Can we make a slightly smaller Fulmar as an improved carrier fighter?

[Admiral Beez]

Navalized Spitfire Mk III with folding wings (or not - at least at first). Obviously it would only work if the AM authorized production.

That's a given for anything. What we need is for the AM right from the very beginning pre-war to tell Fairey that the two seat fighter is off the table and to come back with something else.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

That's a given for anything. What we need is for the AM right from the very beginning pre-war to tell Fairey that the two seat fighter is off the table and to come back with something else.

Or keep it as a scout / pathfinder / interim and make something else to replace the Sea Hurricanes

 

[Admiral Beez]

Or keep it as a scout / pathfinder / interim and make something else to replace the Sea Hurricanes

I'd rather we make the the single-seat Fulmar right from the get go and forget the Seafire and Sea Hurricane entirely. If we can agree that the Osprey and Skua/Roc are no fighters, for the entirely of the FAA there have only been five twin-seat carrier fighters (Fulmar, Firefly, Venom, Vixen and Phantom), of which only two are WW2 aircraft. The vast majority of the FAA's fighters are single seaters, and all we need is for the AM to look at what the IJN, USN, MN and KM are flying and developing for carriers fighters and the single seat fans would win the day. And then the AM tells Fairey to make a 5/8 scale single seat version of their P.4/34 light bomber.

 

[RCAFson]

That's a given for anything. What we need is for the AM right from the very beginning pre-war to tell Fairey that the two seat fighter is off the table and to come back with something else.

That means no dedicated FAA folding wing fighters until 1941/42. The Fulmar was given a head start because it was already prototyped as a P4/34 candidate.

 

[nuuumannn]

It was a mistake.

Sturdily disregarding that the British might do things differently and therefore it must be bad. It was no mistake, it was deliberate, again for the reasons pointed out before that you keep ignoring...

Might I point out that the US Navy did not have a monopoly on altitude performance? The Seafire II could easily exceed the performance of the F4F at height, despite being optimised for low altitude performance, not only that, the US only learned from the European war before 1941 that altitude performance is crucial. US pursuits before 1942 all had poor altitude performance when compared to their European contemporaries. The Americans learned things like self-sealing tanks, armor plating, and good altitude performance, because before these lessons the Brits learned, US fighters didn't have that stuff.

And another thing, most combat in the Pacific theatre, as it did way back in 1940 took place at medium to low altitudes. even when they began at high altitudes the scraps descended to melees down low. During the Battle of Britain when a Spitfire pilot was told that the Bf 109 had better altitude performance than his Spitfire, he said "well, they have to come down here to get us..."

 

[RCAFson]

I'd rather we make the the single-seat Fulmar right from the get go and forget the Seafire and Sea Hurricane entirely. If we can agree that the Osprey and Skua/Roc are no fighters, for the entirely of the FAA there have only been five twin-seat carrier fighters (Fulmar, Firefly, Venom, Vixen and Phantom), of which only two are WW2 aircraft. The vast majority of the FAA's fighters are single seaters, and all we need is for the AM to look at what the IJN, USN, MN and KM are flying and developing for carriers fighters and the single seat fans would win the day. And then the AM tells Fairey to make a 5/8 scale single seat version of their P.4/34 light bomber.

The IJN didn't develop a folding wing fighter (folding wingtips only) and the USN didn't add folding wings to the F4F/Martlet until very late in 1941. I'm not sure what the problem with the Sea Hurricane is, given foreign developments.

 

[nuuumannn]

I'd rather we make the the single-seat Fulmar right from the get go and forget the Seafire and Sea Hurricane entirely.

There is logic in this, produce a dedicated purpose-built naval fighter from scratch (isn't that what I suggested a few pages ago, in fact it was), but let's not base it on ther Fulmar. Start with a clean sheet with a powerful engine mated to a purpose-designed airframe, otherwise in a few years when the war begins you are scrambling for a stopgap, which is why the Sea Hurricane and Seafire were developed when they were. They were stopgaps, they were designed because the purpose-built naval fighter the Firebrand was gonna be late. Had the FAA been able to invest in a purpose-built naval fighter from before the war there wouldn't have been these aircraft. They couldn't, so the interim specification that produced the Fulmar was released and because of that's limitations and lack of growth potential the Sea Hurricane and Seafire were designed once it became apparent the Firebrand was going to be late.

