Royal Air Force fourth V' Bomber

[MikoLee]

I had a sift through the stash today and rediscovered my Italeri XB70 Valkyrie, It would make a great what if? as Britain's fourth  V'Bomber in anti flash white and low vis national markings donated from an Airfix Vulcan kit,

617 squadron naturally!

Miko (thinking out of the kit box)

[PR19_Kit]

Its name even starts with a 'V' too. 

[perttime]

Soooo, which British manufacturer designed and built it?  Bristol, Short Brothers, English Electric ... ?
Is there some way to make it look like it was done by the British company?

[PR19_Kit]

Fit large Hunter shaped fins to it and say it was made by Hawker?

[perttime]

Or EE Lightning fins, for fins or canards, depending on what size they need to be.

[jcf]

Soooo, which British manufacturer designed and built it?  Bristol, Short Brothers, English Electric ... ?
Is there some way to make it look like it was done by the British company?

Bristol pursues a merger with Hawker Siddeley circa 1957-'58, rather than being forced into the 1959 mergers that created BAC (British Aircraft Company). Bristol brings along the stainless steel welding techniques developed for the 188 research aircraft. As a result Bristol takes the lead on design but the entire H-S group is involved in the project. Of course this would require a revamp of the H-S Group management and an end to the inefficient structure wherein all of the various divisions of the company were run as semi-independent fiefdoms and the divisions competed amongst themselves for the same contracts. It was a structure that made zero sense and a contributor to the overall ills of the British aerospace industry of the time.

It's a counterfactual narrative that's not too far out because the Bristol and Hawker Siddeley engine divisions merged in 1959.

[jcf]

Another thought, if the new Hawker Siddeley + Bristol company could convince Handley-Page to join, the
new company would be in an even better position to design and build something as complex as the Valkyrie.

Handley-Page went TU because old Fred refused to merge with anybody else.

[jcf]

Fit large Hunter shaped fins to it and say it was made by Hawker?

Hawker was severely lacking in experience with the design and manufacture of large multi-engine aircraft.
All they'd done since the beginning was single engined one and two-place fighters. They'd be completely out of their depth with something like the Valkyrie.

[PR19_Kit]

Yeah, but this is WhiffWorld.......................

[Rheged]

Surely, it has to be a Vickers aircraft.............for alliterative purposes if nothing else.

You could make a reasonable backstory out of Vickers  (possibly with old Fred H-P as a partner)  building on their earlier V bomber experience to manufacture this machine.

[MikoLee]

Soooo, which British manufacturer designed and built it?  Bristol, Short Brothers, English Electric ... ?
Is there some way to make it look like it was done by the British company?

I saw it as more an import after the XB70 was cancelled the blue prints made their way to Bristol's Filton works the home of Concorde and it's larger supersonic aircraft designs, also the designer of the Olympus turbojet

[MikoLee]

It's a counterfactual narrative that's not too far out because the Bristol and Hawker Siddeley engine divisions merged in 1959.

Had the infamous 1957 defence white paper not been published the de Havilland super powerful 'Gyron' turbojet could have powered a licence built BAC Valkyre B1

[MikoLee]

Surely, it has to be a Vickers aircraft.............for alliterative purposes if nothing else.

You could make a reasonable backstory out of Vickers  (possibly with old Fred H-P as a partner)  building on their earlier V bomber experience to manufacture this machine.

Nice idea, but for me it couldn't be Avro, Handley Page or Vickers, these companies were already invested in V' bombers, the same for Shorts who were working on the fail safe Sperrin, has to be Bristol who were considering Concorde at the time

[Beermonster58]

Even in Whifworld , I think the  magnitude of the cost of developing such a thing would ensure it would never survive an encounter with its deadliest enemy  - beancounterus politicus! The XB-70 was cancelled after $800 million had been spent on developing and building just two prototypes. I believe that's getting on for $8 billion in todays money. Why go to the expense of development anyway! Just build the bloody thing under licence!!   .

By the way, I don't like boring,grey jets and, I like boring, white jets even less. I was thinking that, given the natural, metallic blue colour of the high strength, light weight Unobtainium used in construction, it might look nice left in its natural state with multi toned panelling? Anybody remember the 1966 "Thunderbirds are go" and, the magnificent Zero-X experimental spacecraft? That sort of finish! .

[Weaver]

My first thought was English Electric since they had the most experience of high-speed flight and had a raft of high-mach projects such as the P.10: