Build a better Sea Hurricane 1938 (1 Viewer)

[MiTasol]

You are thinking of the SCR-522 VHF set and the first airborne microwave radars. In both cases I think the Brits gave up on building those themselves when they saw how fast we could make them. But those were not the radios those carriers would have used.

IFF and a few other items belong in the list as well. It was certainly easier to contract those items to the US as the US factories were not subject to bombing and staff transport/housing disruptions or intermittent electrical and component supply or any of the myriad of other issues the Brit factories had to deal with and the finished items were small and light enough to transport easily.

American HF and RDF/ADF were both superior to the equivalent Brit items and I think the USN and PanAm had a lot to do with that as the latter would have needed those on their long haul international flights which guaranteed US manufacturers both civil and military markets that were far larger than the equivalent UK market.

Lets face it, the total prewar civil aviation fleet in Britain was probably smaller than the civil aviation fleet of NY state. Market size drives companies to invent items for the civil market and having an adventurous military as a customer never goes astray either. RDF/ADF and HF comms were becoming necessary in the US because of the distances traveled. Not so much in Britian.

 

[MIflyer]

RDF/ADF and HF comms were becoming necessary in the US because of the distances traveled

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.

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.
The US developed a very sophisticated IFF called the BC-645, operating on 400 MHZ frequencies and even allowing aircraft to interrogate each other. The RAF refused to adopt that system; they already had one that worked and the change over would be a significant effort. So after the war that equipment became surplus.

 

[SaparotRob]

I worked on a Tracker off and on for a couple of years and should know what that extra linkage is for but cannot for the life of me think what it is.

I do remember that there were a set of interlocks that prevented the flaps being lowered when the wing was unlocked or folded and it may be part of that but I am far from happy with that being what it is. I will try and remember - I gave away my S2F manuals over 25 years ago but cannot remember who to.

As an aside you may have noticed that the Tracker fin has two rudders, one behind the other. The aft one is the actual rudder. I cannot remember the name of the front one but it was connected to the engine torque metering system so that if the aircraft had an engine failure when stooging along just above sea level this provided instant automatic rudder "trim" to counteract the swing before the wing tip dipped in the water.

I loved the way you can manoeuvre the aircraft on the ground by pulling the tail down until the nose wheels just clear the ground and then rotate the aircraft.

View attachment 792026

Go Grumman!

 

[MikeMeech]

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.

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.
The US developed a very sophisticated IFF called the BC-645, operating on 400 MHZ frequencies and even allowing aircraft to interrogate each other. The RAF refused to adopt that system; they already had one that worked and the change over would be a significant effort. So after the war that equipment became surplus.View attachment 792063View attachment 792062

Hi
What source are you using for this info? The British ASV policy was that aircraft supplied for Coastal Command under lend lease were to be fitted with US produced radars while British built aircraft were fitted with British built radars. The book 'Airborne Maritime Surveillance Radar, Volume 1, British ASV Radars in WWII 1939-1945' by Simon Watts has the following end of war info:

The ASV Mk.VA (ASG), Mk.X (AN/APS-15) and Mk. VIIIA were US designed and built radars the others were British designed and built and remained in production. The ASV III was a version of H2S which was also built in the UK in various versions throughout the war, so no the British did not stop production and it was more than a few.
The US also did not introduce the centimetric radar rapidly, they originally produced a copy of the ASV II (not centimetric), which also came over with the Tizard mission. Philco got an order for 7000 from the US Navy, mainly for PBYs as they had no equivalent radar sets at the time. I think you will find that was the most rapid introduction of ASV sets for the US Navy the British were already using it. I believe you find that VHF radio sets were also being produced in large numbers throughout the war in the UK, the US Navy fighters introduced VHF about a year later than the British Fleet Air Arm and the latter were later than the RAF.

Mike

 

[MiTasol]

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.

I agree that the RAF were using battery powered radios on a lot of early aircraft like the Anson and Oxford and my March 1939 Hurricane Mk I Vol 1 (essentially the maintenance manual) shows the Hurricane was fitted with bus powered radios though it does not identify which type. I would expect R1082/T1083 were most likely fitted in that time frame which would make you right as these used a mixture of bus power and also had two batteries (one 8v and one 120v) as the power supply.

My undated, but obviously not first edition, Mk II manual however shows the totally bus powered T.R.9D installed and also shows an earlier fuse configuration. It also shows the option to install the TR1133, known in the USA as the SCR-522.

My unrevised T.R.9 and T.R.11 series manual is dated December 1938 covers the D variant so fully bus powered RAF radios were in production by then.

 

[MIflyer]

What source are you using for this info?

Bill Gunston's book on night fighters. I was referring to airborne night fighter intercept radars, not air to surface radars.

That radio that was in the RAF P-40 they found in the Western Desert was battery powered. And friend of mine got one of those type sets and made it operational.