Bistol Type 153 wins the F.37/35, no W. Whirlwind

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Admiral Beez said:
It just takes one
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As they say, for those in the cheap seats, the thread so far has stated that the Hercules is not ready and that the Perseus or Mercury might need to be used and that Bristol might be making unsubstantiated claims about the 153, which makes it a bit of a stretch to make real, so, winding back the clock, why not suggest that the alternative be a Whirlwind designed from the outset with Merlins? That offers a better and more likely outcome that was able to meet future threats than the Bristol 153 - it's a what-if. You can put the whole scenario on its head if you want to...

Hint, there's a reason that the Bristol 153 had no future...
 
It might also be worth adding that the Supermarine Type 313 was the preferred tender by a few of those evaluating the entries, but its delivery date of 27 months was considered excessive. If only the air Ministry had a crystal ball...
 
nuuumannn said:
It might also be worth adding that the Supermarine Type 313 was the preferred tender by a few of those evaluating the entries, but its delivery date of 27 months was considered excessive. If only the air Ministry had a crystal ball...
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Dear lord.
 
tomo pauk said:
Dear lord.
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Oh come on, maker of interesting threads, this is what happened in real life, the Bristol would have to get through the Supermarine design before it got to finish. What does that tell you?

As for the Whirlwind with Merlins thread? It's been gone over a thousand times and many different forums.
 
nuuumannn said:
Oh come on, maker of interesting threads, this is what happened in real life, the Bristol would have to get through the Supermarine design before it got to finish. What does that tell you?
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That one will rather de-rail thread in multiple directions rather than to start another thread.

nuuumannn said:
As for the Whirlwind with Merlins thread? It's been gone over a thousand times and many different forums.
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If you think new stuff can be added to that topic, please start a dedicated thread.
If not, please don't derail this thread.
 
tomo pauk said:
If you think new stuff can be added to that topic, please start a dedicated thread.
If not, please don't derail this thread.
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I'm not derailing the thread, you don't have to agree with me.

My take is the Bristol is a dead-end and an alternative should be sought. That's the what-if. It IS contributing to the thread because it opens up the possibility of alternatives, of which there were plenty in that spec. We could discuss the Type 313, we could discuss the P.88, we could discuss the Bristol 153A twin-engined version, so why is that derailing the thread?
 

We could. Or we could play the ball and and discuss a topic.
We also can open dedicated thread to cover these aircraft. Want to try?
 
tomo pauk said:
We also can open dedicated thread to cover these aircraft. Want to try?
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Why bother? Look, from reading through yours and SR's well considered (as always) responses, the Bristol doesn't have much more to go through discussion-wise. And then what? Why not look at the alternatives in the specification? Could Hawker have put a four cannon armed Hurricane together in 1937? With that club propeller on the front, it'd be real slow. What was it about the Supermarine 313 that was so good that it was considered for the specification and how does it match against the Bristol? Could Petter have designed the P.9 with Merlins in competition with the Bristol?

I really don't see the point in discussing these aircraft out with the existing thread because there would be cross pollination with this one because the Bristol gets mentioned and we'd be repeating ourselves in multiple threads.

Look. If it means that much to you, I'll bow out and let the thread run its course...
 
Admiral Beez:

Weight and balance are critical on aircraft - it basically needs to balance fore/aft at 25% average chord (Note: This is approximation, off by a few % is permissible, but it is rough starting point)

Messerschmitt takes a Bf.109D with a Jumo 210 + 50kg radiator + 25 kg of coolant, removes the radiator and coolant from directly under the engine allowing for 75kg heavier engine (1:1 replacement of weight), then places the radiator and coolant approximate approximately equal distance behind the wing balance point. To balance the titter-totter, Messerschmitt needs to add 75kg more engine. 442kg + 75kg for removal from nose + 75kg for installation in wings = 592kg darn near equal the 600kg of the Bf.109E. (yes, I fudged the numbers to work, but the Spitfire prototype radiator was 41kg, and 2 separate radiators are heavier than 1, so I'm not that far off).

Supermarine does the same with the Spitfire - the additional weight for 2 speed 2 stage Merlin 61 over the original Merlin C is offset by the second radiator/coolant in the wing.

