Early war Fleet Air Arm modern aircraft

yulzari said:

At least both go down the lifts without needing folding wings.

Click to expand...

Which carriers are you thinking about?

Ark Royal had 2 lifts 45x22ft and one 45x25ft and the Illustrious class were designed around lifts of 45x22ft.

The Venom had a wingspan of 32'9" and a length of 24'2". Gladiator was wingspan 32'3" length 27'5". Both are too big for those lifts (well you could just fit the Venom sideways on one of Ark's but you then have difficulty moving it off the lift and around the hangar). When Illustrious borrowed two Sea Gladiators from Eagle in Nov 1940 for the Taranto Operation, they were kept as a deck park aft of the island.

I agree that they would fit the lifts of the earlier carriers without folding wings. Or the forward lifts of Indomitable, Implacable and Indefatigable with their larger 45x33ft forward lifts accessing their upper hangars only. But to get the numbers needed on the carriers, folding wings are really a must. Here is a photo of Indomitable's upper hangar in 1943 when she carried 40 Seafires plus Albacores

The bigger issue with the Vickers Venom - it makes its speed by having almost no wing (146 ft^2) which means it is going to have a high landing speed. And if you add 50% more wing area to get landing speed back to where the arresting gear on the carriers need it, add 100 lbs of pilot armour, 100lbs of self sealing tanks, couple hundred pounds of arrestor gear, naval radio, dingy, the Venom has slid back down to being a mediocre plane.

So, you need to start in '34, with convincing the RN that there are programs in the works that will resolve the issue of bombers/destroyer getting within range before the carrier can react. (We can't tell you about them, but they will be ready before we declare war on anyone.) Next, you need to convince RN to upgrade all the arrestors to handle landing speeds of 70mph with an upgrade path to 80mph - FAA can't have >280mph top speed and <70mph landing speed with technology of the time period. Having the aforementioned, you have removed the size reduction of the armoured carrier/round down requirement (planes landing at 80mph are much less susceptible to gusts and eddies than those landing at <60mph).

Next, convince RAF/AM that FAA aircraft have to start with 0.5" MG - preferably Browning but Vickers will do, minimum 4. FAA will take 20mm cannons when available.

With ability to intercept inbound attackers and navigate back to ship, a single seater become possible and your N.27/34 spec (versus the O.27/34 Skua spec) calls for a single seater with 70kn landing speed, reducing the wing by 1/3, weight by >400lbs and some aerodynamic clean up = increased top speed to maybe 275mph, means your fighter/dive bomber isn't as out classed (It's way ahead of anything else being introduced into service in Nov. '38).

And it sets the bar way up there for the replacement: I'm thinking earlier, slightly smaller Firebrand from an N.8/38 spec (not Fulmar from 08.38) based around the Merlin, with Griffon upgrade. The light/slow carriers can continue to operate the N.27/34 planes as the new N.8/38 planes roll off the lines for the new fleet carriers.

I look at a torpedo bomber based around the RR Vulture (its a bomber engine) and/or Napier Sabre. More/less Grumman Avenger, but liquid cooled from Fairey.

Fighter/DB being based on Merlin and TB based around Vulture/Sabre/Centaurus also helps define the aviation spirits requirements on the carrier - 20k gallons isn't going to cut it.

yulzari said:

An option within a reasonable POD timescale for 1940 service would be the Vickers Venom.

Click to expand...

Thoughts on the Supermarine Type 224? Swap out the Goshawk and its evaporative cooling for the Kestrel and a regular cooling system and we have something.

Glider said:

Or Wildcats. Its worth remembering that at the start the German bombers were not escorted by the Me109 didn't it have the range.

Hurricanes or Wildcats would do the job nicely

Click to expand...

Britain received Grumman G-36As intended for France in late summer of 1940, too late for the battle of Norway.

The Vickers Venom is a "throw it out and start over" airplane.

