Best/most promising paper project of WW2

[wuzak]

What, in your opinion, were the best or most promising paper projects for the period 1935-1945.

Some criteria:
1. No jets. Jet powered aircraft were just starting to take off, as it were, at the end of WW2 and there were a myriad of projects around the jet engine. It's not an area I wish to explore. Having said that, I have no objections to turbine driven aircraft, so long as the main means of propulsion is a prop.
2. No derivatives of existing production aircraft.
3. No prototypes. Aircraft that made it to the prototype stage are excluded. Aircraft projects that have prototypes ordered or production orders are ok if they didn't actually have work started on a flyable aircraft. Projects that made it to the mockup stage are ok.
4. The engines to be used in the paper project can be existing engines, or they could be paper projects in their own right.

 

[wuzak]

On of the types of aircraft that has fascinated me is the high speed unarmed bomber. Handley-Page's chief designer wrote a discussion paper around the concept using many of the requirements of the P.13/36 "medium" bomber specification. The project he described was not intended to go any further than the discussion paper.

However, its estimated performance was provocative. A top speed of 380mph would not have been matched by fighters of the RAF or Luftwaffe at the start of the war, and probably not until a few months, at least, after the bomber was introduced. This would be assuming a similar development timeline to the Halifax and Manchester.

The normal bomb load would have been 6000lb, from memory.

Engines were to be the Rolls-Royce Vulture. Perhaps if it were written 6-12 months later the paper would have had the Sabre as an alternative.

A bomber carrying a decent bomb load at speeda approaching, or exceeding, that of the contemporary fighters at the time of service introduction in late 1940/early 1941 would have been very handy for the RAF.

 

[davebender]

Without a prototype how do you differentiate between promising and fantasy?

 

[wuzak]

Without a prototype how do you differentiate between promising and fantasy?

By looking at estimated data - loads, performance, etc - and drawings. It's how air ministries around teh world determined if aircraft were worthy of further consideration.

Sometimes aircraft proposals will be viable alternatives to ones that did go into production, but didn't proceed themselves because they weren't deemed to give any advantage over the chosen one, or that the manufacturer's track record of getting project from paper into the air and then into production was poor.

Take the Supermarine Type 324, for example. It was a twin Merlin aircraft with an estimated top speed of around 450mph packing 12 0.303mgs. It was competing with the Tornado/Typhoon, but lost because it seemed to offer no advantage over the Hawker aircraft, and Supermarine's record of getting prototypes built and into production was poor (from the Spitfire experience).

Another in that competition was the Type 325, which was generally similar to the 324 but with pusher props. That was deemed too experimental.

Then we have the Type 327. A developed version of the 324 with 6 x 20mm cannon, or could still use the 12 mgs by changing outer wing panels, performance estimated to be up to 465mph. That proposal failed because it was felt that it was just a rehash of a previous project (324) and still did not offer any appreciable advantage over the Tornado/Typhoon (which had yet to be flown, so the error in their performance estimates was yet to be found).

 

[davebender]

Historical Fw-189A.
2 x 459hp As.410 engines.

Proposed Fw-189G.
2 x 950hp As.2 engines.
Or perhaps 2 x 960hp BMW132 engines.

With over twice the engine power Fw-189G would have been a new aircraft model for all practical purposes. It would still carry Rb 50/30 camera for recon but now it can also carry serious firepower plus some armor for protection against ground fire.

3cm Mk101 cannon mounted under fuselage was optional on Me-110. Fw-189G could have a similiar cannon mount.

4 x 50kg bombs could be replaced by 2 x AB250 cluster bombs.

 

[Piper106]

Proposed Fw-189G.
2 x 950hp As.2 engines.

Any details on the As.2 (prehaps also know as As.402) engine??? I have also seen this engine mentioned for a developed Hs129, but have not been able to find any data that makes any sense. Haven't even been able to verify if it is an inline air cooled or a radial, nor bore and stroke info.

 

[davebender]

I have not found any details on the proposed Argus 950hp engine.

I think it strange RLM would consider building a new engine similiar in capability to the existing BMW 132 radial. Late 1930s BMW 132 was a mature 960hp engine that was reliable, fuel efficient and dirt cheap to mass produce.

 

[fastmongrel]

A project that has always interested me was the Cierva C-41 Gyrodyne. I have never come across a picture of what the C-41 would have looked like but Fairy built a Gyrodyne after the war called the Fb-1 which was designed by the same man.

Fairey FB-1 Gyrodyne - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The C-41 would have been an interesting craft and might have given the RN an early vertical take off ASW capability on cruisers and possibly on the larger Destroyers.

 

[ktank]

Supermarine B12/36 - Stirling competitor. Near-completed prototype destroyed by German bombing.