Shorts Stirling ideas

[McColm]

Lancaster and Stirling interchange tails.

Looks great, thanks

[AS.12]

An 'interim' WHIF for the Stirling would be to marry the fuselage to the 'full' 127 ft-span wing planned for the related S.32 airliner, which was not constrained by Air Ministry notions.

That wing had an area of 2,050 sq ft ( versus 1,300 ) but more significantly a much finer aspect-ratio.

[Caveman]

I think the Stirlings should get more love. Longer wings would be a start, lower incidence would be the next move.

The Stirling V was basically the equivalent of the Lancastrian. So what about raising the wing to the top of the fuselage. Deleting the bomb bay and creating a Stirling version of a York?

[McColm]

Got one in the stash 'spares n repairs' , thanks for the idea.

[jcf]

The original Shorts submission to B.12/36 had a 112' wingspan, which combined with the
large Gouge flaps would have given more than adequate take-off performance, this was
revamped to the requested shorter span and became the Stirling.

The wing incidence of the Stirling was 3 1/2°, which was chosen as optimum for reduced
cruise drag, after testing of the half-scale S.31 the test pilots recommended an increase
of 3°, solely for improved take-off, it would have reduced flight performance. However as
the aircraft was already in pre-production mode such a redesign was too late, for reasons
of both engineering cost and delay, thus was born the long landing gear which added the
requested incidence, in relation to the ground.

I posted this info in this thread back in 2012:
http://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php/topic,35434.msg567116.html#msg567116

[AS.12]

And then the ultimate objective was the S.36 'Super Stirling', or Stirling III allocated, bigger in all dimensions, four Centaurus engines and with 0.50" HMGs all-around.  B.8/41 issued for two prototypes. 10,000lb payload on 50 ton MTOW.

Ironically despite its promising performance on paper it was scuppered by ACM Harris who didn't want to interrupt the delivery of standard Stirlings.  Despite the fact that he hated the things.

[jcf]

S.36 Super Stirling to B.8/41.


Basically a land based equivalent of the Shetland, 17% larger than the Stirling, with four Centaurus.
The unswept, tapered Wing used same type of structural design/construction as the Shetland, 135'9" span,
2,145 sq ft area, incidence 6 1/2 º, fuselage cranked at 3 1/2 º behind the wing, length 101' twin-wheel
main gear, gross weight 104,000 lb, range 4,000 miles at 300 mph with 10,000 lb bomb load.

My reading is that the S.36 wasn't proceeded with because of the desire to accelerate Lancaster production,
which was a better use of available resources.

Sir Stafford Cripps kept the Stirling in production after he took over as Minister of Aircraft Production in
March 1943. The Ministry took over full management of all Short Brother's factories and kept the Stirling
in production as a glider-tug and para transport because they were needed for the coming invasion of
Occupied Europe.

[Snowtrooper]

Ironically despite its promising performance on paper it was scuppered by ACM Harris who didn't want to interrupt the delivery of standard Stirlings.  Despite the fact that he hated the things.

Well, Harris was right in this sense. Centaurus was still very much a work in progress and Centaurus-engined Stirling would not have helped much in either of RAF's problems, which was keeping the unescorted night bombers alive in the first place (Mossie with its ludicrous speed proved to be the solution for this unless heavy bombs were required) and the difficulty of hitting anything smaller than a metropolitan area (night bombing without radar had a CEP of five miles - half of the bombs fell more than eight kilomteres from the target!). You don't turn the entire logistics chain upside down for the sake of a single Wunderwaffe promising incremental improvements at best. Better the devil you know (and can at least somewhat manage with).

[AS.12]

Lovely three-view, thanks for that.

S.36 was in the B-29 size category, a few tons short in MTOW but otherwise pretty close.  But of course no pressurisation, so stuck in the mid / high teens cruising altitude.

It was anticipated that two S.36s could be built for every three Stirlings, but nearly 200 Sitrlings would be 'lost' in the production change-over.


I still reckon an up-winged Stirling would have been a good compromise, not too much disruption to production.  Looking around the Web this appears to have been proposed as the S.34 with 20mm Hispanos for defence :-O

[PR19_Kit]

S.36 Super Stirling to B.8/41.