Unfortunately, air cooled engines don't have liquid radiators to shift around (the oil cooler in much less mass). So, if you're starting with Taurus, you would need to add 600lbs of lead to nose to balance the future Hercules. And the Taurus powered version can't afford that much mass. It can't really afford to drag the extra 9" diameter air frame through the air.

Now you can plan ahead and mount the Taurus engine way forward, then when you mount the Hercules use an extension shaft ala Mitsubishi J2M Raiden, but you are adding complexity. Changing location of firewall with respect to rest of air frame tends to be massive re-design.

Couple other notes:
In order to fit the Bristol fighter on the armoured carriers, you will need folding wings for those 21' wide elevators. Folding wings, along with catapult spools, arrestor gear, dingy, naval radio, etc is going to add 500lbs to the original Bristol proposal. (That doesn't include armour and self sealing tanks...)

And I hate to think what the drag of the under wing 20mm "pod" is going to cost you - Fw.190 lost >50km/h when U12 (twin 20mm pod) was added.
 
As a point of reference the Hurricane was drawn up with four 20mm cannon and shown when a lot of these other proposals were made.
The point of reference is that Hawker claimed an all up weight of around 7,000lbs. This, I believe, would have been without protection and with a Merlin II or III ?

In the Winter of 1941/42 the Hurricane IIC was listed as weighing 7560lbs in performance charts.
Please remember that Hurricane I's already existed but that doesn't seem to a be bad "guess" by Hawker. New "paper" airplanes usually grew during construction even without armor and protected tanks.
 
nuuumannn said:
Great phrase, Admiral!
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Thanks, but I can't claim it, it's a common phrase for German super aircraft that existed no where beyond preliminary thinking, if that. Much of the Amerika Bomber program, for example. Search results for query: Napkinwaffe

But this brings me to imagine what was possible if the Hercules had been available sooner. An earlier Beaufighter, or super Blenheim? Something better than the Albacore as the Swordfish's replacement? And yes, something competitive from Bristol in the single engined, single seat fighter category, ideally good enough for the Air Ministry to reject the Fulmar.
 
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Possibly. It does raise the question as to why the Hercules was not readily, apart from the Beaufighter, used as a fighter engine. Having read more about this specification and the entries that went into it, the Boulton Paul design powered by a Hercules or a vulture depending on the variant, came third to the P.9 and the Supermarine 313, which says a lot about the Bristol entry.
 


We have two problems with history here.

One is what was the actual state of the Hercules development as far as production went.
Two is the actual state of Hercules development as far as engine power went went (modifications to use 100 octane fuel, etc)
This may be stated badly.

By the spring of 1940 the Hercules was so far behind in production that Bristol was working on installing Merlin XX engines. Prototype first flew in June 1940.
Only about 100 Beaufighters were built in all of 1940 using Hercules engines.
Some other planes did use it 1940 but plan that calls for large numbers of Hercules engines was in trouble.
Now there were quite a number of planned or proposed aircraft in 1936-39 that list the Hercules at least as a option but the Hercules was not a major factor until 1941. (more than the few hundred aircraft built in 1940? ) The Hercules did become quite an important power plant in 1941 and after but something doesn't seem quite right about in 1939-40.

The early Hercules (1939) engines seem to have been around 1300-1375hp? which might have depended on the supercharger ratio on their single speed superchargers. The two speed superchargers showed up in 1940 as did the ability to run on 100 octane fuel but the fuel change did not offer the same increase the Merlin got. At least not just yet.

Bristol was able to make sleeve engines in small quantities during the 30s that ran pretty good. The problem was trying to make the sleeve valves in mass production. The problem was solved just in the nick of time.
 
nuuumannn said:
Possibly. It does raise the question as to why the Hercules was not readily, apart from the Beaufighter, used as a fighter engine.
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No one else was focused on sleeve valve radials. I expect there are hundreds of WW2-era P&W and Wright radials still in commercial service today, but Bristol's sleeve radials were quickly retired. Why the Brits thought that sleeve valves was the right path IDK.
 
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