 

[Admiral Beez]

The IJN didn't develop a folding wing fighter (folding wingtips only) and the USN didn't add folding wings to the F4F.Martlet until very late in 1941. I'm not sure what the problem with the Sea Hurricane is, given foreign developments.

It won't fit down Ark Royal or the three Illustrious class lifts, or Hermes'. The consensus is that a folding wing Hurricane would be a slug. Had Ark Royal and the three Illustrious class been designed with wider lifts, the Sea Hurricane would have been fine. The disconnect between the Admiralty's carrier designers and the Air Ministry's aircraft specifiers is maddening - did no one see that the IJN and USN were fielding and developing non-folding single seat fighters and carriers with matching lift dims?

 

[Shortround6]

Or keep it as a scout / pathfinder / interim and make something else to replace the Sea Hurricanes

We really need a time line here.

Hawker Nimrod. First flew June 1930 under took carrier trials in June 1932 and 6 were Issued to No 402 flight and went aboard the Courageous in July. Another 86 were built. Top speed 196mph

we have Skua which was in response to a 1934 specification and first flew in Feb 1937. But the 2nd didn't fly until May 1938. Please note that even the First prototype flew 16 months after the Hurricane and 11 months after the Spitfire.

The Skua is judged unsuitable sometime in 1937 and the order for the Fulmar comes about, but even using the F.4/34 bomber as a prototype to speed things up they know in late 1937 that production won't begin until (at least in quantity) until 1940.

We now have two side tracks, the first is Roc. With the Idea of replacing the Hawker Osprey (think 2 seat Nimrod) reconnaissance fighter somebody thought that would be good idea and ordered 136 of them in April 1937. First flight is Dec 1938. 2nd prototype flies in late 1939 as a float, because the Roc wasn't slow enough already.
2nd is the Gladiator which is ordered in 1937/38 to replace the 4 year old Nimrods which are getting a little worse for wear in addition to not have the performance wanted to catch just about anybody's recon planes or slow bombers. These are to be replaced by the all ready ordered Fulmars

The Fulmar was only ordered in 1938 to have something to tie the RN over until the two aircraft they are thinking about The high performance 2 seat recon fighter and the high performance land based fleet base (harbor) interceptor are ready.

Everybody confused yet?

Somewhere in there we get the proposed folding wing Spitfire that is not exactly a Spitfire, late 1939 or earlier. But it does not go far as existing Spitfires are valued too highly for land use (defense of England).

The Sea Hurricane doesn't seem to exist before April of 1940 (unless in vague dreams?) when a pair of Blackburn Roc floats are delivered to Hawkers with the suggestion that float equipped Hurricanes would be useful in the fjords of Norway. Norway campaign ends without the floats being fitted and a Sea Hurricane is pretty much forgotten, except perhaps for the Hurricane flying off of a carrier to used on Land in Norway and then managing to land back aboard during the evacuation, without arresting hooks.
Then comes the Idea using clapped out Hurricane Is as one shot catapult fighters for chasing away (or shooting down) convoy snoopers over the Atlantic, work starts in Nov 1940 and planes start being delivered in Jan 1941.

As has been stated by others, the Sea Hurricane and the Seafire were both, again, stop gaps for the "Ideal" fleet fighters.

Now out of Sympathy for the Fulmar, the original specification of 1938 called for a 250mph speed at 20,000ft and a 4 hour patrol endurance, plus probably about 6-8 pages of details (how big the pilot's watch should be). Before they completed the first production example it was decided that 250-255mph at low level (6-8,000ft) was more useful than that speed well above any altitude that any maritime patrol plane, torpedo bomber or dive bomber would ever fly at.

Any alterations to the 'planned program' should take what was going on when into account.

