The Supermarine Defender F3

[The Rat]

Now it's starting to look like an aeroplane. 



Just the basic home printed decals so far, and only on the side you can see, but I'll add some of the detail stuff from the Attacker and Swift kits as appropriate later on.

Just... wow. 

[Wardukw]

Now it's starting to look like an aeroplane. 



Just the basic home printed decals so far, and only on the side you can see, but I'll add some of the detail stuff from the Attacker and Swift kits as appropriate later on.

Just... wow. 

Yup...wow 

[Tophe]

It looks like precious metal, like a bar of silver...
(warning for RAF: kerosene is forbidden, too much dirty)

[zenrat]

Looks excellant.
It's got a golden hue to it.  Very fitting.

<sings> "there's a bright golden haze on de fender..."

[NARSES2]

It's got a golden hue to it.  Very fitting.

Beat me to it 

Don't know why, but I keep imagining it in Stars and Bars ?

[PR19_Kit]

<sings> "there's a bright golden haze on de fender..."

Grooooooan. 

Don't know why, but I keep imagining it in Stars and Bars ?

I suppose I could do another one, but it would take a while.

It'd be appropriate as the RAF's first RW swept wing aircraft was American. Well, Canadian anyway, the Canadair Sabres. 

[AeroplaneDriver]

Such a classic "jet aircraft" shape.  And a gorgeous finish too!

[PR19_Kit]

I've finished putting the main decals on the Defender, and started on the stencil stuff. Big mistake was trying to use them from the AZ Attacker kit, the decals just fell apart as soon as I slid them off the backing paper! Just like vintage Hasegawa decals. 

So Plan B was to spray the AZ sheet with my Klear spray, and Plan C was to use the details from the Xytrakit Swift.

Let's hope they're somewhat better than the AZ ones....

[NARSES2]

I've had no problems with my recent AZ/KP transfers Kit, although previously they could be very hit and miss.

[PR19_Kit]

I bought my Attacker kit YONKS ago now, and it's been sitting in The Loft for ever. Perhaps it was an early one?

I've Kleared the sheet now so it should be OK for other projects in the future.

[NARSES2]

I bought my Attacker kit YONKS ago now, and it's been sitting in The Loft for ever. Perhaps it was an early one?

Yup, it's a few years old. I built one, but still have another in the stash

[PR19_Kit]

 In mid 1944 the UK's Air Ministry issued spec. E10/44 which called for a fighter design using a laminar flow wing and a newly designed Rolls Royce turbojet, at that time known as the RB.40. The RB.40 was intended to produce double the power of the Derwents used in pairs in the Gloster Meteor design, and would enable the RAF and FAA to operate a single engined fighter without the disadvantages incurred in an 'engine out' case with a twin engined machine.

Supermarine's entry for this specification was the Type 392, essentially a jet powered Spiteful, and was known as the 'Jet Spiteful' for some time during its development period. Unfortunately the laminar flow Spiteful wing produced a number of handling problems and the loss of more than one of the prototypes. As these problems were expected to carry over to the jet version, the development of the later aircraft slowed and the RAF lost interest in the E10/44 spec. and their development efforts concentrated on the Meteor, and later the DH Vampire. The FAA however, were much more interested in the single engined jet as an 'engine out ' case with a twin engined aircraft during a carrier landing could prove disastrous.

Supermarine thus concentrated its efforts on the Naval version to spec. E1/45, which used a slightly downsized variation of the RB.40 engine, the RB.41, later to become known as the Nene. The E1/45 fighter was to become the Attacker, making its first flight in July 1946, but not entering service with the FAA until August 1950, mainly due to the Admiralty not placing a firm order until the wing's issues had been solved.

The Air Ministry however suddenly became much more interested in the original E10/44 spec. when it seemed the FAA would be getting a fast, single engined fighter before they did! Elsewhere in the UK's aviation industry De Havilland were building the DH Goblin jet engine, previously called the Halford H-1, to power their small Vampire fighter, and were developing a much more powerful version, the H-2, that was designed to produce some 4500 lbs of thrust, around the same level as the RR Nene. However, the H-2, soon to become the DH Ghost, had a much better fuel consumption than the Rolls engine, although being slightly larger, and had more thrust at higher altitudes. This was important for the Air Ministry as they envisaged having to intercept enemy bombers at much higher altitudes than had been previously the case.



