircraft currently in service and inventory would be re-designated.  Numeric system for each category (Fighter, Bomber, etc) to be set-up by chronological order of date of first flight.  

Well regardless with this, there would have prior to the creation of this WHIF-Air-Force, an Army and a Navy, both with their own Air-Forces, and both would have their own developments, including parallel jet-aircraft development.  This would result in two different jet-designs.

The Army Air-Force design as I'm looking at it is to be pretty much what I'd been cooking up on this thread so far.  The idea basically is based loosely on the Hawker Seahawk featuring twin-engines as the first jet-engines were not as powerful as the engine the Seahawk used.  They would be mounted in a straight-through set-up next to the fuselage (not unlike the XP-59, or FH-1 Phantom) on either side of the fuselage though if possible retaining the swept-intake.  Wing-area would be about 350-square feet which was similar to the Gloster-Meteor (at the time it's logical to assume that the bigger wings would have worked better in high altitude maneuvering).  As for the Tail-fin and Tail-plane, I don't know if I'd use the exact same set-up as the Meteor or Seahawk, but some form of cruciform tail is obviously a good idea as damn near every plane of that era had it.

The Naval Air-Force design I'm thinking could pretty much be a carbon copy of the FH-1 Phantom, with maybe a few subtle differences (Any ideas?)


KJ Lesnick

[Luis Almeida]

Starting with the idea that the country is Portugal, here is what i do: 

- The new Air-Force would be formed out of the Army and navy aviation, in 1946(instead of 1952) and integrated into a single service.
- The army aviation would have a light aviation unit with attack helicopters, some transport helicopters (forming in real world).
- The navy aviation would have only helicopters (lynx and EH 101).
- Pilot training and ground crews would have the same training, has we allready do.

So now we have air-force, naval aviation and army light aviation. Since in my country, cooperation beetwen armed forces is not a big problem this structure would be cheap and more effective.

- the air-force would maintain the roles it has in real world, keeping the control of all fixed wings assets.
- the navy has helicopters for the frigates and LPD or LHD
- the army would have attack and transport helicopters.

- Air-force, Army and Navy have the same designations for their aircraft. We use a numeric system for each category (Fighter, Bomber, etc). 

[KJ_Lesnick]

Luis Almeida,

Starting with the idea that the country is Portugal

I take it you're Portuguese?

- The new Air-Force would be formed out of the Army and navy aviation, in 1946(instead of 1952) and integrated into a single service.
- The army aviation would have a light aviation unit with attack helicopters, some transport helicopters (forming in real world).
- The navy aviation would have only helicopters (lynx and EH 101).

Not a bad idea, makes sense.

So now we have air-force, naval aviation and army light aviation. Since in my country, cooperation beetwen armed forces is not a big problem this structure would be cheap and more effective.

Generally easier with smaller countries

- Air-force, Army and Navy have the same designations for their aircraft. We use a numeric system for each category (Fighter, Bomber, etc).

That's a good idea.  It gets really confusing if you have different designations for each service.


KJ Lesnick

[Luis Almeida]

Starting with the idea that the country is Portugal

I take it you're Portuguese?

Yes i am

- The new Air-Force would be formed out of the Army and navy aviation, in 1946(instead of 1952) and integrated into a single service.
- The army aviation would have a light aviation unit with attack helicopters, some transport helicopters (forming in real world).
- The navy aviation would have only helicopters (lynx and EH 101).

Not a bad idea, makes sense.

All i can say at this time is that this structure is almost done, although economical crisis as slowed and allmost stop this changes

So now we have air-force, naval aviation and army light aviation. Since in my country, cooperation beetwen armed forces is not a big problem this structure would be cheap and more effective.

Generally easier with smaller countries

Definitely, if you study a Little bit about Portuguese armed forces in the African "provinces" war ( Angola, Mozambique Guinea) you would see that that combined operations were conducted with allmost no problems, even today we have a high degree of cooperation betwen army, navy and Air-Force, because they have to support each other in the field.