I think we can all agree that getting rid of the Roc is a good idea but it doesn't really get you much, except saving some crewmen?

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Sturdily disregarding that the British might do things differently and therefore it must be bad. It was no mistake, it was deliberate, again for the reasons pointed out before that you keep ignoring...

I'm not ignoring a damn thing. You don't need a 300 mile range to have a good rate of climb. Naval fighters needed range and endurance whether in the North Sea, Med, Pacific or Indian Ocean or anywhere else that it's wet and ships sail. RN and FAA officers commented routinely on short endurance being a problem with their interim / adapted interceptors that they were forced to use. In the places they were using them i.e. mainly around Europe. Do I need to start dropping these quotes in here?

And I'm not saying that the American approach was initially much better - the Wildcat was by and large a mediocre carrier fighter. It had decent (rather than terrible) range, marginally acceptable (rather than good) speed, a poor rate of climb, decent (rather than great) armament, decent dive traits, good rather than great maneuverability and agility, and good (rather than excellent) carrier handling traits. It only looks good overall in comparison to the early FAA fighters which come out worse in most of these categories. .

Hellcat on the other hand, seems to have been right in the sweet spot in most respects, except for being too big for escort carriers and not having superlative range. By then they had the FM-2 coming online for the Escort carriers, though sadly they came rather late and later still to the FAA.

But I think the British could have made something much better than a Fulmar, Sea Hurricane, Seafire, or Wildcat. And they didn't need to wait until they had a 2,000 hp engine working to do it. What got int the way were the specs and their mistaken ideas like the need for low altitude rated engines.

 

[RCAFson]

It won't fit down Ark Royal or the three Illustrious class lifts, or Hermes'. The consensus is that a folding wing Hurricane would be a slug. Had Ark Royal and the three Illustrious class been designed with wider lifts, the Sea Hurricane would have been fine. The disconnect between the Admiralty's carrier designers and the Air Ministry's aircraft specifiers is maddening - did no one see that the IJN and USN were fielding and developing non-folding single seat fighters and carriers with matching lift dims?

The folding wing F4F-4/Martlet was a slug (7800-8000lb TO weight/1200hp TO/~1100hp at FTH). A folding wing Sea Hurricane (1300-1500hp at max boost) would be competitive with the F4F-4. The problem here is that engine technology lagged behind the needed power to make a folding wing naval fighter performance (speed, climb) competitive with a fixed wing land based fighter.

However, the basic problem for the FAA from 1940-42 was a lack of decks and a lack of aircraft, of any type. Adding a folding wing single seat fighter in lieu of a the Fulmar1/2 doesn't change anything. The Sea Hurricane with fixed wings could be used to augment the Fulmar, via a permanent deck park.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

So then you have two fighter aircraft on your small carrier neither of which can cope with an A6M or Ki-43. Steer clear of the Pacific or eastern Indian Ocean...

 

[Shortround6]

It won't fit down Ark Royal or the three Illustrious class lifts, or Hermes'. The consensus is that a folding wing Hurricane would be a slug. Had Ark Royal and the three Illustrious class been designed with wider lifts, the Sea Hurricane would have been fine. The disconnect between the Admiralty's carrier designers and the Air Ministry's aircraft specifiers is maddening - did no one see that the IJN and USN were fielding and developing non-folding single seat fighters and carriers with matching lift dims?

Not sure where the disconnect was with Grumman with the F4F wings. I would not describe it as good planning as some the monoplane dive bombers had folding wings, the TBD had folding wings, the F2A had 35ft wings and was only just over 26ft long.
The XF4F-2 was 26'5" long with 34 ft wings but it didn't fly like they wanted and they stretched it to 28'9" long and added 4 ft to the wings which made it tighter fit.

If the Navy was sizing elevators to the size of plane it would have been the SBD dive bomber.
just over 33ft long and with a 41'6' in wingspan you almost could squeeze a P-47 into that space

 

[nuuumannn]

I'm not ignoring a damn thing.

