Single Seat Firefly

[wuzak]

wuzak

I'm curious about a couple of different things regarding the concept of a single-seat Firefly

• Provided the Firefly had the same engine, propeller, radiator design, fuel-load, and wing-design, but was 470# lighter and 2'2" shorter: How much faster would you speculate it would be capable of going if you were to venture a guess?
  
• Provided the Firefly was actually designed as a single-seater and 470 pounds lighter: Do you think the wing would have been designed smaller to go with it?
  

Still not as fast as a Seafire with the same engine. Maybe a few mph faster than the 2 seater, not a whole lot.

I doubt that the wing would reduce much, if at all, simply because that is 470lbs more fuel/ammo/bombs that can be carried by the aircraft.

[KJ_Lesnick]

wuzak

Still not as fast as a Seafire with the same engine.

I had kind of gathered that, though I just wasn't certain to the extent.  I assume by a few miles an hour you mean somewhere between 0 and 10 mph?

Regardless: I do remember reading something about proposals issued for the following

• Single-seater: Top-speed of 330 knots
  
• Twin-seater: Top-speed of 300 knots
  

It seemed that even the twin-seater didn't quite measure up in terms of speed

I doubt that the wing would reduce much, if at all, simply because that is 470lbs more fuel/ammo/bombs that can be carried by the aircraft.

If you were to make a guess, what would you venture?  If not, would it be a good estimate to simply scale the wing-loading to the weight?

[tahsin]

making it to target by 1945 as a suicider tended to mean an A6M with that 250kg bomb. Was it Illustrious that went to US for a year or two after Stukas did what they did?

Illustrious.

However, that was because of a failure of the Czech made armour which had been used on her decking, not because of an inherent flaw in her design.

Nobody looks for the inevitable inherent flaw in some British ship of long past.

We have only established it in the mind numbingly pathetic Turkish way that the driving rationale for the design of the RN for the WW II was a requirement to fight Japan in the Pasific, possibly after securing the route. Meaning assuring the security of Suez with defeating the Italian fleet in a Nelsonian decisive engagement. Or as a rather easier proposition of destroying Turkey and capturing the Straits to bottle a Soviet fleet in the Blacksea, for which Churchill might assemble a Balkan Alliance.

The aircraft carrier of the RN was a support element for the big guns of the battleships, scouting to locate the enemy, spotting for gunfire, a couple of fighters to down enemy scouts and possibly knocking out enemy ships in many Mediterranean ports as they refused to challenge the RN blockade. When these ideas were first mooted, planes tended to have 200 hp engines and fabric wings, ideally a double set of wings. Americans started the same but they had all the money in the world but no requirement to survive attacks by land based aircraft; and a further distinction in the existantial need to have a credible aerial anti-shipping capacity to stop the Army Air taking over everything. Japanese on the other hand had a very serious desire to be able to defeat the Anglosaxons in a very quick way, due to the simple fact that they could have never won against either of the Anglosaxon powers in any protracted war. Fighting against an alliance of both was even more hopeless. As such Japanese planes had the longest range so that they could attrite enemy fleets, knocking out a cruiser or two before the main battle without risking a counter-attack from enemy carriers. Only because the Japanese carriers would be made out of paper. Almost... So that they could have of more of them with so much of Japan's steel production being out of scrap metal from the US. While Americans carried the heaviest bombs to smash a cruiser or two before the main battle. And American ships could dare ignoring armoured decks, because they could have so many of them to have a viable fighter cover. And the British could not have so many carriers, being almost bankrupt in the Great War. So they armoured their flat-tops.

End result was that at similar tonnage, the first Essex carried 50% more aircraft than its British equivalent which probably took 5 years to be sent into action, a period possibly 3 times of the American carrier. And the concept was entirely validated by the broomsticks sweeping that Kamikaze off the deck.

Now that there could be 3 Essexes instead of one armoured RN ship and hence the Americans could afford specilization with 9 planes for every 2 British, the RN flyers had to be multi-task. Their fighters were actually scouts and their scouts were fighters and so on. With two pairs of eyes being much better than one when searching for submarine periscobes and the like. Even the torpedo/dive bomber for war, Barracuda to be precise, was a scout plane, with maximum visibility for surface search. But is this the answer? Naturally, no.

