A Radial Engined Fighter for the Australians to build (and maybe the Chinese and Indians)

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I think about half of the first ~100 or so P-40s that came to Australia were crashed on their way to the front line around Darwin (some were subsequently repaired and sent on). Much harder to takeoff and land a front-line fighter than an NA-16.

I think in general all around the world there was a very steep learning curve in going from 1930s aircraft to early 1940s aircraft.
 
Shortround6 said:
The French Hawks wound up via Britain in South Africa and India.
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Right, but were they really needed in South Africa? Even India didn't need them right away, arguably. Australia had a more pressing need and (perhaps) could have got them if they'd wanted them.
 
The South African Mohawks were intended for the Commonwealth training program, not really for combat. They were supposed to get 90 planes originally. 90 were supposed to go to the Mideast and 24 were supposed to go to Aden.

30 were supposed to go to Greece after the Italian invasion but that got canceled.
16 would up going to Portugal to encourage them to favor the Allies.

Trying to track down were they actually went is not easy.

You may try looking at a map for India, the Japanese were bombing a lot a of stuff a lot closer to India than they were to Australia.

And Burma was the main supply route into China.
 
Right, but with the power of "what if" conceivably the Aussies could have made a case that they needed the Mohawk more than South Africa, Portugal, Aden or wherever the Greek ones ended up. maybe they could have traded South Africa some Wirraways or NA-16s.

The Burma road got the AVG to protect it, and then plenty of other units, IIRC the Hawks deployed there didn't get into action until pretty late right? Darwin was in a crisis and New Guinea of course, a pitched battle in 1942-43.

But Ok let the Indians keep theirs, send the rest to Australia. Or just send blueprints, machine parts and dies etc.
 
You don't want to short your training commands too much or things go pear shaped pretty quickly.


But get back to the Ozhawk.......
six .303s?
four .50 cal?
two . 50 cal and four .303s?

They did have a single P-36s with eight .30cal in the wings and a single (non firing) .50 cal in cowl so you could stuff a fair amount in the airplane. The question is if you have enough power to actually fly it around.
Like wise protected tanks? Armor?

It is possible to do anything to the Ozhawk that they did to the P-40. But do you have the power to pull it off?

Unless you have special knowledge you are stuck with the Hawk 75 drag factors of the radial engines.
 
Shortround6 said:
You don't want to short your training commands too much or things go pear shaped pretty quickly.


But get back to the Ozhawk.......
six .303s?
four .50 cal?
two . 50 cal and four .303s?
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Probably two .50 in the nose and 2 or 4 .30 cal (.303 etc.) in the wings, or two .50 in the nose and two .50 in the wings.. or none in the nose and just two .50 in the wings (i.e. one in each wing). As much as you can get away with without adding so much weight that your seriously degrade performance. Obviously this is in conjunction with any additional armor and SS tanks...

I don't think they need a very large set of guns to shoot down Japanese fighters and light bombers, though more guns is better if you can 'afford' to carry them in terms of available engine power and lift.


...I gather some of the French Hawks (A-4?) had an armored seat. Maybe you add a headrest and / or make the seat armor slightly thicker as it's probably too thin. You can improve that by using tempered steel (which can be thinner and therefore lighter). The next big step would be SS fuel tanks and maybe some improved control line redundancy (I know that was sometimes an issue with early WW2 military aircraft). Again, whatever they could get away with. Maybe as with the Hurricane and Spitfire they had some (wing?) tanks protected and some not.

Another issue would be the likely need to fit them for external fuel tank(s). Since the P-40C was so fitted presumably this was doable, but it would also add drag and some weight.

The limited power of the engine is indeed a serious factor, especially since they didn't improve them much for a couple of years. But I note that the Wildcat (F4F3) managed to load four .50s, armor, SS tank, plus naval equipment (more radios? navigation gear?) and still made a viable fighter with the same (R-1830) engine.

Could the Australians themselves find ways to improve that engine? Long shot I know... but given a year or two to tinker. Who knows...

Shortround6 said:
It is possible to do anything to the Ozhawk that they did to the P-40. But do you have the power to pull it off?

Unless you have special knowledge you are stuck with the Hawk 75 drag factors of the radial engines.
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Yes I recognize that. Did they ever do anything to improve exhaust thrust?

