Shorts Stirling ideas

[The Wooksta!]

The story about chopping the wings down to get it into standard hangars is a myth.  Apparently the Air Ministry were concerned about the weight growth so had the wings pruned.  There's several threads about it on Britmodeller.

[wuzak]

The story about chopping the wings down to get it into standard hangars is a myth.  Apparently the Air Ministry were concerned about the weight growth so had the wings pruned.  There's several threads about it on Britmodeller.

If fitting in the hangar was the limiting factor for wing span, I wonder if they could have adopted folding outer wing panels?

[The Wooksta!]

More complexity and weight, which the Ministry were already concerned with anyway.

[McColm]

and this was the first 4 engine bomber

[NARSES2]

Something to do with the size of the hangers.

All aircraft built to the spec that the Stirling was built to had to fit into the then existing RAF hangars whence the restriction in span

[Weaver]

Nope, the wingspan-limit-to-fit-the-hangars story is a myth. The RAF had 120ft wide hangars available and B.12/36 (the Stirling requirement) called for "good facilities for maintenance in the open". The 100ft limit was an arbitary one imposed to prevent the whole aircraft from becoming too large. See BSP.3 page 100. Tony Buttler refers from there to The Royal Air Force and Aircraft Design 1923-1939 by Colin Sinnott, pp 168-170.

[McColm]

Could it be something to do with the aerodynamics (shape)? I noticed Shorts never built a land bomber after the Stirling and went onto build seaplanes.

[Caveman]

Deffinitely, ill refer you back to the picture on p1. It has both a longer and taller fuselage than the Halifax and Lanc and its lines are much more angular. Its wing root chord looks to be approximately 2 x that of the other two whose wing planforms are actually remarkably similar. This extra large wing chord coupled with the wings high incidence coupled with a large un-aerodynamic fuselage is going to create a very draggy aircraft and simply the larger dimensions of the halifax is going to mean that all other things being equal it is going to be heavier. So just from appearances you can presume that it is going to be heavier and slower.

But then apparently it was designed to carry both troops (low density, therefore high volume) and bombs (high density, therefore low volume). So it was always going to be a jack of all (?) master of none affair...

I wonder if this could be a case that one development route might have been to make the aircraft smaller!
Keep the wing length the same but cut the chord and shorten the fuselage maybe delete the upper turret. Shortening the main gear (which seems to be absurdly tall anyone know of a reason that it was higher then lanc and halifax? does the bomb bay extend further aft and therefor requires more clearance?) would allow the cockpit to be lowered still maintaining forward vision on the ground and clean up the aerodynamics further...

[PR19_Kit]

Short's didn't go on to build seaplanes, they were already the country's foremost flying boat builder.

The wing of the Stirling had a lot to do with that of the C and G Class Empire boats, and if you look at a Sunderland's wings they're a similar shape too.

[Daryl J.]

Commando insertion USAF Korea.
SIGINT 1955-70ish USAF/RCAF

[kitnut617]

Short's didn't go on to build seaplanes, they were already the country's foremost flying boat builder.

Beat me to that Kit ---  

The wing of the Stirling had a lot to do with that of the C and G Class Empire boats, and if you look at a Sunderland's wings they're a similar shape too.

As I'm finding out at the moment with a project I'm building, the Sunderland wing has a very similar profile to the Sterlings, probably has the same chord profiles too.  But I think they were built totally differently.  The Stirling wing had split flaps and internal bomb bays between the spars, the Sunderland on the other hand had huge Fowler flaps that would do a B-52 proud.  The rear spars appear to be in different places, the Stirlings much further back along the chord, whereas the Sunderlands rear spar is practically mid chord span.

Now a Sterling with Fowler flaps would be a neat idea -----

[Martin H]

I noticed Shorts never built a land bomber after the Stirling

Shorts Sperrin any one?

[kitnut617]

I noticed Shorts never built a land bomber after the Stirling

Shorts Sperrin any one?

Nice one Martin -- 

[McColm]

Wow the passion, whoops might have over looked my facts

[Gondor]

Don't worry about it McColm, lots of people ask questions that the answers are well known to others or the answers are easily found with a little research on the internet or even from thumbing through a few books.

Gondor