Build a better Sea Hurricane 1938

As a different route to a better Sea Hurricane how about this. Has the space and larger wing area to lift more fuel off the deck and the airframe was used to test both the Griffon and the Vulture.

yulzari said:

As a different route to a better Sea Hurricane how about this. Has the space and larger wing area to lift more fuel off the deck and the airframe was used to test both the Griffon and the Vulture.
View attachment 793335

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This a Henly variant I've not seen.

Except in 1938-39 you have the Hawker version of the Fulmar. Wing is actually over a foot longer but exactly the same area, 342 sq ft.
It is about 1000lbs lighter when empty and around 1100-1200lbs lighter when loaded compared to a Fulmar but then the Henley III was a target tug and had no guns/ammo and only had 94imp gal of fuel.

If you have to wait several years for an engine it doesn't do you much good in 1938/39.
Now if this thing had been canceled outright and Gloster (actual production site) had built 200 folding Hurricanes with deliveries starting in 1940 you might have something

It is hardly surprising that dimensionally the Henley and the Fulmar were so similar. Both had their origins in Spec P.4/34 for a light bomber. When the Spec for an "Interim" fighter arose in O.8/38, Fairey's starting point was its P.4/34 prototype which it modified by taking about a foot out of the wingspan, amongst other changes.

Fairey P.4/34 Fairey P.4/34 - Wikipedia
Fairey Fulmar Fairey Fulmar - Wikipedia

Commentry here on Henley and some reasons for building those 200 Henleys as target tugs.

Production was from about Nov 1938 to June 1940 (so an average of about 10 per month). Initially that was alongside Gladiator II (270 built 1938/39 plus the 2 emergency batches of a total of 98 Sea Gladiators in Dec 1938-Feb 1939 intended for the FAA - 16 retained by RAF) and later Hurricanes. Gloster delivered 500 Hurricanes from Nov 1939 to April 1940 in its first contract, at an average rate of 3 per day.

Gladiator was still in RAF front line service in the Med and Middle East until mid-1941 due to a lack of Hurricanes. Any more Hurricane production availability would be going to them not the FAA. Priorities again.

Gloster factory output during Henley production run, 38 mark II allocated for Sea (interim) version but only 22 delivered to FAA
Above includes 39 Gladiator II produced for export August to November 1939, 15 Portugal, 18 Egypt. 6 Norway and 30 RAF order transferred to Finland.

As of end June 1944 there were 51 Henley with Fighter Command Miscellaneous or Storage Units and 5 more in other stores or under repair, 142 had been written off in the UK, 3 sent to the Admiralty, 1 was unaccounted for, total production 202 (2 prototypes, 200 target tugs).

MiTasol said:

Many of the American radios of the time were British radios manufactured under licence as the British had invented many new avionics as a result of their actual experience at war.

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Agreed. American radios frankly sucked. I was very surprised when I found from Lundstom's books that the USN was still using obsolete HF radios at Midway. The British had introduced VHF two years earlier. In fact the USAAF was pressing for production of British radios before Pearl Harbor. When the first P-47s arrived in the UK in 1943 they were equipped with ineffective American HF sets that were quickly replaced with British supplied VHF radios.

From US Army TS Signals 2 The Test: Chapter 3: The Call for Equipment (January–May 1942). Bolding is mine.

"Radio Airborne

In the Signal Corps Aircraft Radio Laboratory (ARL) at Wright Field, Ohio, two of the most important radio developments early in 1942 were copies, SCR-522 and 578. Even the work of copying, ARL left largely to industry, limiting itself to the work of testing and adapting industry's products to Air Corps' special needs. There was, of course, one large exception, command radio set SCR-274-N, which the Signal Corps, the Navy, and the Aircraft Radio Corporation had created together. It was the only powerful command set (succeeding the SCR-183 and 283) available to American aviators at the beginning of the war, pending American production of the British VHF set, SCR-522. The 274 had been in production since June 1941. A huge number—huge, that is, compared to pre-Pearl Harbor standards—had been built in the last six months of 1941. The number totaled 2,722 sets, this being the quantity that Aircraft Radio Corporation had delivered through 3 January, coming very close to the schedule, which called for delivery of 2,850 by 31 December, out of the total on contract, 28,142.