I don't see tight cowling working out well in the Tropics.

Bottom line is no way the Ozhawk is going to be as fast as a P-40 or P-39, but maybe it can compete with a Wildcat or a Hurricane. And even if it's as slow as say, an Oscar in level flight, the Ozhawk will still have the ability to dive and roll at high speed which gives it that escape maneuver that the P-40 had.
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
and still made a viable fighter with the same (R-1830) engine.
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The F4F-3 used the two stage engine. With intercoolers, with the ducts and plumbing. Always double check F4F-3 performance figures for weight
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
Could the Australians themselves find ways to improve that engine? Long shot I know... but given a year or two to tinker. Who knows...
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The idea that anything short of factory test center could "tinker" with an aircraft engine and actually improve things needs to be looked at very carefully. It was done on occasion. Just as often or more often, they screwed things up.
Over boosting was not "tinkering" it was trading off both durability and reliability for short term gains. It also increased maintenance man hours per hour of flight. More frequent inspections of oil for floating particles. More frequent spark plugs changes and/or cleaning.
If you don't have a 1200hp+ dyno to hook the engine to how do you know if you have improved things or not?
Air-cooled engines were really hard to play with since you didn't have much room (time) between max power and engine meltdown.
Companies spent an awful lot of time trying to figure how to cool off the air cooled cylinders.
Wright on the R-1820 went from about 600 sq in of cooling fins on the cylinder head (not including the cylinder barrel ) in 1931 to 2300 sq in in 1939. The fins grew in length from 0.75in to 2.25in and pitch was reduced from 0.375in to 0.21 in. Since the Cylinder head was machined out of solid forging you can't add material to a existing set of fins.
They kept increasing the cooling fins of both the head and the cylinder barrel when they went from the 1100hp engines to the 1200hp engines and changed everything again when they went to the 1300hp engines. In fact between the cylinder head and the cylinder barrel they increased the cooling fin are by 24% from the 1100hp engine to the 1200hp engine.
They also used an exhaust valve that had a different shape so that it would have a larger sodium chamber.
The cylinder barrel on the older G 100 engine was made from a 60lb forging and by the time they got done machining the inside and cut the fins on the outside the barrel weighed about 12lbs. The heads were heated in an electric furnace to 315 degrees C and then screwed tightly onto the cold cylinder barrel. you can pretty much forget taking them apart in the field.

There really isn't much to tinker with. The ignition was fixed in timing. Once the magnetos were firing at the correct point in relation to the piston position they were locked down and you used the same ignition point from starting/idle to full throttle (some engines could be retarded for starting). You could fool with the carb jets but at full power over 40% of the fuel going into the engine wasn't burned in the engine, it was helping to cool the engine. You might lean the engine out for cruising but trying to lean out a supercharged engine to get more power was heading for disaster. Also figure out that the engine could go from 60 degree F air at sea level to 0 degree F air at 17,000ft in 6-9 minutes. What was that you were jetting it to again??????


Now if the Australians build a research and development station next to the factory building and interrupt the production tests to get dyno time (Or get their own dyno) maybe they can beat the Wright and P & W engineers at their own game. Maybe they can develop water injection early. The R-2800

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
I don't see tight cowling working out well in the Tropics.
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By 1941-42 they should be working on a lot more than a "tight cowl"
They should be working on baffles between each cylinder and having the baffles not only block the air from going between the cylinders but forcing the through the cooling fins,
Same with baffles over the top of the cylinder heads. On two row radials there should be baffles directing the hot air from the front row out past the rear cylinders and baffles that direct fresh cool air to the rear cylinders. You also need air flows that surround each cylinder or nearly surround each cylinder. Having front or backs that are hot while sides of the cylinder are hot is not only not cooling to best effect it is causing the cylinders to go out of round.
The cooling flaps at the rear of the cowling should be controlling the air flow through the cowl, not the "tightness" of the cowl.
Cowls should also be well sealed so that the air that flows through the cowl is the proper amount for cooling and not much extra. Extra air just causes drag.
 
Shortround6 said:
The South African Mohawks were intended for the Commonwealth training program, not really for combat.
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At the time when decision to send Mohawks to South Africa was made (late summer or autumn 1940 I think) SAAF was heavily involved in East African campaign in Kenya and Sudan. They were actually fighting enemy (Italy) and SAAF desperately needed some modern fighter airplanes since they got Gloster Gladiators and few Hurricanes in one unit, rest was equipped with planes like Hawker Fury.
 
