Shorts Belfast

[Thorvic]

The sad part is the Short Belfast wasn't the best design, it was choosen on political grounds to ensure Shorts in Northern Ireland had work rather than the best design for the RAF. The Handley Page HP-111 was actually the outstanding design in the submissions and would have been more akin to the Starlifter than an oversized herc.

Shorts did propose a jet powered Belfast using the Starlifter wing & engines, however by then the withdrawal from East of Suez and a focus on NATO northern area removed the need for Strategic airlift during the 70's. The original idea being to withdraw the carriers and use fixed Island bases to police the East of Suez region at the expenses of a down sizing of the deployment in West Germany !.

G

[Archibald]

The sad part is the Short Belfast wasn't the best design, it was choosen on political grounds to ensure Shorts in Northern Ireland had work rather than the best design for the RAF. The Handley Page HP-111 was actually the outstanding design in the submissions and would have been more akin to the Starlifter than an oversized herc.

Darn, the Short is already considered the "60's A400M" can't imagine this HP-111...

[Mossie]

The Handley Page HP.111 was a transport using the Victor's wing & tail mated to a new fuselage.  It was offered to BOAC as an airliner & the RAF as a strategic transport.  The airliner variant would have been a B707 & DC-8 rival.



Lenny did a model of it recentley.
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,19523.0/highlight,hp+111.html

[kitbasher]

The Short Belfast has to be very whiffable.  Only ten built for the RAF out of thirty ordered, retired early (& not because it wasn't an excellent aircraft in it's own right) then seeing limited civil service in the outsize cargo market.
So lets say more Belfast's where built & went into worldwide service in both military & civil versions.  Who would have bought it & what roles might it have filled?

Hate to disagree but the 'Belslow' (as the RAF nicknamed it) wasn't all that good an aeroplane.  It was definately a politcally expedient 'mule' and whle it could indeed carry a useful load it wasn't fast, the rate of climb was lousy, service ceiling was poor compared to similar aircraft, and by all accounts the Tyne engines weren't the best to maintain.  As an ex-air traffcker I can attest to the poor performance both in RAF service and with the likes of Heavylift (ie when under MOD contract).
The jet derivative seems a fantastic idea and was arguably the route the RAF should have gone down from the start.  I'm sure what started off (Ithink) as the 'Bristol Britannic' seemed a good idea on paper but it was something of a shotgun marriage in reality.  Perhaps if the VC10 had been the starting point......?

[kitnut617]

From what I've read, the Belfast was a lot like the C-133 in performance, both could have used more powerful engines, the two 1/72 kits I have of them will look really good side by side.

[Mossie]

It might have been slow, but compared to other turboprop transports it compared favourably, in fact it was faster then most once the drag & fuel burn problems where sorted out.  The An-22 is considerably faster, but that has four 15,000hp engines.  Slow doesn't mean bad, one upshot is the increased efficiency over the jets.  The A400M will have almost exactly the same cruise speed.

It was maintenance heavy & it could have done with more power, but the strakes added to fix the drag problems also reduced a lot of stress on the Tynes.  You've got to remember, the Belfast was only ever produced in a single mark so didn't get the development similar aircaft have.  I'm sure a C.2 would have probably removed plenty of the bugs.  The C-130A wasn't perfect, it's been through many improvements to get where it is now.

Maybe not excellent as flown, but I think it could have been with some development.

[Aircav]

My father was telling me that then the Belfasts arrived to ferry the Sioux's and Scout's to Ulster from Germany in the early 70's one of them was sat with its engines running while they loaded up, he asked the Load Master why they hadn't switched them off and he said that the APU wasn't working so my dad then asked why not use the batteries and the answer was that they were flat. One of my favourite aircraft the Belfast along with the VC10.

[Weaver]

If anyone's interested, a local model shop to me, who's stock appears to be 50% someone's stash being sold off, has a vac-form Belfast on the shelf. Can't remember the price, unfortunately, but I'll cheerfully go and look/pick it up/post it if anyone wants it badly enough.....

[DarrenP]

The Belfast was useful to the RAF just look how much contract work went to HeavyLift since they retired.

What  If Short Brothers had been given more money to develop the aircraft along with more powerful turboprop and had fixed some of the other problems. With a Defence and foreign policy that made us stay East of Suez and closer to our Commonwealth allies than the 1960's/70's allowed. By 1975 the RAF were operating 2 Sqns of Belfasts from Brize Norton and independant flights in Cyprus and Singapore. The RAAF had  a Joint  Sqn operating out of Australia with the RNZAF and the RCAF were operating a Squadron

[DarrenP]

It would be interesting to see some different paint schemes like the RAF middle east cammo or grey/green. Australian and Canadian markings would be a good one. How about a NATO heavy lift Sqn of the 1960's/70's with Belfasts. Would the Allison engines of the Hercules be powerful enough for the Belfast?

[Hobbes]

If you want alternative engines, how about twin turboshafts (3000 shp each) driving contraprops?

[Mossie]

How about Russian engines?  Heavy Lift forged a lot of Russian connections when Uncle Boris took over.  Maybe they decided to upgrade the Belfasts with some seriously beefy Ruskie turboprops?  Not a simple task, I know, but it would improve the Belfasts performance by a big margin.

[Mossie]

I like it! The An-32's Ivchenko AI-20Ms put out 5180 shp each (maybe add the An-30's jet boost?).

But how about a twin Belfast as a jumbo C-27 -- twin 14800 shp Kuznetsov NK-12s driving 8-blade contra-rotating props? 

The AI-20M's are a bit too dinky, the Tynes on the Belfast develop 5400 shp.  I vaguely recall a Russian turboprop in the 7-8000 shp range?  If there is one, that should do nicely.

[kitnut617]

I like it! The An-32's Ivchenko AI-20Ms put out 5180 shp each (maybe add the An-30's jet boost?).

But how about a twin Belfast as a jumbo C-27 -- twin 14800 shp Kuznetsov NK-12s driving 8-blade contra-rotating props? 

The AI-20M's are a bit too dinky, the Tynes on the Belfast develop 5400 shp.  I vaguely recall a Russian turboprop in the 7-8000 shp range?  If there is one, that should do nicely.

What about the engines on the Airbus A400 ?  11,000 shp or something like that.

[Captain Canada]

did I miss this one 

Now, that is just plain wicked ! How did I miss that one !