Build a better Sea Hurricane 1938 (3 Viewers)

[fastmongrel]

but I believe Hellcats had difficulty intercepting C6N's as well

To be fair I cant think of any wartime carrier aircraft could reliably catch a C6N it was a speedy bird.

 

[nuuumannn]

Interesting as they had certainly been at the forefront of development of Naval Aviation between the wars.

It is interesting; after the Nimrod, the FAA seemed to abandon serious work on a single seater bar the Sea Gladiator, but as I pointed out in another thread the RN had plenty of projects going on beginning before the outbreak of war for single seaters that they had no reason to believe that none of them would actually reach a carrier deck during the war. The Blackburn Firebrand had a lot riding on it; that it became a bit of a non-starter was certainly not the navy's fault and Hawker's offer of a Sea Typhoon as a back-up was there also, as unrealistic as it became with the structural issues the Typhoon suffered. There was also the all-wooden Miles single-seat naval fighter based on the stop-gap Miles M.20, which again, realistically wasn't going to get built. The refusal of the Admiralty's request for Sea Spitfires was met by the order of Grumman F4Fs, or Martlets as an interim, but that's all they were meant to be, as was the Sea Hurricane. The navy wanted Spitfires and the Firebrand.

 

[Kevin J]

The former. I was just making a statement that Hurricanes not catching Ju-88's was not usual.
I may be mistaken, but I believe Hellcats had difficulty intercepting C6N's as well

It wasn't just the Hurricane that couldn't catch the Ju 88, neither could the Seafire IIc during Operation Torch, which is why it was given the low rated Merlin 32 to become the LIIc and hopefully everyone knows what happened to that one at Salerno. IIRC not a single victory although it did manage to drive off the Fw 190A jabo's.

 

[Kevin J]

To be fair I cant think of any wartime carrier aircraft could reliably catch a C6N it was a speedy bird.

Only the Corsair, IIRC.

 

[fastmongrel]

Only the Corsair, IIRC.

Did the Corsair catch a C6N on a recce flight or did it intercept it when the C6 was being used as a fighter or Kamikaze. A recon version C6N could fly higher faster and further than a wartime Corsair, it was a remarkable aircraft.

 

[Admiral Beez]

In his book "Wings of the Navy" Winkle Brown made an interesting statement, "not a single British designed single seat purpose built naval fighter was employed at sea during WWII".

This statement is a little disingenuous. With the exception of the Fairey Flycatcher and the postwar Supermarine Attacker and Scimitar, every single seat fighter operated by the RN since the beginning of naval aviation has been either a shared RAF design or an off the shelf USN type. The arguably, very best carrier based piston fighter of all time, the Hawker Sea Fury was a RAF type, and the FAA did just fine with it. Sharing a type with the RAF isn't worthy of Captain Brown's scorn or stigma.

In its entire history of naval aviation, CVL and CVEs aside, from the Courageous class of 92 years ago to today's Queen Elizabeth class Britain has operated all of fourteen fast fleet carriers. It makes no sense to design a dedicated naval fighter for such small deck numbers, the Fulmar and Firefly should never have existed, and should have gone straight from the Nimrod and Sea Gladiator to the Sea Hurricane and then Seafire.

As a similarly small sized economy and industrial power (relative to the US), Japan made the same mistake as the British Fulmar/Firefly program in running dual track IJN and IJAF fighter programs. Instead, the Zero and Oscar should have been one type, with mods for sea and land use. Japan's industrial capacity was even much smaller than Britain's, so the need to pursue such efficiencies was even greater.

 

[nuuumannn]

Brown? Voicing a slightly inflammatory opinion?

 

[yulzari]

As a similarly small sized economy and industrial power (relative to the US), Japan made the same mistake as the British Fulmar/Firefly program in running dual track IJN and IJAF fighter programs. Instead, the Zero and Oscar should have been one type, with mods for sea and land use.

These are the same people who could not agree on the same 7.7mm small arms cartridge...........

 

[tomo pauk]

This statement is a little disingenuous. With the exception of the Fairey Flycatcher and the postwar Supermarine Attacker and Scimitar, every single seat fighter operated by the RN since the beginning of naval aviation has been either a shared RAF design or an off the shelf USN type. The arguably, very best carrier based piston fighter of all time, the Hawker Sea Fury was a RAF type, and the FAA did just fine with it. Sharing a type with the RAF isn't worthy of Captain Brown's scorn or stigma.

...

The same Sea Fury that flew zero combat sorties during the ww2?
RAF used the Sea Fury??

 

[ThomasP]

Finally got around to copying some of my old files and transferring them to my laptop.

Here are a couple of the side-view drawings of my notional SeaHurricane Mk III. As I mentioned in my post "Build a better Sea Hurricane 1938" the overall foot print would be 31' 2"L x 18' 6"W x 13' 1"H, so in the hangar the wings could only be folded or unfolded with them between the deep support beams.

 

[pinehilljoe]

Finally got around to copying some of my old files and transferring them to my laptop.

Here are a couple of the side-view drawings of my notional SeaHurricane Mk III. As I mentioned in my post "Build a better Sea Hurricane 1938" the overall foot print would be 31' 2"L x 18' 6"W x 13' 1"H, so in the hangar the wings could only be folded or unfolded with them between the deep support beams.

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I think Sir Sydney would approve !