The 274 proved to be an excellent high-frequency aircraft voice radio. Nearly a year earlier, when the Air Corps first began pressing the Signal Corps to adopt in toto the British VHF system, including the VHF crystal-controlled command set, Lt. Col. Harry Reichelderfer had spoken up for the American SCR-274. The ARL, he pointed out, already had a project under way to provide VHF components which could be used interchangeably with the 274. And the fact that the 274 did not use crystal control he thought a point in its favor, since the supply of crystals seemed most critical at that time.61 Though VHF and crystal control won out, the SCR-274 saw a very great deal of service in the war, especially in such areas as the Pacific where it was not necessary to coordinate with British VHF. In March 1942 Col. Alfred W. Marriner, AAF Director of Communications, informed Lt. Gen. Henry H. Arnold that "the SCR-274N is a new Army-Navy Standard Command set which has been giving excellent service since its adoption." He added, however, that frequency control gave some trouble. "The SCR-274N," he told Arnold, "required careful setting on the ground. I suspect that because of inexperience, due care is not fully exercised in setting these equipments with a result that all the transmitters being used in a squadron or flight are not on the same desired frequency."

Although the 274 deliveries at the time of Pearl Harbor were up to schedule, that schedule, like most prewar planning, fell far short of what was now wanted. Faced with the realities of war, the Air Corps was demanding not mere thousands but tens of thousands of SCR-274's. Pressed for faster delivery, Aircraft Radio Corporation asked Col. John H. Gardner, director of the Aircraft Radio Laboratory, to call a conference toward relaxing specification limits and to consider substitution for critical materials. The conference was called on 11 March. Gardner reported that some relaxations were allowed when "advantageous, particularly if delivery schedules are to be improved." But this was a solution that could scarcely be afforded. Equipment, if inferior or downright defective, no matter how improved or modern its design, is worse, if it does not work, than older equipment which does function. A reminder of this occurred when the ARL received several receiver and transmitter components of the 274 which were worthless because of defective insulating elements.

With far more ardor, the Air Forces pressed the Signal Corps for SCR-522, American version of the British VHF command set. For radio control of aircraft the British had gone to frequencies above 100 megacycles (the high-frequency SCR-274 originally went only up to 20 megacycles). VHF embraced more than just command sets for talk between aircraft, together with ground sets so that controlling officers on the ground could direct planes toward the enemy or assist friendly pilots back to their fields. It included also a complex net of VHF direction-finder stations on the ground, whose operators took bearings periodically on an intermittent signal emitted by friendly pursuit planes every few seconds and transmitted over one of the four channels built into each VHF command set. The gadget which automatically emitted the signal, the British dubbed "pipsqueak"; Americans called it a contactor. All this equipment the Signal Corps was feverishly pressing to produce for airmen, who were frantic for it even before Pearl Harbor.

The ground elements, fixed and mobile VHF radio sets, VHF direction finders and a complex of control center equipment, all constituting SCS-2 or SCS-3 sets, were the worry of the General Development Laboratories at Fort Monmouth. The airborne components concerned the Aircraft Radio Laboratory, which specialized in all the troubles that arise when electronic equipment goes aloft where ethereal conditions impose many a problem unknown to earthbound electric circuits. The simplest airborne component of VHF, pipsqueak or contactor unit BC-608, gave little trouble and was in production by January 1942 But not so the SCR-522. This was a precise set having four channels and covering an extraordinarily wide band of frequencies, from 100 to 156 megacycles. The British had originally contemplated two sets to cover this great range of frequencies, all of which the multiple needs of aircraft communication required. But the Americans had believed it possible to cram the entire band range into one set. Rives had argued for this and won his point. American laboratories succeeded in a feat of collapsing two sets into one, occupying no more space and weight than the original British TR-1143 had taken up and with only half the ultimate frequency coverage.