In late 1945 Supermarine were asked to modify their Type 392 to take the larger Ghost engine, and to increase the span of the aircraft to improve its altitude performance. The result was to become the Defender F1, the name seemingly designed to counter any ideas that the aircraft was connected with the FAA's Attacker in any way! The prototype Defender flew in early 1947 and was originally ordered in quantity as by now it was apparent that the likely enemy would be the Soviet Union who were known to be flying their reverse engineered version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the Tu-4. The initial production run of the straight winged Defender F1s was relatively small, equipping just four RAF Squadrons, but proved very effective in their intended task, namely that of high altitude interception, and their tactics were developed by flying against USAF B-29s then based in the UK.

However, behind the scenes Supermarine and many other Allied aircraft manufactures had become aware of the advantages of the swept wing designs used in a number of German aircraft late in the war, particularly the Me-262 and Me-163. The swept wing gave many advantages in high speed flight and it seemed that the dream of supersonic flight may well have been eased by the use of such technology. Joe Smith, Supermarine's Chief Designer, proposed that the Defender be updated by the addition of swept surfaces, and this suggestion was adopted wholeheartedly by the Air Ministry. The result was the Supermarine Type 401, the earlier, straight winged Defender being the Type 400, and a production Defender F1 was taken back into the company's hands to be upgraded to the new planform.



The initial flight tests of the swept Defender proved quite positive, but introduced a number of problems that had not been encountered previously, not the least was a strong pitch-up tendency as the aircraft approached high Mach numbers. Luckily the solution had already been solved by Miles Aircraft with the 'all moving' tailplane used on the M.52 research aircraft, and this was adopted by Supermarine for the swept Defender. At the same time the Ecko electronics company proposed the use of their small radar ranging system for use aboard fighters, this being coupled to the then current Mk VIII gunsight, the whole system being known as the ARI 4500. The swept Defender had the ARI 4500 installed in the extreme nose under a plastic fairing, replacing the manual gunsight fitted to the straight winged F1s.

As the new aircraft was so radically different in many areas from the original F1 much thought was given to changing the name of the new version entirely, but this didn't sit well with the RAF who preferred to stick with the Defender name, and use a new Mark No. Thus the swept variant became the Defender F3, the F2s being those fitted with the uprated Ghost 103, which engine was also fitted to the F3s, the original F1 and F2 orders were all upgraded to the much more capable F3 version.



The F3s first entered service with 41 Sqdn. One of the few squadrons that had flown Spitfires continuously during WWII, commanded by Sqdn Ldr. C. S. McDonald, who thereby became the RAF's first swept wing squadron commander. The Defender F3 rapidly became the fighter to beat in dissimilar air combat, and was pitted against many of its straight winged contemporaries then in service in Europe, the USAF's F-80s and F-84s, Armee de l'Air Ouragons and of course the FAA's attackers, but the defender was able to out climb and out-manouvre all of them, using the power of its Ghost engine to the maximum.



Only when the NA F-86 Sabre came onto the scene did the Defender F3s have any real competition, and by that time the RAF were about to take delivery of some Candair built examples of the American jet too. Only in 1954, when the Hunter started to take over the RAF's interception tasks, did the Defender F3s start to wind down, and many were moved across to RauxAF units until they finally went out of service in 1956.




=====================

In model terms it's an AZ Attacker nose grafted onto the rear end and wings of the portly Xtrakit Swift FR5. The Attackers main gear wells were slotted into the cut down Swift wings and a tailwheel well carved out under the fin. Two extra cannon were drilled in the nose and the Ecko radar ranger provided with matt black paint. 

It's a bit late for the One Week Build, more like THREE weeks, but at least it's done now. 

[The Wooksta!]

The early Meteors had the Welland.  Sure the Derwents the later marks got were scaled down from the Nene.

[Rheged]

That is a lovely piece of work, and a well reasoned backstory

[PR19_Kit]

The early Meteors had the Welland.  Sure the Derwents the later marks got were scaled down from the Nene.

They were, but this is Whiffworld.