Take note of the remarkable idea that the British were after land based Naval fighters in the mold of the J series of IJN... It's always the turkeys , the flops. Lockmart will never blame people for Supermarine B_tch, which was interceptor enough for any shore base. Always numbed by the unmentionable stories of WW II and not satisified by the everlasting glory of F-35 which can now even make it to Europe they have to blame the Firebrand on long dead people in America who used to advise people here in Turkey after joining NATO. And the failure the Firebrand is not enough on itself but the "success" of the Js must be on those long dead people as well. Jack, hted by the Japanese yet liked by the Allied test pilots and George being so fun (but still with 4 of those 250kg bombs)... OK, let's make this even better with a revelation on the designations of the entire IJN planes. With obviously some guy telling it all to the Japanese of the 1930s. Who actually had tails and lived on trees and lacked brains. A for fighter to defend their ships, B for bomber to attack American ships, C for scouts to find those American ships, D obviously dive bomber, E scouts on cruisers, G for Ground based and J for Japan!  Making perfect sense to any White guy with Protestant beliefs or what?

Which actually was a legal argument of sorts when either Ford or ITT sued the US Goverment for bomb damage to their factories in the Nazi Germany that made Fw-190s. But this is the 21st Century and we all need a fresh air? Why, say the evildoers in the US come with Heinkel Blitz and trick Mitchell in his deathbed to get it for the Supermarine B_tch? So that the Nazis will have three 109s in the manhours that can build only one Schpitfeuer? But the good people answer that with Castle Bromwitch, the shadow factory, the secret factory that the evildoers never saw coming and hence won the Battle of Britain? As good as any but might turn British Nationalists the wrong way?

[Mossie]

I can't break it down, but I can tell you the overall difference between the Fairey single and two seat NAD 925/39 designs:
Griffon powered aircraft with 4x cannon
Single seat:  9,380lb
Two seat:  9,850lb
Difference:  470lb

Sabre powered aircraft with 4x cannon
Single seat:  10,880lb
Two seat:  11,350lb
Difference:  470lb

Okay, that's useful -- the plane would be 470 pounds lighter.

I've got a different figure as well, the two seat Griffon powered design to N.8/39 is quoted as 10,627lb so that would make a difference of around 1200lb, significantly more.

wuzak

Still not as fast as a Seafire with the same engine.

I had kind of gathered that, though I just wasn't certain to the extent.  I assume by a few miles an hour you mean somewhere between 0 and 10 mph?

Regardless: I do remember reading something about proposals issued for the following

• Single-seater: Top-speed of 330 knots
  
• Twin-seater: Top-speed of 300 knots
  

It seemed that even the twin-seater didn't quite measure up in terms of speed

I doubt that the wing would reduce much, if at all, simply because that is 470lbs more fuel/ammo/bombs that can be carried by the aircraft.

If you were to make a guess, what would you venture?  If not, would it be a good estimate to simply scale the wing-loading to the weight?

More figures from BSP Fighter and Bombers:

Type                                Max Speed                 Span                 Length                 Gross wing area
Single seat (Griffon):          381 mph/331 knots     42ft 0in/12.8m    34ft 3in/10.4m      292ft²27.2m²
Single seat (Sabre):           411 mph/357 knots     44ft 0 in/13.4m   35ft 10 in/10.9m    335ft²/31.2m²
Two seat to N8.39:             319 mph/277 knots     48ft 0in/14.6m    39ft 3 in/12.0m     340ft²/31.6m²
Firefly F.1 as flown:            316 mph/275 knots     44ft 6in/13.6m    37ft 7in/11.5m      328ft²/30.5m²

[KJ_Lesnick]

Mossie

I can't break it down, but I can tell you the overall difference between the Fairey single and two seat NAD 925/39 designs

Okay, so N.8/39 came first, then NAD 925/39, then N5/40?

More figures from BSP Fighter and Bombers:

Type                                Max Speed                 Span                 Length                 Gross wing area
Single seat (Griffon):          381 mph/331 knots     42ft 0in/12.8m    34ft 3in/10.4m      292ft²27.2m²
Single seat (Sabre):           411 mph/357 knots     44ft 0 in/13.4m   35ft 10 in/10.9m    335ft²/31.2m²
Two seat to N8.39:             319 mph/277 knots     48ft 0in/14.6m    39ft 3 in/12.0m     340ft²/31.6m²
Firefly F.1 as flown:            316 mph/275 knots     44ft 6in/13.6m    37ft 7in/11.5m      328ft²/30.5m²

I would have sworn that the Single-Seat Griffon was to be capable of 300 kts, though it's possible I could be wrong: The Secret Projects books contain some errors in some cases (for example, a VFX design was listed as an FX entry); far as I know the Firefly F.I was listed as being capable of both 275 and 277 knots based on source (Wikipedia: 275 kts; Capt. E.M. Brown: 277 kts); as for the subject of wing-loading these would produce massive discrepancies in both variants which seems odd.