The AAF demand for SCR-522 did not stand alone. The British wanted quantities of these copies of their VHF command set too. In this, as in other cases where they pressed the United States to copy their equipment, they had the good reason that they wished to extend their production sources. If American equipment were interchangeable with theirs, they could fall back on American factories when and if their producers were bombed out. Already, two months before Pearl Harbor, General Olmstead had informed the Assistant Chief of Staff G-4 that the recently standardized SCR-522 was in immediate demand both for U.S. Army airplanes and for the British, who wanted 5,000 sets. The Air Ministry, because of destroyed factories, Olmstead said, "is relying upon deliveries under Lend-Lease to provide 250 sets per week beginning the first week in January, 1942." Olmstead asked G-4 to hand down a decision upon the allocation of monthly production between the United States and the United Kingdom. Even though America was not yet at war, the AAF would grant the British no sets till its own immediate needs had been met. General Arnold on 10 October had ordained that no sets could be spared before 1 June 1942.

Bendix Radio undertook the first contract for SCR-522, beginning deliveries in March when the Aircraft Radio Laboratory put them to test, found minor defects, and corrected them in collaboration with the manufacturer. By the end of the month production was mounting. Rives informed the AAF that "one hundred fifty-two (152) Radio Sets SCR-522-T2 had been delivered on March 31. It is anticipated that twenty-one (21) more will be delivered tomorrow and that in addition eight (8) SCR-522-A will be delivered tomorrow. Production is beginning to roll on these sets now," Rives wrote, "and it is believed that they will rapidly build up to quite a sizeable figure. The above figures," he added, "apply only to Bendix Radio Corporation itself. A number of subcontractors are being utilized to assemble complete radio sets, but it is not believed that any sets will be delivered by the subcontractors for approximately one month." He estimated that within three months the total output of SCR-522's would attain a peak of 3,000 monthly.

Rives may have been a bit overoptimistic. Production figures for the 522 did not begin to appear in the weekly summaries of the Statistical Branch, now under Services of Supply, until the week ending 22 April. Nor did they snowball as fast as he had anticipated. Bendix was at first the sole producer, whom for some reason the British had preferred. Producing this American copy of a British radio raised difficulties comparable to the troubles American manufacturers were having imitating British radars. British insistence on secrecy was one difficulty, as Olmstead had pointed out to the Under Secretary of War in October 1941. "The British," he said, "have insisted that a high degree of secrecy be maintained on this equipment. ..." He went on to describe it as "of strictly British origin, the American action being limited to redesigning the set to adapt it to our manufacturing process to use American parts and tubes and to increasing the frequency band covering from 100 to 124 megacycles to 100 to 156 megacycles."

Just as the SCR-522 was a copy built under the supervision of the Aircraft Radio Laboratory, so too was the SCR-578, the curvaceous "Gibson Girl," saving angel of many a wrecked aircraft crew adrift on the sea. Ironically enough, a German set gave the idea. One day in 1941 the British had picked up an emergency transmitter from the English Channel. It was the Notsender, N.S.2, an ingenious watertight portable transmitter to which a waterlogged airman could give energy by grinding a crank, energy which would automatically broadcast a distress signal to friendly listeners up to several hundred miles away. The British had brought the captured set, along with a specification written around it, to America in mid-1941, seeking a manufacturer either in Canada or in the United States. With their predilection for Bendix, they had approached Bendix Aviation Limited, North Hollywood, California, to undertake development of this "dinghy transmitter," as they termed it. Both Army and Navy became interested after members of the British Air Mission in Washington suggested in August that the Americans prepare a joint specification. The Air Forces, in response to the Chief Signal Officer's request for military characteristics, had at once evinced interest. The interest swiftly mounted to a demand after Pearl Harbor. While Lt. Col. George F. Metcalf in the Research and Development Division on 12 December urged the Signal Corps Technical Committee to take action on military characteristics without waiting for the Joint Radio Board to function, General Arnold asked on 24 December for 11,600 sets "as soon as humanly possible," requesting the Signal Corps to place a contract with Bendix Aviation Limited, taking advantage of the development which that company had already accomplished upon the original British specification.