According to the US production reports Curtiss supplied 1 H75A-5 to China, accepted in April 1940, the rest were kits, sets of spare parts, headed to China via Burma, ended up in India, first flights not until mid 1942. So when were the kits exported and given the problems the Australians had with P-51 kits and how few of the H75A-5 were assembled, what chance there were problems with the kits?

Curtiss Buffalo, military aircraft production August 1939 to January 1940, 27 SBC-4 in August, 11 YP-37 October/November 1939, P-36 production resumed in February 1940. Which looks like plenty of spare capacity. There seems little problem with anyone ordering P-36 in 1939 and receiving them in 1940 or early 1941. In the second half of 1940 things are much more uncertain.

What are the order dates for the China order H75A-5, Netherlands H75A-7 order, Norway order H-75A-8 order and the Persia H75A-9 order, with production from these orders accepted between April 1940 and April 1941, that gives an idea of the time between order and production, then add a couple of months for shipping, more time for unpacking, then training.
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
I gather some Beaufighters were eventually made in Australia. Any way to accelerate that?
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Beaufighter production in Australia began in May 1944.
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
I think about half of the first ~100 or so P-40s that came to Australia were crashed on their way to the front line around Darwin (some were subsequently repaired and sent on).
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Where does the 50 permanent or temporary RAAF P-40 losses come from? More so as the first RAAF P-40 squadron did not arrive until August 1942. 75 squadron formed in Townsville, 76 in Brisbane (to Townsville in April), 77 squadron in Western Australia in March 1942, 75 to Milne Bay and 76 to Port Moresby in July, 77 to Darwin in August.
The RAF Mohawk numbers have a few inconsistencies but are clear enough. 204 imports into Britain July to October 1940, the RAF says it ended up with 209, which would include the ex China ones in India. Britain began Mohawk exports in November 1940, but the ship was damaged and had to return before sailing again. 4 to the Middle East in November 1940, 13 in January 1941, 52 to South Africa January to July 1941, 6 more in September 1941 and 4 more in January 1942, all officially as part of the Joint Training Plan, 11 Mohawk to Portugal in August 1941, 5 more in October, 85 Mohawk to India September 1941 to June 1942 then 1 more in June 1943. RAF Census end February 1943, Mohawks, 5 in Britain, 21 Middle East, 55 South Africa, 63 India, 2 in UK as instructional, 16 to "other powers", 22 lost in UK, 25 lost overseas, 209 received.
 
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Let's say we want fighter airplane produced in Australia, better than Boomerang, we want this airplane to be in operational squadrons at the same time as Boomerang (April 1943).

You need to get a license no later than January 1941 and I am very (I mean VERY) generous here. Why at least one year sooner than decision to make Boomerang was made?
You need to build brand new plant for this airplane from the scratch, CAC plant is busy with producing of Wirraways and you need them for training (stopping or just reducing production of Wirraway is out of question). You also do not have manpower, experienced workers are making Wirraways and lot of manpower is also needed for production of Beauforts. You need to find and train people for this new plant. You don't have subcontractors for this new airplane, you need to find them, meanwhile everything need to be imported, from rivets to engines. It took Argentina at least two years from geting licence to produce 1st Hawk 75 and they did not modified this arplane at all. Start of production under licence is a long proces, even in 21. century. I was personally involved in start of licensed production of helicopter airframe (just airframe, no engine,rotor etc.) and it took more than 2 years to built 1st one from the kits (all parts were delivered there).

What airplane we want to produce there? To be better then Boomerang, we need engine with two speed supercharger, self sealing fuel tanks, armor plates, capability to have drop tank. And if possible, an aircraft that has already proven itself in combat.