You are. You keep saying the same thing over and over again and my response is the same. The decision was deliberate. It is also worth pointing out that Seafires from the III onwards were fitted with slipper tanks to increase their range because of these complaints. Do some research.

Hellcat on the other hand, seems to have been right in the sweet spot in most respects, except for being too big for escort carriers and not having superlative range. By then they had the FM-2 coming online for the Escort carriers, though sadly they came rather late and later still to the FAA.

It was indeed.

But I think the British could have made something much better than a Fulmar, Sea Hurricane, Seafire, or Wildcat. And they didn't need to wait until they had a 2,000 hp engine working to do it. What got int the way were the specs and their mistaken ideas like the need for low altitude rated engines.

Yup, but again, I ask you, how much research into this subject are you doing before committing to typing your answers? If you have been following along this thread there are ample explanations as to why these aircraft existed and why the decisions that were made were made. I'm not the only one who has produced this information, either, so you will never find answers to your queries if you don't read what is in front of you.

Shortround said this on this very page.

"As has been stated by others, the Sea Hurricane and the Seafire were both, again, stop gaps for the "Ideal" fleet fighters."

And I wrote this a few posts earlier about 20 minutes ago!

"Start with a clean sheet with a powerful engine mated to a purpose-designed airframe, otherwise in a few years when the war begins you are scrambling for a stopgap, which is why the Sea Hurricane and Seafire were developed when they were. They were stopgaps, they were designed because the purpose-built naval fighter the Firebrand was gonna be late. Had the FAA been able to invest in a purpose-built naval fighter from before the war there wouldn't have been these aircraft. They couldn't, so the interim specification that produced the Fulmar was released and because of that's limitations and lack of growth potential the Sea Hurricane and Seafire were designed once it became apparent the Firebrand was going to be late."

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

You are. You keep saying the same thing over and over again and my response is the same. The decision was deliberate. It is also worth pointing out that Seafires from the III onwards were fitted with slipper tanks to increase their range because of these complaints. Do some research.

You think I never heard of slipper tanks? Buahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Those heavy, cumbersome things are dragged out every single time someone points out that the Spitfire, Hurricane, Seafire or the Sea Hurricane had poor range and endurance. Try tangling with a Bf 109, MC 202, A6M, or Ki-43 with a slipper tank aboard.

I know perfectly well that these were deliberate, or more accurately, rationalized decisions. I've read these decisions over and over for years. And I am telling you they were clearly and obviously wrong. Just as fleet officers and pilots told these people they were wrong. We have the advantage of hindsight to make better plans, but some people such as yourself can't see that clearly.

Yup, but again, I ask you, how much research into this subject are you doing before committing to typing your answers?

Enough to know I'm at least as well informed on this subject as you pretend to be.

If you have been following along this thread there are ample explanations as to why these aircraft existed and why the decisions that were made were made. I'm not the only one who has produced this information, either, so you will never find answers to your queries if you don't read what is in front of you.

I know what the rationalizations were (and continue to be, from some people). I also know very well that they were mistakes. Just like the Fulmar, Sea Hurricane, and Seafire were mistakes, (though the latter two had the excuse that they were emergency mashups of land based fighters, made to deal with problems made around the time the Roc, Skua, Fulmar and Firebrand and others were being specced out.) Just like the notion that you needed (and could effectively utilize) a two seat fighter was a mistake.

The point of the "What If" category of threads is not to rehash what was done, and what excuses and rationalizations were made during the war. It is to imagine what could have been done differently.

 

[Admiral Beez]

So then you have two fighter aircraft on your small carrier neither of which can cope with an A6M or Ki-43. Steer clear of the Pacific or eastern Indian Ocean...

Well, historically the British carriers did just this until 1942. Hopefully after three years of development whatever single seat fighter the FAA has been flying is now up to some competitive standard.

The point of the "What If" category of threads is not to rehash what was done, and what excuses and rationalizations were made during the war. It is to imagine what could have been done differently.