While the Signal Corps set about getting the transmitters (deliveries began in the last week of May 1942), the procurement of antenna-raising equipment gave pause, and trouble. The 300-foot antenna wire had to be lifted into the air, either by a kite if the wind was blowing, or by a balloon inflated by the castaways, crouched precariously in their rubber boats. General Olmstead, under pressure from the AAF, repeatedly goaded the ARL for information as to when antenna equipment might be expected. He could not wait for the drawing up of formal specifications; he wired Gardner on 2 February. Gardner replied that he expected Bendix to deliver models of antenna-raising equipment on 9 February. A few days later Arnold, irked that Bendix' final sample was not yet completed, pointedly concluded a note to the Chief Signal Officer with the sentence, "A dinghy-load of Army pilots, who are now somewhere in the South Atlantic, could give eloquent testimony to the need for this equipment."

By the end of March the Aircraft Radio Laboratory and Bendix Aviation Limited were settling upon a production model when the third sample of the transmitter (BC-778-T2) received tests and approval at Wright Field "except for minor mechanical and electrical changes which can be made prior to or during early production." As for antenna-raising equipment, Colonel Gardner reported that no satisfactory samples had yet put in an appearance. But he expected something soon, in particular an improved hydrogen generator (to inflate the balloon), using rare lithium, rather than calcium, hydride. Of lithium hydride there was only one source (in the Dakotas) and toward supplying it in quantity the Signal Corps lent government financial assistance to a number of American producers."

Here's an excellent description of the American copy of the British Radio

EwenS said:

It is hardly surprising that dimensionally the Henley and the Fulmar were so similar. Both had their origins in Spec P.4/34 for a light bomber. When the Spec for an "Interim" fighter arose in O.8/38, Fairey's starting point was its P.4/34 prototype which it modified by taking about a foot out of the wingspan, amongst other changes.

Fairey P.4/34 Fairey P.4/34 - Wikipedia
Fairey Fulmar Fairey Fulmar - Wikipedia

Commentry here on Henley and some reasons for building those 200 Henleys as target tugs.

Hawker Henley target tug and dive-bomber.

dingeraviation.net

Production was from about Nov 1938 to June 1940 (so an average of about 10 per month). Initially that was alongside Gladiator II (270 built 1938/39 plus the 2 emergency batches of a total of 98 Sea Gladiators in Dec 1938-Feb 1939 intended for the FAA - 16 retained by RAF) and later Hurricanes. Gloster delivered 500 Hurricanes from Nov 1939 to April 1940 in its first contract, at an average rate of 3 per day.

Gladiator was still in RAF front line service in the Med and Middle East until mid-1941 due to a lack of Hurricanes. Any more Hurricane production availability would be going to them not the FAA. Priorities again.

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As a quick thread drift, may I suggest the dingeraviation.net site for their P-39 British experience. Informative of the problems the British saw in it's use, however the cockpit heater was not one of them.

Shortround6 said:

Now if this thing had been canceled outright and Gloster (actual production site) had built 200 folding Hurricanes with deliveries starting in 1940 you might have something

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Ya, do this

MIflyer said:

When the British brought the secret of the high power magnetron to the US they initially were rather skeptical of the US enthusiasm for the development. But one month after the British revealed the magnetron the US knew everything the British did about radar. A month after that the new factory for the new airborne radar set had been completed. And a month after that the factory was in full production. The British decided it was pointless to build the sets themselves, although later realized if they did not build at least a few they would forget how.

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Hi
I presume you are talking about the SCR-720 (AI Mk.X) which became the standard set post-war in the RAF, after being used from 1944. Bill Gunston's book, 'A Development and Combat History' is rather light on detail over the introduction into service by the RAF of this very good set, it was not without its problems and it took rather longer than a few months from the Tizard mission to full production. The official RAF narrative on radar in 'Signals Vol. V: Fighter Control and Interception', 1952, Chapter 10, has the following:





To be contd.
Mike

MikeMeech said:

