What If's in Fiction

[Old Wombat]

Then there's Alastair MacLean's HMS Ulysses - a modified Dido Class light cruiser.

[wagnersm]

Does the long range, two seat P40 from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow count?

[Rheged]

The childrens author Douglas V Duff   invented Lt. Adam McAdam  of the Yraguayan navy, with Condor nuclear powered maritime recon aircraft and all sorts of other kit. About  1958 vintage I think.

[Hobbes]

Michael Crichton has a novel about the aircraft industry, which centers on a fictional aircraft company and their new design passenger aircraft. I forgot the title, though.

[martinbayer]

Michael Crichton has a novel about the aircraft industry, which centers on a fictional aircraft company and their new design passenger aircraft. I forgot the title, though.

Hobbes,

the book is Airframe, and the aircraft is the Norton N-22.

Martin

[Nick]

Peter F. Hamilton's Mindstar series has some good and bad aviation what-ifs...

BAD.... all the classic aircraft at Duxford get crushed for recycling by a socialist government.
Good... Duxford later becomes the main UK/European space research centre. Stansted is the main spaceplane freight terminal for Event Horizon.
The same firm made their money by smuggling hi-tech goods in ex-Canadian Air Force Lockheed YC-55 Prowler stealth transports. Their shape was a cousin of the original B-2 bomber, a stumpy, swept batwing with an ellipsoid lifting-body fuselage; the entire surface had a radar nullifying matt-black coating.

Sanger spaceplanes carried by An-225's, Dornier Tilt-Fans, Lakehurst-class airships, English Motor Company Ranger farm vehicles, Fiat Austin Duo cars etc.

We all know about Dale Brown, don't we.

[McGreig]

There is also the Rutland Reindeer,  see No Highway  by Neville Shute.

In the book, the actual shape of the Reindeer is rather vague. At one point in the story a Reindeer captain says "I'm going to shut down the inboard engines - - - and - - - throttle down the middle ones", which implies a six engined machine. Nevil Shute was an aeronautical engineeer and the book was published in 1948, in the era of the Brabazon report and the design of the Bristol Brabazon and Saro Princess and I've always assumed that the Reindeer looked a bit like a six engined Brabazon. Interestingly, the Reindeer is also described as "the current trans-Atlantic airliner - - - the Mk1 model - - - had radial engines, though now they all have jets".

However, in the 1951 film, the Reindeer looked like this, with a bizarre biplane tail:

[McGreig]

which implies a six engined machine.

Just come across this in Wikipedia's entry for "No Highway" (the book):

Rutland Reindeer :
Built by the Rutland Aircraft Company, in service with C.A.T.O, the Commercial Air Transport Organisation, then plying the Atlantic on a regular basis. Powered by eight engines with four contra-rotating propellors, the Reindeer can best be imagined to resemble the Bristol Brabazon, whose future development would also have included jet power; Shute notes this late in the novel.

Assegai Mk.1:
Powered by a Boreus afterburning turbojet. At the end of the novel this aircraft is under investigation by Dr. Scott because three have been lost through trans-sonic disintegration. Interestingly this parallels the late development of the Gloster Meteor, whose late marks had more thrust than the airframe was designed to accommodate; it too suffered from trans-sonic buffeting in powered dives, two being lost to tail separation. From the name of the Assegai, it can be assumed that the aircraft is of delta configuration, and it can be assumed that it is a re-labeling of Fairey FD-2 supersonic prototype powered by the Bristol Orpheus turbojet.

[Rheged]

which implies a six engined machine.

Just come across this in Wikipedia's entry for "No Highway" (the book):

Assegai Mk.1:
Powered by a Boreus afterburning turbojet. At the end of the novel this aircraft is under investigation by Dr. Scott because three have been lost through trans-sonic disintegration. Interestingly this parallels the late development of the Gloster Meteor, whose late marks had more thrust than the airframe was designed to accommodate; it too suffered from trans-sonic buffeting in powered dives, two being lost to tail separation. From the name of the Assegai, it can be assumed that the aircraft is of delta configuration, and it can be assumed that it is a re-labeling of Fairey FD-2 supersonic prototype powered by the Bristol Orpheus turbojet.

Assegai delta sounds like a Javelin  sort of  beast to me.

[Radish]

Never EVER forget BIGGLES...EVER!!

[The Rat]

I love the modified Victors in the original Gamera movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d1EQ89CnOU

[MilitaryAircraft101]

Never EVER forget BIGGLES...EVER!!

Yup! Plenty in Biggles! There's a plane in one of them (too many, I forget  ) which they give a rather detailed description of but no name or hints towards what it could have originally been.

[Taiidantomcat]

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

More lists at the bottom 

[silverwindblade]

Mmm, some of my favourites are the navalised F-22 'Sea Raptors' from John Birminghams' Axis of Time trilogy, and from the Twilight X comic book by the superbly talented artist, writer, and genuinely nice guy Joseph Wight, there's the A-10 'Seahog'.

[McGreig]

in Wikipedia's entry for "No Highway" (the book) - - - From the name of the Assegai, it can be assumed that the aircraft is of delta configuration, and it can be assumed that it is a re-labeling of Fairey FD-2 supersonic prototype powered by the Bristol Orpheus turbojet.

On reflection, this can't be correct - the book was published in 1948 (and presumably written in 1947), but the FD-2 didn't fly until 1954, and even the FD-1 only flew in 1950. And why does "Assegai" - a type of spear- imply a delta wing? Admittedly the Gloster Javelin - another type of spear - was a delta, but it didn't fly until 1951.

Anyway, two more pictures of the Reindeer. The first is of the full size mock-up at Blackbush and the second is another model shot.

Astonishingly, the full size Reindeer mock-up used for the film was rebuilt from Halifax C MKVIII, G-AJNW, owned by Westminster Airways Ltd. I haven't checked this out myself, but a thread on Key Publishing's Aviation Forum includes this comment:

"Halifax C MKVIII (PP296/G-AJNW) completed 116 tanker sorties on the Berlin airlift. It returned to its home base of Blackbushe on 26/4/1950. It was sold on for film work and used as the fictitious Reindeer aircraft (G-AFOH) and then scrapped. The information comes from Propliner magazine No.64, Autumn 1995, and I've cross referenced it with "The Halifax File" by R.N.Roberts".

By the time that a new circular section fuselage and four turboprops have been mocked up around the original airframe there isn't much Halifax visible, apart from the main undercarriage. It also appears to be a tail-sitter - see the support built under the tail.





Assuming that you started with Halifax wings, I wonder what else you would need to get the rough shape of the Reindeer - - -