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

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Reading about the Boomerang and the Wirraway, it's clear that the nascent Australian aircraft industry had some capability, and they were eager to produce some aircraft with which to contribute to the war effort and to their own regional defense, instead of just waiting for aircraft to arrive from England or the US.

The problem with the Boomerang of course is that it was based on a trainer, so no matter how much they improved the design around the margins, they still had an aircraft that wasn't going to be able to tangle with Japanese fighters, or for that matter chase down and intercept most Japanese bombers.

So what if we pick another airframe and equip it with an Aussie made R-1830 engine. Which would would be in the sweet spot of easy to adapt, relatively easy to produce, capable enough as a fighter, and have the potential to be improved into a better fighter.

Some possible candidates:

Brewster B.239 / Buffalo
Bristol Beaufighter*
Fiat G.50**
Fokker D.XXI
Gloster F-5/34
Gloster F9
P-36 / Hawk 75
Re 2000**
Seversky P-35

* I think (?) they did eventually make some of these but what if they got the ball rolling on this earlier? The Beauforts were certainly worth producing.
** Assuming they could have gotten the License from Italy before the war started

Maybe a little far-fetched (conversions from in-line) but still maybe worth considering

Avia B.35
Westland Whirlwind
Hawker Henley
Dewoitine D.520

Any of these seem like they could have been feasible? It seems like a slightly improved Gloster F-5, Fokker D.XXI or P-36 could have been within the capabilities of CAC and may have been somewhat useful for Australia's emergency needs and some of the other regional allies.

 

[GTX]

Well Australia did try to get some Vultee P-66 Vanguards that would fit the bill here. A further development would be the R-2000 development of the engine to give more power.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Yes! That is a great example. The Aussies liked the Vengeance and did pretty well with them. The P-66 had pretty decent performance and armament (with potential for improvement), decent range, and already used the R-1830 out the gate, and probably could have been produced by the Aussies. The US sent some to the Chinese but probably the logistics chain was too long to get them operational. The Vanguard seems like a great choice for this 'what-if' project, at least to me.

I was sticking with planes I thought could handle an 1830 (maybe! Not sure if you could fit one on a whirlwind or a D.520) and still fly reasonably well, since the Australians were already making them and apparently to a decent quality standard. If they could license build R-2600 etc. of course that would considerably widen the scope of what was possible.

 

[tomo pauk]

P-36 all the way.

BTW - this might be a topic better fitting on our 'What if' sub-forum.

 

[Clayton Magnet]

CW-21 Demon?
Always kinda liked that weird little fighter

 

[EwenS]

China opted for the P-36 produced by CAMCO. Then production was transferred to Hindustan Aircraft Ltd in Bangalore, India which had British Indian Govt investment.

Hawk 75A-5 for China

www.joebaugher.com

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I note the claim of manufacturing Vultee Vengeance as does HAL's own website. Don't recall reading of that in the history of the that aircraft I have. More likely assembly of aircraft arriving in India for the RAF and IAF.

 

[Glider]

I am confident that they could have done something with the Gloster E5

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

P-36 all the way.

BTW - this might be a topic better fitting on our 'What if' sub-forum.

Could the Aussie 1830 improve the P-36 performance at all? Did the late Indian / British variants have SS tanks and armor?

I was looking for the 'what-if' subforum as I thought somebody (maybe you?) alluded to it in another thread, but missed it. Can this one be retroactively moved there?

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I am confident that they could have done something with the Gloster E5

You mean the F5? Or the Jet...? F5 was actually the original inspiration for this thread topic. I thin it's interesting to consider if they had made a few hundred of those...

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

China opted for the P-36 produced by CAMCO. Then production was transferred to Hindustan Aircraft Ltd in Bangalore, India which had British Indian Govt investment.

Hawk 75A-5 for China

www.joebaugher.com

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I note the claim of manufacturing Vultee Vengeance as does HAL's own website. Don't recall reading of that in the history of the that aircraft I have. More likely assembly of aircraft arriving in India for the RAF and IAF.

I think some Vengeance were assembled in India. Not manufactured though I don't think.

I know P-36 were made there, China unfortunately was probably too chaotic due to the ongoing Japanese invasion, Australia would have probably been a better place to try with them.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

CW-21 Demon?
Always kinda liked that weird little fighter

Interesting choice! I kind of like them too. The whole concept of the "Point Defense Fighter" is interesting, though lack of armor etc. is a bit daunting... I wonder what it would be like with an R-1830? I saw one of those once by the way at the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola (along with some very close cousins), I'm gonna look and see if I have a pic.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Not sure if this is a CW-21 or possibly another related design....?

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

That CW-21 sure was a pretty looking bird

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Curtiss_CW-21B_%281941%29.jpg

How about the ole' Koolhoven F.K.58?