Hi
I presume you are talking about the SCR-720 (AI Mk.X) which became the standard set post-war in the RAF, after being used from 1944. Bill Gunston's book, 'A Development and Combat History' is rather light on detail over the introduction into service by the RAF of this very good set, it was not without its problems and it took rather longer than a few months from the Tizard mission to full production. The official RAF narrative on radar in 'Signals Vol. V: Fighter Control and Interception', 1952, Chapter 10, has the following:
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To be contd.
Mike

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Hi
Also available as a source on this is 'The History of Air Intercept Radar & the British Nightfighter 1935-1959' by Ian White:





So a more complicated story than in Gunston.
Mike

What are we trying to do in this thread?
We (well T ThomasP ) has proposed a folding wing (5 piece wing); we know that Merlin X/CS propeller would provide best take off/low altitude performance, drop tanks to increase range/loiter time, etc. And that Gloster factory would have had capacity. But how do we stop Parliament/Air Ministry/RAF from building a "modification center" on the other side of the runway from the factory where they:
FAA weren't blocked from ordering Seafires because it was wrong airplane; they were blocked because they would have spent their limit resources (£££) on planes they would never receive:

So, how do you build a single engine fighter that the RAF/VVS don't want for the FAA??

don4331 said:

We'll need to get FAA to accept tricycle gear*,​

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But what performance benefit does it provide? It represents an even greater redesign of the Hurricane airframe, if it is even possible. Your forward undercarriage leg is in the engine bay just where the intake for the supercharger sits. If you want tricycle undercarriage then you need a clean sheet of paper design.

don4331 said:

but VVS certainly won't want to operate nose wheel gear airplane for short grass/snow covered fields.​

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P-39 & P-63? How many thousands did they accept?

don4331 said:

RAF is sort of in middle - they have some hard surface runways where tricycle gear would be OK, but would they want mixed types (and tricycle gear would be a little heavier = lower performing)​

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601 squadron converted to the P-39 Airacobra in Aug 1941 at Duxford. 350th FG USAAF also flew P-39s from there in late 1942. At that time it was a grass airfield. Only later in WW2 was a PSP strip laid. The single concrete runway wasn't laid until 1949-1951.

Neither the Soviets nor the RF nor the USAAF seem to have had problems operating this tricycle engined fighter from grass.

don4331 said:

*Tricycle gear works well with ramp; doesn't need to be full blown version like jets use, even a couple degrees makes significant difference = operation from CVLs​

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Why do you need ramps? The Sea Hurricane was operated quite happily from both US (440ft flight deck) and British (500ft flight deck) built CVE between 1942 and mid 1944. This is Avenger in 1942.

The last on British built CVE Vindex & Nairana were finally replaced in Sept 1944.

The real problem to solve is the folding wings to increase the numbers that can be stowed.

MIflyer said:

Yes, and many British trainer aircraft had no radios of any kind. They even sent large flights of trainer aircraft overseas with only the lead aircraft equipped with a radio.
Many of the RAF fighters in the BoB had not VHF sets but battery powered short range HF sets.

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Hi
Depends on what trainers during which period and doing what training I expect. The Miles Master was capable of being fitted with radio as is shown in official and unofficial drawings of the period (Source: 'Miles Aircraft - The Wartime Years' by Peter Amos):


(Sorry not totally clear but the radio is behind the cockpit, but best I can get from the book page)
In photographs of the period in some the radio aerial is visible in others it is not:

Some problems were reported, as mentioned in an Aeroplane Monthly article (November 1989), 'Probe Probare -Miles Kestrel/Master' by Alec Lumsden and Terry Heffernan, in that:
"Spilling, Stalls and aerobatics with R/T fitted were not recommended and it was suggested that this undesirable feature in a trainer be removed if possible." However, it is not totally clear what mark of Master this was, but it appears that it was one of the shorter radial-engined versions. There is also a mention of weights being added to the aircraft, which may have solved that problem.
(It should also be noted, by those interested, that 500 Master Is were delivered between July 1939 and September 1940 and all had Rotol Constant-Speed airscrews.)
Reference BoB HF radio, the changeover to VHF had started before the BoB but this was stopped and reversed during the BoB so all aircraft used the same system (it took about 90 minutes to change from one to the other I believe) but production of the VHF sets continued and change over continued post-BoB.