I've got a different figure as well, the two seat Griffon powered design to N.8/39 is quoted as 10,627lb so that would make a difference of around 1200lb, significantly more.

Is this empty or with fuel?

Provided fuel-load is the same, this would produce substantial differences in wing-loading

Single-Seater Estimate #1

• Loaded Weight: 10627 lbs (Full Fuel, Guns)
  
• Wing Area: 292 ft²
  
• Wing-Loading: 36.3938 ft²
  

.
Single-Seater Estimate #2

• Loaded Weight: 10880 lbs (Full Fuel, Guns)
  
• Wing-Area: 292 ft²
  
• Wing-Loading: 37.2603 lbs/ft²
  

.
Twin-Seater Estimate

• Loaded Weight: 11350 lbs (Full Fuel, Guns)
  
• Wing-Area: 340 ft²
  
• Wing-Loading: 33.3824 lbs/ft²
  

.
Fairey Firefly F.I

• OEW: 9750 lbs
  
• Fuel: 1384.5 lbs (195.5 Imp Gal)
  
• Ammo: 404 pounds (1 API-T for every 4 API rounds, API-T: 262, API: 257g; Belt Weight: 2.828 kg per 100 rounds; 1 kg = 2.20462262 lbs)
  
• Loaded: 11538.5 lbs
  
• Wing-Area: 328 ft²
  
• Wing-Loading: 35.1784 lbs/ft²
  

[Mossie]

I would have sworn that the Single-Seat Griffon was to be capable of 300 kts, though it's possible I could be wrong: The Secret Projects books contain some errors in some cases (for example, a VFX design was listed as an FX entry); far as I know the Firefly F.I was listed as being capable of both 275 and 277 knots based on source (Wikipedia: 275 kts; Capt. E.M. Brown: 277 kts); as for the subject of wing-loading these would produce massive discrepancies in both variants which seems odd.

Tony Butler states elsewhere in the text that the two seater was to be capable of 300 knots and the single seater 330 knots.  The odd error has crept into the Secret Projects books but I wouldn't take this to doubt most figures.  Two knots difference isn't much of an error to worry about (talking of which I got the max speed slightly off for the griffon single seater, should be 382 mph/332 knots).

Is this empty or with fuel?

Provided fuel-load is the same, this would produce substantial differences in wing-loading

I've no idea, the table is a little ambiguous.

I wouldn't read too much into the figures for NAD.925/39, the spec and responses where put together quickly and the Air Ministry naturally disagreed with many of the numbers that were being thought up.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Mossie

Tony Butler states elsewhere in the text that the two seater was to be capable of 300 knots and the single seater 330 knots.

Oh, okay

The odd error has crept into the Secret Projects books but I wouldn't take this to doubt most figures.

No, they're usually right...

I've no idea, the table is a little ambiguous.

Okay, I'm just curious what advantages to the Griffon have over the Sabre?

I wouldn't read too much into the figures for NAD.925/39, the spec and responses where put together quickly and the Air Ministry naturally disagreed with many of the numbers that were being thought up.

So you would say the 470 or 1200 weight difference is correct?

[wuzak]

I've no idea, the table is a little ambiguous.

Okay, I'm just curious what advantages to the Griffon have over the Sabre?

400-500lbs light and with a lower frontal area (by about 25%).

[Gondor]

I think I have an Airfix boxing in the stash so I might have a go at this one myself. Might being the operative word!

Gondor

[KiwiZac]

Good man! I'm keen to as well, it's a cool idea and the one with the Mustang prop really got my mind going.

[kitnut617]

Good man! I'm keen to as well, it's a cool idea and the one with the Mustang prop really got my mind going.

As the Firefly is much bigger than a Mustang, and by looking at the photo again, I'd say the prop comes off a P-47 and had the tips filed down slightly to round them off.  Either way, it's the wrong hand for a Griffon engine.

[Captain Canada]

I knew I should have bought that lot of 6 of the old ones when I saw it 

[KJ_Lesnick]

400-500lbs light and with a lower frontal area (by about 25%).

Sounds like a good reason.

By the way, what kind of superchargers they had?

[wuzak]

400-500lbs light and with a lower frontal area (by about 25%).

Sounds like a good reason.

By the way, what kind of superchargers they had?

Large ones.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Large ones.

I meant like: Single stage, twin-speed, twin-stage, twin-speed, twin-stage, three-speed