Interesting that it still perpetuates the outward canted engines, as on the Sunderland.

Why ever would they want to do that?

[kitnut617]

Interesting that it still perpetuates the outward canted engines, as on the Sunderland.

Why ever would they want to do that?

As with the Sunderland, it was a quick & dirty way to compensate for a miscalculation of the cg.  When Shorts were building the Sunderland V (or was that VI), they straightened the engines (and floats) back to run parallel with the fuselage center line. I think if the Super Sterling had gone into production it would have been corrected but all we have is the preliminary designs to go by these days.

[tigercat]

So ideally they'd have done a swing wing Stirling (adjusts halo)

[jcf]

Interesting that it still perpetuates the outward canted engines, as on the Sunderland.

Why ever would they want to do that?

As with the Sunderland, it was a quick & dirty way to compensate for a miscalculation of the cg.  When Shorts were building the Sunderland V (or was that VI), they straightened the engines (and floats) back to run parallel with the fuselage center line. I think if the Super Sterling had gone into production it would have been corrected but all we have is the preliminary designs to go by these days.

The Sunderland engines ended up canted-out because the wing was swept back by 4 1/2° to
compensate for an aft shift of the CG caused by changing the nose armament from a 37mm
gun and mount to a single Lewis or Vickers K-gun in an FN.11 turret, and the tail armament
from a single flexible Lewis gun to a four-gun FN.13 power-turret. The main step also had to
be moved aft as a result. Bupkis to do with "miscalculation".
The engine position stayed the same on Mks. I - V of the Sunderland, the Mk.V was a Mk.IV
with Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasps, and related civil mods.

The Sunderland based S.45 Seaford had the engine thrust lines repositioned to a reduced angle
in relation to the aircraft centre-line, however performance was not considered to be enough of
an improvement to warrant full production and entry into squadron service. Wing float position
wasn't changed. Eight were built, the  first two were retained at Felixstowe, the remaining six
sent to Belfast for conversion into Solent airliners, to join BOACs twelve S.45A Solents, which
were built as airliners using the S.45 tooling.

[kitnut617]

Interesting that it still perpetuates the outward canted engines, as on the Sunderland.

Why ever would they want to do that?

As with the Sunderland, it was a quick & dirty way to compensate for a miscalculation of the cg.  When Shorts were building the Sunderland V (or was that VI), they straightened the engines (and floats) back to run parallel with the fuselage center line. I think if the Super Sterling had gone into production it would have been corrected but all we have is the preliminary designs to go by these days.

The Sunderland engines ended up canted-out because the wing was swept back by 4 1/2° to
compensate for an aft shift of the CG caused by changing the nose armament from a 37mm
gun and mount to a single Lewis or Vickers K-gun in an FN.11 turret, and the tail armament
from a single flexible Lewis gun to a four-gun FN.13 power-turret. The main step also had to
be moved aft as a result. Bupkis to do with "miscalculation".
The engine position stayed the same on Mks. I - V of the Sunderland, the Mk.V was a Mk.IV
with Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasps, and related civil mods.

The Sunderland based S.45 Seaford had the engine thrust lines repositioned to a reduced angle
in relation to the aircraft centre-line, however performance was not considered to be enough of
an improvement to warrant full production and entry into squadron service. Wing float position
wasn't changed. Eight were built, the  first two were retained at Felixstowe, the remaining six
sent to Belfast for conversion into Solent airliners, to join BOACs twelve S.45A Solents, which
were built as airliners using the S.45 tooling.

I knew they were straightened out on one of the following variants, just thought it was one of the Sunderlands.  The floats on all the previous Sunderlands canted outwards at the same angle the engines did Jon and was changed on the Seaford. Read that in an article in AeroMititaria

[Geoff]

So if we were to add an auxiliary jet engine/s to enhance take off performance etc like a C-119. I suspect a single over fuselage engine would mess with the tail/controls. So x2 engines - one under each wing? Alt idea built in JATO like a B-47. In the words of the great Monty Python "This is getting very silly!"

My other idea is to back date it to the '30s - open cockpit and turrets. Fixed u/c and no engine nacels.