Mike

MIflyer said:

Yes, and many British trainer aircraft had no radios of any kind.

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And the same applied to all the US Primary Trainers which includes physically large aircraft like the Stearman which, unlike the Tiger Moth and some other Brit trainers, certainly had the room, and the lifting capacity, to fit a radio.

EwenS said:

But what performance benefit does it provide? It represents an even greater redesign of the Hurricane airframe, if it is even possible. Your forward undercarriage leg is in the engine bay just where the intake for the supercharger sits. If you want tricycle undercarriage then you need a clean sheet of paper design.

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Separating the forward undercarriage leg into left and right sides around the intake (carburetor) isn't impossible engineering task - you just don't see that from a side view.

EwenS said:

P-39 & P-63? How many thousands did they accept?

601 squadron converted to the P-39 Airacobra in Aug 1941 at Duxford. 350th FG USAAF also flew P-39s from there in late 1942. At that time it was a grass airfield. Only later in WW2 was a PSP strip laid. The single concrete runway wasn't laid until 1949-1951.

Neither the Soviets nor the RF nor the USAAF seem to have had problems operating this tricycle engined fighter from grass.

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OK, I admit I cocked up with the Soviets, but I'll stick with taildragger is safer to operate from grass field

EwenS said:

Why do you need ramps? The Sea Hurricane was operated quite happily from both US (440ft flight deck) and British (500ft flight deck) built CVE between 1942 and mid 1944. This is Avenger in 1942.

HMS Avenger (D14) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The last on British built CVE Vindex & Nairana were finally replaced in Sept 1944.

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CVE have squared off edges to flight deck, so even if pilot allows the plane to drift a few feet port or starboard there is still deck under plane during takeoff roll. This allows pilot to be aggressive with throttle = adequate speed. Pre-war RN CVLs have flight decks which follow the hull; if pilot allows the plane to drift, there's only ocean under plane. As a result, the pilot need to be careful with throttle to ensure he says straight = slower.

Salerno will issues of wind over deck for Seafires would be why I'd like option of using ramps.

EwenS said:

The real problem to solve is the folding wings to increase the numbers that can be stowed.

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I stand by the real problem is: Any Sea Hurricane built in '38-41 will be commandeered by RAF/AM and never get to land on FAA carrier to test benefit of folding wings.

If all it took to operate Hurricanes from RN carrier was reducing wingspan, why weren't folding wingtips, ala Zero, tested? Hermes' lift supports >36.5' wide, wingtips on Hurricanes are very close to 2', so wingspan would have been reduced to 36' (OK, I'd want a little more clearance in production version). It would have allowed Hermes to operate a dozen single seat fighters as fighter carrier. Courageous/Furious/Glorious had lifts of 46' by 48'; its not like FAA had so many pilots that the limited number of Hurricanes they could have stowed in their hangers would have been a restriction.

We will note Hawkers investigated folding wings in '40 and were told not to proceed.

So, IMHO, the challenge with the Hurricane/Spitfire is more what to you come up with that the RAF doesn't want then a technical issue.

don4331 said:

Salerno will issues of wind over deck for Seafires would be why I'd like option of using ramps.

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The problem with the Seafires at Salerno was when they landed on, not when they took off. So a ramp doesn't help. Or do you want to turn the clock back to the 1920s and use ramps to slow landing aircraft down?

EwenS said:

The problem with the Seafires at Salerno was when they landed on, not when they took off. So a ramp doesn't help. Or do you want to turn the clock back to the 1920s and use ramps to slow landing aircraft down?

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I was thinking more the conditions - hot and no breeze, than the specifics of landing vs taking off.