 

[tomo pauk]

Could the Aussie 1830 improve the P-36 performance at all? Did the late Indian / British variants have SS tanks and armor?

I was looking for the 'what-if' subforum as I thought somebody (maybe you?) alluded to it in another thread, but missed it. Can this one be retroactively moved there?

The Indian-made P-36 is a probably a myth.
British variants were all made in upstate New York, too. No s-s tanks IIRC, perhaps some ad-hoc armor, like the back armor for the pilot. Aussie R-1830 will probably up the performance, it was making a bit more power than the R-1830s installed on the P-36s.

What-if forum is here. Wurger , FLYBOYJ - could you help, please, with moving the thread?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The Indian-made P-36 is a probably a myth.
British variants were all made in upstate New York, too. No s-s tanks IIRC, perhaps some ad-hoc armor, like the back armor for the pilot. Aussie R-1830 will probably up the performance, it was making a bit more power than the R-1830s installed on the P-36s.

What-if forum is here. Wurger , FLYBOYJ - could you help, please, with moving the thread?

done

 

[nuuumannn]

The Australians were hampered with the fact that they had to work with what they had and the Wirraway airframe as the basis of the Boomerang was not as much a hindrance as the power output of available engines. If Aussie needed a more advanced fighter it would have had to import something, as construction would have taken too long. The P-36 as Tomo mentioned is a very good option, as is the Hawker Hurricane, but the P-40 is essentially what Australia got by negotiating with the US. It's first P-40Es were transferred from USAAF stocks and arrived in March 1942, before the first Boomerang had been completed - it made its first flight in May 1942. Over the next month into April and May these P-40s were already in squadron service and went into action at Port Moresby, so whatever choice is made has to be done fast, because the RAAF already has orders for more P-40s diverted from RAF Lend-Lease.

The other alternative is getting single-seat fighters before the fighting begins, at which point that options for building a panic fighter are restricted to being a type based off the Wirraway as it was traditionally done, but the RAAF is looking long term, which means something off the shelf, which either the P-36, P-40 or Hurricane make better long-term choices given what was going to happen, rather than a panic fighter.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

done

So do we still keep posting here or do we go over to another thread?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

So do we still keep posting here or do we go over to another thread?

Keep posting...

 

[MiTasol]

The Aussies negotiated the P-51 but took yonks to get it into production. Anything earlier that would take the 1830 would have required massive tooling and more sheetmetal workers than they had.

If you get a chance read the book Essington Lewis by Geoffrey Blainey. Starting at page 122 it gives the history of why Lewis convinced other industrialists to create CAC and, eventually, the Aus government to buy Wirraways. Not mentioned is the result of the Wirraway order caused the British government to save face and order Beauforts and without those two types Aus would have been in a very bad place after Pearl Harbor. Fortunately Wirraway pilots could step into the P-40 with minimal retraining so when Lend Lease provided the aircraft Australia suddenly had a monoplane fighter to replace the Hawker Demons. Until then the poor old Wirraway was the nearest thing we had to a front line fighter.

 

[Shortround6]

The Indian-made P-36 is a probably a myth.
British variants were all made in upstate New York, too. No s-s tanks IIRC, perhaps some ad-hoc armor, like the back armor for the pilot. Aussie R-1830 will probably up the performance, it was making a bit more power than the R-1830s installed on the P-36s.

What-if forum is here. Wurger , FLYBOYJ - could you help, please, with moving the thread?

It was not a myth, however the number built could be counted on one hand

It also depends on what you mean by "built".

The Chinese had purchased 50-55 "kits" for assemble in China from Curtiss. How extensive the "kits" were I don't know. Between the Japanese over running the factory (or coming close) and few bombing raids the "factory" and kits were loaded on at least one train and shuffled about for a while before it wound up in India. The same man who had organized the Chinese job either talked to Hindustan Aircraft Ltd or got offered a "deal" when he showed up with 40 something Hawk 75 "kits" on the trains plus a least some tooling.
However by the time everything was set up and running (a number of months after the stuff showed up) interest seems to have pretty much disappeared. and some of the stuff may have been used for spare parts. About 5 airframes may have gotten serial numbers.

There was no way either the Chinese or the Indians could have built any more airframes after the initial quantity without a significant investment in more tools, factory space and man power.

another thing to consider when tooling up to make R-1830 engines is when???????
P & W seems to have been fooling around with the two stage engine that went into the F4F before they ever got around to selling a plain two speed engine.
How much trouble it would have been to change over I don't know but the British Beauforts were supposed to get single speed engines of either 1050 or 1100hp before the ship carrying them got sunk. It would appear that 1940 was pretty tight. 1939 and you get single speed, single stage engines that run on 87 or 91 octane fuel. 1941 seems to have two speed engines all over the place with 100 octane fuel. When is the contract sighed in 1940?????