Bristol Taurus fighter engine mods? (4 Viewers)

[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.

 

[Shortround6]

I assume the Taurus' low-altitude single-stage supercharging will need to be modified. What else?

Main thing is to throw the cylinders and heads out and start over. There were a couple of prototype engines used the Gloster twin that disappeared after the crash and never came back again. The Service engines had a lot of trouble overheating and if the engines are overheating at 3000ft trying to make good power (1200hp?) at 15,000ft and up is going to be very, very difficult in the thinner air.
The Taurus was not a precursor to the Hercules, it was concurrent. Delaying the Hercules to work on the Taurus would definitely have been a bad discission.
The Hercules didn't make 2000hp in WW II until the very end. Assuming you can match the power of a Hercules VI running on 100/130 fuel in high gear at 15,500ft of 1545hp that means the Taurus would be good for about 1014hp at that height. Adjust as needed for slightly rpm or other things? Hercules VI was already using 8.25lbs of boost to hit this power level.
It seems like a lot of hoops to jump through for not much result.

 

[Shortround6]

Perseus = 24.9 liter engine
Taurus = 25.4 liter engine

we are depending an awful lot on higher rpm and the advantages of small cylinders for a significant increase in power.
R-1830 = 30.0 liter engine for comparison.