Nice try. But the consensus point of this subforum is to serve as a gotcha trigger for those determined to tell us why some idea or proposal would not, could not or should not have been feasible. What you're seeking is a contributive, building-up process where if an idea faces some barrier of technology or resource/money allocation the group looks at way to surmount the issues and get to the solution. But no, no... not here. What you'll get is contrarians telling you why your idea will never fly; not how to make it so.

It's the nature of discussion forums everywhere I'm afraid. The Contrarian Nature of Internet Posts :: General Discussion

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I'm sure with the right specs it would have been. They had a lot of very good designers and firms. Put Gloster on it. or De Havilland. Or Supermarine. The problem as i see it here was with the specs.

 

[nuuumannn]

Enough to know I'm at least as well informed on this subject as you pretend to be.

And of course, you have all the answers but still can't fathom what happened because you are not reading what's being written.

Yes, this is a what-if, but what-ifs still have to abide by what happened in reality, they are still constrained by decisions made in reality, otherwise you might as well have F-14 Tomcats operating from Nimitz Class carriers in 1941. The problem you face is that your knowledge is limited by your adherence to what you know. Before this thread existed, did you know the Fulmar was an interim fighter only? Were you aware that the Firebrand was supposed to be the ideal naval fighter for the FAA? Did you know that Richard Fairey was asked to build Spitfires for the navy in 1938? Were you aware that the FAA was a branch of the RAF whose decisions were made by the Air Ministry and not the Admiralty, which hampered naval aircraft development in Britain at a time when technology and performance were changing exponentially?

 

[Shortround6]

The point of the "What If" category of threads is not to rehash what was done, and what excuses and rationalizations were made during the war. It is to imagine what could have been done differently.

It helps to try to figure what could have done differently with Knowledge (mostly) available at the time in question, and with the resources available at the time (engines, fuel, electronics, etc). Telling us how wonderful the F6F was (and it was wonderful) in mid 1943 doesn't help with the RNs problems in 1939-early 1943.

If you don't have a 1600-2000hp engine available in 1939-42 then you have to figure out what the limits are (fewer guns, less speed, less range).

Gloster F.4/34 should be taken out to sea, shot, stabbed, chained to a big anchor and filled with cement.

It's performance was about as believable as the XP-77 being a "tri-four fighter" 400 horsepower / 400 miles per hour / 4000 pound weight targets for the design.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

And of course, you have all the answers but still can't fathom what happened because you are not reading what's being written.

Yes, this is a what-if, but what-ifs still have to abide by what happened in reality, they are still constrained by decisions made in reality, otherwise you might as well have F-14 Tomcats operating from Nimitz Class carriers in 1941. The problem you face is that your knowledge is limited by your adherence to what you know. Before this thread existed, did you know the Fulmar was an interim fighter only?

Yes I did, and I have posted about it several times in other threads. Did you know that? I actually like the Fulmar and I have a model of it. I am not under any illusions about what it was and wasn't.

Were you aware that the Firebrand was supposed to be the ideal naval fighter for the FAA?

I did know the sad history of the Firebrand and have posted about it here as well (as being among a list of postwar aircraft that compared poorly with the Aichi B7N, among other things)

Did you know that Richard Fairey was asked to build Spitfires for the navy in 1938?

I'd seen naval Spitfires mentioned many times, and I knew they had been considered. I have learned a few details in the thread, though I fail to see why that precludes my discussion of it or implies that you are correct in your arguments.

Were you aware that the FAA was a branch of the RAF whose decisions were made by the Air Ministry and not the Admiralty,

Yes I did know that, it comes up literally every single time we talk about the FAA or all the problems with it.

which hampered naval aircraft development in Britain at a time when technology and performance were changing exponentially?

Yes I know the sad history very well. And I have posted extensively in other discussions about them, and these same aircraft, in multiple threads on this very forum. In recent memory even.

I also know that answering these questions will fail to make the lightbulb over your head flash on, but I have a lot in common with sysiphus. I knew this thread would devolve into yet another "battle of the Atlantic" for some people, becauuse it implies that some British people, somewhere, at some time, may have made an error in judgement. At least it was a bit productive for a minute.