RoG fighters

[raafif]

Couldn't find a dedicated thread on this so here goes ...

Ok, RoG stands for Rocket-fighters over Germany -- 1944 & the new jet engines prove very unreliable untill 1950 so all new fighters get rocket power instead ....

Germany has the Me-163, Me.P-1106 (rocket 262 Dart) & a few other similar a/c (no puse-jets due to the high dental bills from pilots with loose teeth after each mission & stress fractures on a/craft).  Italy gets a modified Campini ...  Japan has its Ohka variants -- what about larger ground-launched ones with slightly more loiter-time ??

What about the Allies ??  America builds the Bell RXF-1 Trans-Sonic (just) & the Northrop XP-79R ??

England brings forward some of the Fairey projects & the Saunders-Roe SR-53 but with pure rocket power instead of mixed jet/rocket ?  English Electric goes crazy on advancing the Lightning design & in late 1945 fields the Lightning FR-1 with dual rocket power instead of twin Avons .... of course, it needs a massive belly drop-tank for fuel (like the space-shuttle) to get it to altitude so it's ramp-launched & naturally gets dubbed the "Frightning" by pilots ...

For fuel, Germany sticks with C-stoff & T-stoff, while the Allies go for an equally dangerous mix of ultra-high octane "PyroGasoline" with Lox catalyst called Pox ...

Get that pulped brain-matter working ....

[Weaver]

You need advanced aerodynamic work to get either the SR-53 or Lightning into service, and that takes time. The earliest British rocket plane proposal I can think of is a Hawker P.1040 with a rocket booster in the tail, made possible by the split jet pipes. If the jet wasn't available, then a similar body shape might be favoured, with a spherical LOX tank at the widest point and kerosene tanks fore and aft of it.

My Gloster Goblin used similar logic: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,26991.0.html

[jcf]

Rocket fighters are pretty much useless as anything other than purely defensive point-interceptors, so while I can see some
increased German usage in that role, Allied offensive use is doubtful. Except perhaps as sprint boosters for piston-engined
aircraft.

Many US projects used fuming red nitric acid rocket motors.

BTW the Soviets are the more likely user as their projects were in a more advanced state than those in the US or UK,
or Germany for that matter, as the first flight of rocket powerd interceptor was made by the Bereznyak-Isayev BI on
10 September 1942. The Russians explored other concepts during the war and did a lot of work on rocket boosted
conventional aircraft

The 1945 Hawker P.1046 proposal was a Naval P.1040 with a rocket booster. The P.1040 (P.1035 with R-R B.41 engine)
was the basis for the Sea Hawk.

The forerunner of the SR.53 was the SARO P.154 pure-rocket interceptor tendered to Spec. F.124T in 1952.

Jon