A good part of it's light weight is from the Aquila engine of under 800lbs. Or about 80% of a Bristol Mercury.
Another part of it's light weight is from the 50gal, (imp) fuel capacity (and few gallons less oil than another fighter in contention)
Once you toss the Aquila engine and go to a heavier engine everything starts to unravel.
Your wing loading will go up rather quickly because of the small wing.

You can have a landing speed of about 70mph fairly easily.
The Prototype Hurricane at 5672lbs had a stalling speed of 57mph and landing speed of 70mph. There is a difference between the two.
But the Venom, as is, has a wing loading of about 28lb sq ft. while the Hurricane prototype was just under 22lbs sq/ft.

Now, will the Venom even come close to handling carrier landings (the Buffalo could not) let alone what happens when you add even 10% to the weight let alone the closer to 20% you are going to need (and we haven't even got to self sealing tanks and armor yet, those won't become part of the requirement until at least 1939.)

Admiral Beez said:

Swap out the Goshawk and its evaporative cooling for the Kestrel and a regular cooling system and we have something.

Click to expand...

Road apples are still road apples. The Spitfire 224 used a 295 sq ft wing of 45ft 10in span, makes a Typhoon wing look small.
People complain about the Fury biplane not being fast enough. The Type 224 was good for about 228mph at 15,000ft and it had no radiator, it had the surface cooling system.
Add a 1935-37 style radiator under the plane and see how slow it goes.
The Kestrels used water for cooling, Not Ethylene Glycol but plain water. The Peregrine was the change over after the Merlin was redesigned to use Ethylene Glycol.

Lets remember that the Gloster Gauntlet could do 230mph at 15,800ft using a 640hp Mercury engine and the first Gladiator flew Sept 12 1934 with a 540hp Mercury.

Getting something to out perform the Nimrod in the mid 30s shouldn't have been that hard.

GrauGeist said:

Britain received Grumman G-36As intended for France in late summer of 1940, too late for the battle of Norway.

Click to expand...

The first production F4F flew in Feb 1940 & nos 3 & 4 in June. Then Grumman produced the French G-36A aircraft. The first 6 arrived in the UK in Aug with the next delivery at the end of Sept. First squadron began to receive them in Oct (just in time for end of BoB) alongside Sea Gladiators and Buffaloes. Delivery was completed in Nov. 71 arrived of 81 built. 10 lost at sea.

These all had fixed wings so no use on Ark or Illustrious class.

EwenS said:

Ark Royal had 2 lifts 45x22ft and one 45x25ft and the Illustrious class were designed around lifts of 45x22ft.

Click to expand...

It's a credit to their forethought or luck that AFAICT the lift sizes on Ark Royal could fit nearly every folding-wing, single-engine, ICE-powered propellor aircraft ever to grace an aircraft carrier, with exceptions including the 26ft wide (folded) B7A Ryusei. The larger lift will need to handle the nearly 24 ft folded width of the Douglas A-1 Skyraider, but otherwise, bring on your Avengers, Corsairs, Hellcats, Fireflies, Firebrands, Spearfish and even (I may be wrong here) B6N Tenzans, there's a place for them all in Ark Royal. A true Noah's Ark.

I wonder, as minimizing the hole in the flight deck was a goal, why they chose 45 ft length for the lifts though, as nothing until the 44.5 ft long Fairey Spearfish is of that scale? Of course the Ark's lifts may need a higher weight rating.

During WW2 the RN relaxed the dimension limits for aircraft being designed. So the Fairey Spearfish ordered to a 1943 spec and which first flew in July 1945 was not intended for the Illustrious class. While 44ft 7in long there would not have been enough margin around it to have fitted the lift. In spacing aircraft RN worked to approx 1.5-2 ft for working space.

Escuadrilla Azul said:

, what aircraft could had been (reasonably) fielded by the FAA in early 1940?

Click to expand...

Drag inducing width aside, I still like the look of the BP Baillol.