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A serious upgrade would have to be to Merlin engines. The power of two souped up Kestrels is less than that of a two-stage supercharger Merlin. How were the Kestrels at altitude?
A two stage engine running on 87 octane gas????A serious upgrade would have to be to Merlin engines. The power of two souped up Kestrels is less than that of a two-stage supercharger Merlin. How were the Kestrels at altitude?
The idea of using even two Kestrels was to achieve performance higher than what one engine (that would be available in the time frame) would give.A 2 stage Merlin for late 1930s??
My point is that the Whirlwind was an excellent airframe. When it turned out that the Peregrine engine would not be developed, and that the Merlins did not fit, the aircraft was declared obsolete. By late 1942, a twin-Kestrel powered fighter has more frontal area and less power than a Spitfire_IX. Which do we go with?
I am trying to understand how long the thing remains effective. Spitfires were front-line aircraft to the end of the war.Late 1942, when it is about a fighter for 1939??
Is that such a great chore to read the 1st post?
I am trying to understand how long the thing remains effective.
Go with a tailor-made airframe for the least drag and weight, or go with a bigger airframe so it is better suited for substantial upgrades?
This is a few years later than Tomo's project.
I would say that by 1934 it is unlikely that the airframe manufacturers would chose to use Kestrels instead of Merlins. The Merlin was the latest and greatest thing from Rolls-Royce, promising 30-40% more power without that amount of extra weight.
We do know that the specifications F.36/34 and F.37/34 were written around the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire respectively, each with a single Merlin and an 8 0.303" gun armament. (F.36/34 was based on Hawker's submission to the earlier F.5/34.)
Merlin of '34 is an evaporative cooled disaster; a small, independent company like Westland gambling heavily on their advanced air frame can't afford game on both power plant and air frame. And in any case, 2 x 650hp Kestrel VIs makes more power than a 950hp Merlin C. So WEW Petter, like Kelly Johnson, surmises that the armament requirement is too heavy for a single and designs a twin.
Aside: It almost feels like spec Specification F.37/35 required Fowler flaps as both Supermarine and Westland entries had them (or they were the solution of the day and everyone was installing them as a result). A spec without or a little earlier so they aren't the fad would result in a slightly larger wing - I'll going to spitball and say the Fowlers were worth 20%. So, we are looking at ~300 ft^2 wing area.
The next challenge is that a twin, you expect it to go further, so temptation is add fuel and increase the aspect ratio of the wing to make it more efficient. Then you add a navigator to get you back home, and weight/size spiral up, you add a rear gunner and you're >400 ft^2 of wing and performance is mediocre.
The hypothetical Whirlwind would be in position to supplant the Hurricane as the bomber destroyer during BoB.
The Whirlwind was credited with slightly longer operational range over water than the single engine planes. In part due to it's supposed safety of having two engines to get back to land.This is RAF, not Luftwaffe, and certainly not any of the Japanese air services. Thus, there is no such thing as long-range fighter - fighters are supposed to defend the UK against enemy bombers.
Merlins are not an easy swap out, you need a whole new plane so you are quite correct on this.Thus the thread about a fighter powered by Kestrels. Not Merlins. Not Daggers. Not any other engine.
Westland won the later (1935) specification with Kestrel-powered proposal. Thus the thread about a fighter powered by Kestrels. Not Merlins. Not Daggers. Not any other engine.
Hurricane and Spitfire have like 1000-2000 threads on this forum? They don't need another one, especially not to clog a thread about something completely different.
Merlins are not an easy swap out, you need a whole new plane so you are quite correct on this.
The Dagger also turned out to be a non-starter, the punters (race track gamblers?) who bet on the Dagger were sorely disappointed. going into it any further doesn't do much to advance Tomo's idea.\
Now maybe Tomo's idea gives them time to sort out some of the Problems the Whirlwind had before the summer of 1940 but considering the slapdash effort put into the Bristol Blenheim fighter it does require more changes than was done historically.
Production Kestrels or projected Kestrels that didn't yet exist (ie Peregrines)?
Just pointing out the way the Air Ministry and airframe manufacturers were thinking.
Having a Whirlwind type fighter proposed in 1934 will likely not alter the availability of the fighter too much because (a) Rolls-Royce are devoting much of their resources to the Merlin, trying to sort, and then the Vulture. The timeline for the Peregrine would not be advanced much compared to the historical time line, so your 1939 Whirlwind will likely be stuck with Kestrel XXXs of ~700hp, at best. The airframe would be lacking 350-400hp.
Fulmar I used Merlin VIII with critical altitude of 7,500'; while Taurus's critical altitude is 4,000' so I suppose you are correct in saying that its is making its power lower, but each Bristol engine makes 1,110hp at critical altitude, while the RR engine only makes 1,080 at its critical altitude. Yes, the Merlin VIII power is increased to 1,275hp with 100 octane, but I don't have figures on how much that reduced critical altitude For reference, Merlin III lost 3,500' in critical altitude when boost increased to take full advantage of 100 octane; Merlin 30 in Fulmar II has critical altitude of 6000'.Throw in the fact that the Taurus was strictly a low altitude engine (several thousand feet below the low attitude engines used in the Fulmar) and while the torpedo bombers could use it it would have been a disaster for carrier fighter.