Let's say we go with Curtiss Hawk 75A-4 (Mohawk IV). We need to modify this Hawk with all things we want (armor, SS fuel tanks, drop tank). Ideal engine will be R-1830 with two speed supercharger because we can than produce lot of spare parts for engines in Australia since we are going to make R-1830 here (altough with single speed supercharger) and we can also overhaul R-1830s in our engine production plant, just like we did in alternate (real) universe. Problem is that Hawk with R-1830 with two speed supercharger is not a thing, Mohawk IV is equiped with Wright R-1820. If we decide that we keep R-1820 in our Ozhawk, we can start working on preparation for production immediately (well, we still need time to develop at least drop tanks and self sealing fuel tanks). However Wright engine is a issue in a long run, overhauls and spare parts are not as easy to deal with like in case of R-1830. Let's go with modification of Mohawk IV for R-1830 with two speed supercharger than. It will cost us more time in development for sure, we most likely need to get licence for Hawk even sooner than in January 1941 to have them with units in April 1943.

Now, what do you get for all your trouble. Date is April 1943, you have airplane better than Boomerang but still worse than Kittyhawk or Spitfire, you will therefore send them to same units as Boomerangs in real life. They are defending Perth and Brisbane against air raids (both places are safe from them at this point), one squadron is deployed on Horn Island mainly to provide air cover over Merauke and saw very little action there. Some Ozhawks are in OTU, some are send to do tactical recon in New Guinea with No 4 squadron. Squadron on Horn Island is re-equiped with Kittyhawks as soon as possible.

Is it really worth it to produce Ozhawks instead of Boomerangs? You be the judge.
 

For a better idea of pre WW2 planning find a copy of Blainey's book on Essington Lewis.

If was not for Lewis, Australia would not have had an aircraft industry or been producing the steels required for not just aircraft but all other weapons and munitions.

 

As I understand it the J-22 fuselage was exactly the same construction as the Boomer fuselage - steel tube with plywood covering.

And the J-22 team had time to design it from scratch and to work within much wider parameters.

The CAC team had to create an "instant" fighter and to keep the design and development and spares issues to the minimum grabbed a Wirraway and a Hudson/Beaufort powerplant and married them into a single aircraft that flew within weeks of the first concept.

The reason I say Hudson/Beaufort powerplant is that the early Aus Beauforts actually used Hudson powerplants that had the oil cooler moved to the wing leading edge (and a Brit cooler instead of US) and drove the Bristol accessory gearbox from the generator pad instead of leaving the accessories on the back of the engine like in the Hudson, fitted with CE instead of HS props. The rest of the powerplant - cowlings, mounts, gills, carb scoop, exhaust, dishpan. etc - were all Lockheed parts.

Later Beauforts had the cowl gills that were designed for the Boomerang - simple to produce and maintain but somewhat heavier
 
ThomasP said:
When were the first large P-40 orders placed?
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Probably after the US supplied the first ones in Feb 42. The only orders for aircraft I have found in the Aus Archives (NAA) between Pearl Harbor and late Feb 42 are for Catalinas. There may be other orders there but I have not found them.

They may even be "in plain sight" but disguised by the NAA's cataloging errors (they have Wirraways as built in the 1800's etc as a typical example and routinely translate USAAF as United States of America Air Force as another)
 

Yes - many of them crashed en-route to Darwin but, from memory, more were in Qld than the NT.

The first three RAAF P-40s crashes were in NSW when barely trained pilots were told to fly to Port Moresby in crap weather in a VFR aircraft.
 
Yep. Green pilots on any aircraft are a high risk group

I came across one US Army doc recently that suggested the 49th FG was to be absorbed into the RAAF but I have seen nothing else on the subject so it might only have been one persons idea.
 
The contract for the 54-55 aircraft (55 includes demonstrator) was signed in early 1940, when the shipment/s got there is subject to question. However the new CAMCO factory in Loiwing China was bombed in late October 1940. Remaining plant equipment and aircraft parts were moved westward to Hengyang, then back to Loiwing and then to India. In April of 1941 the British placed the order with HAL in Mysore, Bangalore, India. for 48 aircraft.
The short accounts make no mention of lost parts or lost production tooling but apparently they lost 6 airframes? either during the bombing or during the different moves.

A more orderly progression from the ship docks to the factory site in Australia and with no bombing/evacuations would probably go somewhat smoother.

