Requiem for a Rocket Fighter: - The Saunders Roe P177N Fleet Fighter

Overkiller · April 30, 2011, 02:10:43 PM

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Mossie · May 11, 2011, 04:15:21 AM

Looking good so far mate.

Plenty of inspiration for you in my profile thread, I haven't got Indian Navy (although I do the have Air Force) but I could knock it up pretty quickly since I've discovered my base files for the SR.177 again. I do heartily point you in the direction of the 804 NAS Tiger Meet scheme, it's on an late 80's/90's scheme but there's no reason you couldn't do something similar on earlier DSG over white. Anything else you're considering, give me a shout.
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,13108.0.html

PR19_Kit · May 21, 2011, 10:20:14 AM

Why did the '177 have such a strange canopy?

By then bubble canopys were well established, and Saunders-Roe even fitted one to the SRA-1. It looks a giant step backward.

Weaver · May 21, 2011, 12:07:02 PM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on May 21, 2011, 10:20:14 AM
Why did the '177 have such a strange canopy?

By then bubble canopys were well established, and Saunders-Roe even fitted one to the SRA-1. It looks a giant step backward.

I think there was a period when they didn't have confidence in the latest materials to withstand supersonic speeds, so they used these chisel canopies to compensate. It's the same thinking as the F-102/106/SR-71 basically. The Avro 720 had a similar one.

Also, you don't really need a flat windscreen unless you've got a gunsight, and none of these types had guns....

PR19_Kit · May 22, 2011, 01:26:22 AM

I reckon it was just to make life difficult for 21st century modellers, I can see the Design Meeting at Cowes even now....

'Now look chaps, sometime in the next 70 years there's going to some of those modelling people wanting to make models of the '177. We can't have them just going ahead and fitting some gash cut-down Hawker Tempest canopy can we, so let's make something REALLY difficult so they'll have to spend ages, and LOTS of skill, masking and painting up the frames, yes?

OK, now about this High Test Peroxide stuff.....'

Leading Observer · May 22, 2011, 01:41:02 PM

Looking good. History wise, I did read/see somwhere that the West German order was undone by the "incentives" handed out by Lockheed for the F-104 to the West German politicians.

Leading Observer · May 23, 2011, 11:25:18 AM

Duncan,

I stand corrected!

That said, Lockheeds original F-104 wasn't exactly a strike aircraft either!

Weaver · June 19, 2011, 01:32:38 PM

It's looking great now Dunc - nice one!

Re the Starfighter, my understanding was that the Italians actually crashed a greater percentage of their's than the Germans, but they never had as many to start with so the raw figures don't look as bad. The safest F-104 operators were the Japanese, but then they were using earlier types as pure interceptors, so the mission profile was inherently less risky anyway.

Another related abject failure of British salesmanship was the attempt to sell the Buccaneer to the Marineflieger. You really couldn't imagine a more perfect type for them, but the "salesmen" sent to cut the deal knew less about the aircraft than the customers, and when a German Admiral asked for a more detailed brochure, it spent three weeks going back and forth between London and Bonn in diplomatic bags because some muppet had overclassified it......

PR19_Kit · June 19, 2011, 03:19:59 PM

Quote from: Overkiller on June 19, 2011, 12:31:48 PM
(It's the EDSG/White Combo...the aeronautical equivalent of stockings and suspenders on shapely legs... NO NOT RADISH'S LEGS!!!)

Presumably fishnets?

It's quite amazing how the decals make a model come 'alive', looking great Duncan.

Rheged · June 24, 2011, 04:48:40 AM

A most impressive creation. It looks absolutely right!

PR19_Kit · June 24, 2011, 08:26:41 AM

The modelling is excellent, the sharmouth though, is AWESOME!

PR19_Kit · June 25, 2011, 05:07:26 PM

Love it!

How I WISH they'd have built and flown the real thing.

NARSES2 · June 26, 2011, 02:28:48 AM

Nice one Dunc

Weaver · June 26, 2011, 04:07:40 AM

It's a great model Dunc - well done.!

I heartily agree with you about the practical issues too: I've never been a big fan of the concept. Some more things that worry me are:

1. HTP reacts violently with water: do you really want a damn great tank of it in an aircraft carrier, no matter how well protected?

2. Given the small size and limited capability of the RN carriers, how smart was it really to have a proportion of the aviation fuel tankage dedicated to a special, different fuel that could only be used by a proportion of the aircraft on board? Given what a pain it was having avgas and avtur on board the same carrier, it seems crazy and inflexible to introduce another different fuel.

Thorvic · June 26, 2011, 04:42:05 AM

The fuel handling for the 177 was actually built into the type A rebuilds (Victorious, Hermes & Eagle) the role in the FAA being that of effectively a manned missile. We had the all weather interceptors of the Sea Venom and later Sea Vixen but these were slow and intended to loiter on patrol, with the advent of fast jet bombers with their own air to surface missiles the need was for a fast interceptor to destroy them before they could fire on the ships so the 177 effectively was a stop gap until the Naval long range SAM systems improved (Sea Dart) and the next generation of Naval Interceptors (AW406) had been developed.