As we want the Sea Hurricane to replace the Fulmar, it needs to take off with 500lb bomb on one wing and 58 US gallon drop tank (the larger Wildcat one) on the other to have more/less equal combat radius to Fulmar (155 imp gallons internal). Alternatively 2 * 75 US gallon drop tanks to allow the 5hrs 30 minutes + reserves Patrol endurance. On hot day in Mediterranean with no breeze, a little ramp at Hermes bow to assist with take off is probably appreciated.

nuuumannn said:

You should never stop coming up with alternative scenarios, but to expect that there should be no counter to them is naïve, bearing in mind how much of past situations are known and understood. Many of the what-if ideas proposed by people have a kernel of truth in them, and in some cases were actually considered, such as a more detailed navalised Hurricane than the traditional Sea Hurricane was, but for some reason or another that the what-if has overlooked or not considered, the proposal was not carried out.

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Well said, and thanks. One thing I try my best to do is whenever I feel my own contrarianism rearing up I instead focus on how we can overcome whatever barrier I'm about to suggest. So yes, we can all tell each other why a proposal could not, would not or should not have been feasible - that's easy. But we should strive to follow up with the next part... here's what reasonably-feasible actions or occurrences are needed to overcome whatever barrier(s) we just suggested. Just my two pennies.

As for the Sea Hurricane or any single-seat fighter instead of a two-seater, one twist in history that might have helped is at the Air Ministry. Hindsight wasn't needed, just cross department knowledge and a little informed foresight. For example, instead of compromising the FAA's fighter capability with a reliance on two seaters, in the late 1930s have the Air Ministry tell their aircraft procurement department to walk down the hall to the radar department and ask them what they think radar will do for naval aviation in a year or so. Break up the departmental silos.

Admiral Beez said:

As for the Sea Hurricane or any single-seat fighter instead of a two-seater, one twist in history that might have helped is at the Air Ministry. Hindsight wasn't needed, just cross department knowledge and a little informed foresight. For example, instead of compromising the FAA's fighter capability with a reliance on two seaters, in the late 1930s have the Air Ministry tell their aircraft procurement department to walk down the hall to the radar department and ask them what they think radar will do for naval aviation in a year or so. Break up the departmental silos.

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I recall reading somewhere, I forget where, that one reason for wanting two-seater fighters was that when the FAA was under the RAF, the observer was the RN's way of getting "their man" up there. The observer was the crew member that was supposed to understand naval things, (hyperbolically) the pilot was just a glorified chauffeur driving the observer around. So, maybe, if we hypothesize that the RN gets control of the FAA sooner, maybe they also sooner acquire a new-found interest in single-seater fighters?

z42 said:

I recall reading somewhere, I forget where, that one reason for wanting two-seater fighters was that when the FAA was under the RAF, the observer was the RN's way of getting "their man" up there. The observer was the crew member that was supposed to understand naval things, (hyperbolically) the pilot was just a glorified chauffeur driving the observer around. So, maybe, if we hypothesize that the RN gets control of the FAA sooner, maybe they also sooner acquire a new-found interest in single-seater fighters?

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That has been brought a number of times and it is pretty much pure bunk.
What were the "ranks" of the two men?
An enlisted man was not going to give orders to an officer regardless of service, he might advise but that is it.
The "observer" was the guy operating the radio navigation system which allowed the two seat fighter to return to the carrier from beyond visual range (Pilot has to see the carrier).
Now please remember the RN homing system was not the same as the USN and that the RN system ( I believe) was a bit early in timing. Saying the USN could fly beyond visual distance in 1942 (or even 1941) does not mean the RN was stupid for using (wanting) the two seat fighter in 1938-39.
This also has been bought up several times before.

Part of the RN problem was the limited deck capacity of the RN carriers. for every 3 small single seat fighters you embark that may mean 2 larger strike aircraft or long distance/long endurance fighters you do not have.
The Fulmar could do several jobs, the single seat fighter (in 1938-41) could do fewer jobs. Single seat, single engine fighter in 1938-41 could not carry the bomb load for strike or even the fuel load for 4 hour missions. With 100 octane fuel and newer Merlins things could change. But that required changes in technology, not changes in attitude or control at higher rank.

And again, the British didn't seem to want to use the US or Japanese 'solution' of assigning 1-2 multi seat planes to a fighter formation to act as navigators. SO was that an RAF thing foisted on the RN or was that a RN thing?