Aircraft that Britain Shouldn't have had

[DarrenP]

we have a thread aircraft the the UK should have had now what shouldn't they have bought?

Let me open with Tornado F3

[maxmwill]

The GD(your choice as to the meaning of that) F111

[PR19_Kit]

The Rivet Joints, Nimrod R4s would have done the job and cost us, the taxpayers, less.

[The Wooksta!]

Spey engined Phantoms.  Or indeed ANY Phantom.

[Old Wombat]

Spey engined Phantoms.  Or indeed ANY Phantom.

Everybody needs Phantoms! 'Coz ... 'coz, well ... well, they're just so big, brutish & outright cool!

[PR19_Kit]

In the same era you'd probably have to add the Battle too, seriously underpowered and underarmed for the role it was pushed into.

Mind you, apart from moving Hampdens and Whitleys across to France I'm not sure what else could have been used.

[Old Wombat]

If you want shouldn't haves, let's try the Fairey Battle & Fulmar, & the Blackburn Roc & Skua.









Late to the party, again! that's what happens when you do too many things at once!

[Dizzyfugu]

The Westland Whirlwind - at least with its crappy original engines.

[andrewj]

The Westland Whirlwind - at least with its crappy original engines.

But , the piots who flew them, loved them .

Andrew

[Librarian]

The Westland Whirlwind - at least with its crappy original engines.

I love the look of the Whirlwind, but you said at least with its crappy original engines, did they try other engines?

Huge fan of the Whirlwind but the problematic engines destroyed its career (and I vaguely remember some hostility from on high). Always wondered what could have been achieved with Merlins/Griffons.

Wasn't the Manchester ruined by poor engines too?

[JayBee]

Ah yes the wonderful Botha.
I remember reading that the official test report stated that "Entrance to this aircraft is difficult, it should be made impossible." 

[kitnut617]

Huge fan of the Whirlwind but the problematic engines destroyed its career (and I vaguely remember some hostility from on high). Always wondered what could have been achieved with Merlins/Griffons.

Rolls Royce had a development plan for the Whirlwinds engines, but because they were instructed to concentrate on the Merlin, that development had to be canned.   Up until the Westland Welkin got it's official name, it was called the Whirlwind Development Aircraft.  The Welkin had Merlins ---- so now you know what could have been achieved.  The downfall of the Welkin though was it's wing, no matter how much power the engines could produce, the wing had a maximum speed, anything over that speed, the wing shock stalled.  Westlands answer to that was to increase the chord length by 20% but by then the Air Ministry had lost interest in it, that and the fact the expected German high altitude attack didn't materialize ---

One of my projects in the works is to modify one of the Welkins I have, with this 20% increased wing, plus shortening the wing to make it into a heavy fighter --  I could see it as a pretty good 'Pacific' escort fighter as it could carry (and was tested with) a pair of 200 Gal drop tanks. If you know what the 200 Gal. tank looked like that the Beaufighter used, the Welkin carried two of them.

[Mossie]

TSR.2

There, I've said it.  It shouldn't have been built in the first place, but once it was we should have followed it through.

[kitnut617]

Wasn't the Manchester ruined by poor engines too?

just looked it up and it used unreliable Rolls-Royce Vulture's, I alway's thought it used Merlin's...

also found:
Manchester II Projected version re-engined with a pair of Napier Sabre or Bristol Centaurus engines. None built.

unfortunate that version was never built, sounds like a great idea.

The idea of the Manchester was to be powered by two 2000+ hp engines, any of the engines you mention fall into that category.  One of the reasons the Manchester had such tall u/c was because it was supposed to swing a 16 foot diameter prop.  But the Vulture was only developed so far so by the time it was cancelled, it used a smaller diameter one.  Once again, the Vulture fell victim of the urgent requirement for Merlins.  I've read that the problems could have been fixed, incidentally, when the Vulture was installed in the Hawker Tornado, they didn't experience any problems with it.

[NARSES2]

Kitnut beat me to the point re the Peregrine engine. In my world RR sort the problems out and the Whirwind sees much more extensive service.

As for the Welkin. The CM kit is in the pile of "next starts" as the resin part of the stash's contribution  

Fairey Battle, Fulmar etc ? Rather unfair to judge them with hindsight in my opinion. You need to try and put your self into the minds of the people at the time. What were the expected requirements, what were the planned operational procedures/tactics, what were the opposition expected to do ; indeed who were they expected to be ?

Very, very few things survive the first shock of war. Then the problem is that you haven't the time and/or resources to sort out those failures which could be sorted out with a little bit of development.

It's all to easy to condemn from a safe distance