A lump may have been changing from the Cyclone to the Twin Wasp engines? Although since the P-36 and some of the earlier French Hawks used Twin Wasps this doesn't seem to be much of a difficulty if the OZhawks had been ordered with Twin Wasps (or be provided with suitable engine bay parts) to begin with.
In hindsight the Cyclone powered Hawks did NOT earn a very good reputation as there were enough troubles with the engines that the French were repowering some of their old Hawks with Twin Wasp engines out of C-47s? in 1943/44? In North Africa.
The Finns also repowered some of their Cyclone Hawks with Twin Wasps. Probably because of the lack of spare parts for the Cyclone engines. They were getting both captured French Twin Wasps (both the Martin 167 and Douglas DB-7s used Twin Wasps and may have been stripped for usable engines ) and some Swedish built Twin Wasps later in the war.

The Finns had fighter that was a bit late in timing but again it shows what was possible in that time line.



VL Myrsky - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This version seems to have a pretty advanced exhaust set up but take a look at the speed, the weights, and the fuel capacity.
There is only so much you can do with a 1065hp -1200hp radial engine.
 
Good summary of all the difficulties involved....

I'd say Wildcat or Curtiss Hawk are good candidates, given they can use R-1830 engines.

Why not use the R-1830 with the two stage supercharger that the Wildcats had?

This is a good summary of some of the problems and challenges that the Aussies faced in trying to get an aviation industry going during the war.

I would say that the answer to your question (which I bolded above) depends on whether the new aircraft is better than the Boomerang or say, a P-39, if it can work out as a front line fighter? I'd also ask if it introduces any capability that existing fighters don't already have.

First let's consider an Aus_Wildcat / Aus_Martlet. If they could produce these, they would have an aircraft with a proven track record of being an effective defender against Japanese raids, and a decent escort fighter to escort both light and heavy bombers as well. No, it isn't as fast as a Kittyhawk or a Spitfire, but it has a better altitude performance than the former and a significantly better range / endurance than the latter. It works well in a Tropical environment and without a radiator, is (arguably) a bit less vulnerable to ground fire etc.

What could an OzHawk bring to the table? Well we don't know for sure because (so far as i know) nobody made a P-36 with SS tanks, four heavy guns, more armor and plumbing for an external fuel tank. So it's not clear how much weight will be added by some more armor and SS tanks, and maybe a couple more guns. But we can get closer to a concrete idea of that, not only from similar planes (including the VL-Myrsky which Shortround6 just linked) but also, there is another thread on this site where something similar to this was debated before and some of the posters there crunched the numbers on the Hawk

P36 vs Hurricane

General feelings are that the P36 was too slow and obsolete to fight in WW2, yet the Hurricane has a loyal following especially up through the Battle of Britain. Yet, I was looking at the specs on wwiiaircraftperformance and the P36 was 17 mph faster than the Hurricane at 10,000 feet. It was...
ww2aircraft.net

Assuming you could make a roughly 6,000 - 6,500 lb OzHawk, you would have the following traits:

*More maneuverable than a Wildcat or a P-39 (better turn and roll)
*Tighter turning than a Kittyhawk or (maybe) a Spitfire (supposedly tighter turning than an Oscar, though that is the lighter A4 version)
*Faster climbing than a Kittyhawk or (probably) a Wildcat
*Safer to fly / better handling than a P-39
*Better range / endurance than a Spitfire or P-39
*Simpler maintenance than a Kittyhawk, Spitfire, or P-39 (probably, due to air cooled engine)
*Faster than a Boomerang (probably about 20 mph faster)
*Fast dive speed (Faster diving than a Wildcat... I think?)
*Less vulnerable engine than a Kittyhawk, P-39 or Spitfire

On the negative column it would certainly be less heavily armed than a Kittyhawk, Spitfire, Airacobra or Boomerang

If you add the two stage R-1830 it (Pinsog said this improves HP from 625 to 1,000 hp at 20,000 ft) then you can add:

*Much better performance at altitude than a Kittyhawk or P-39

And potentially, you have room to improve the aircraft if / when any kind of improved engines become available. So I think you might end up with something that could have contributed a bit more to the war effort, while still being able to so the (important) training and Army cooperation jobs that the Boomerang did.
 

This is indeed a good example of an aircraft produced by a small country with a not super developed factory economy, and it would have been available a year later because due to their very limited resources, they were forced to use inferior glue in the plywood parts which plagued this aircraft with problems and delayed introduction by a year.

Australia by contrast could get materials like that from the US and UK, I think, much more easily.
 
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