Bristol Taurus fighter engine mods? (1 Viewer)

[Admiral Beez]

If the Bristol Taurus (shown below on an Fairey Albacore) was considered for fighters, perhaps as a successor to the Perseus (and precursor to the Hercules), what mods are needed? I assume the Taurus' low-altitude single-stage supercharging will need to be modified. What else?

 

[yulzari]

It has been suggested in earlier threads and much made of the CoG concerns over the far greater weight of the Hercules but it looks to me that, if you can relocate the assorted gubbins behind the engine and before the firewall/forward bulkhead, the the whole engine might be mounted much further back and reduce the CoG issue.

However, closer to the OP, the Hercules maxed out at @2000bhp so, for the Taurus that translates to @1450bhp by comparative capacity. That makes sense with the Hercules as a twin Perseus and the Taurus as a twin Aquila. The special Aquila used in the Vickers Venom prototype was 650bhp which translates into 1,300bhp.

The obvious model is doing much the same to the Taurus as was done to the Hercules IOTL including the input from Napiers.

 

[EwenS]

If the Bristol Taurus (shown below on an Fairey Albacore) was considered for fighters, perhaps as a successor to the Perseus (and precursor to the Hercules), what mods are needed? I assume the Taurus' low-altitude single-stage supercharging will need to be modified. What else?

View attachment 897408

The Bristol Taurus was offered as a fighter engine in 1939.

Fairey tendered designs for Spec N.8/39 & N.9/39 offering 4 engine choices:-
RR Griffon - 1,600 bhp at take off, 1,445 at 15,000ft. AUW 10,775lbs
Fairey Queen - 1,320 & 1,170 AUW 9,975lbs
RR Boreas (aka Exe) - 1,150 & 950. AUW 9,570lbs
Bristol Taurus - 1,200 & 1,170. AUW 9,355lbs

Four other companies made submissions but I don't have details. None of the proposals were found acceptable and everyone went back to the drawing board. Eventually the Firefly emerged from the process.

The very earliest Blackburn proposal around the same time for what eventually became the Firebrand was based around the Hercules.