Hawker aircraft alternatives after Hurricane until ~1955?

[tomo pauk]

Similar as the two current LW threads: the best, but still plausible ways for the products of Hawker company (fighters, predominantly)to be top-notch. After the 1st flight of the Hurricane is acomplished - lets say from January 1936. Ending by the time people were trying to make a Mach 2 fighter. Includes naval aircraft.
Obviously, two big wars will be happening between 1936 and 1955 for the new Hawker products to take place, plus the Greek civil war and India-Pakistan war, as well as Israel vs. Arabs in 1948.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Hawker has the talent, they just need more government attention and money. As it was, the Typhoon, Tempest and Sea Fury were very competitive. The Hunter would have been into service sooner, in time for Korea if the firm had the money. Post-war, Hawker Siddeley had two top notch, supersonic designs in the works in the 1950s, the Avro Arrow and the Hawker P.1121, the latter built as a private venture. They had the ability, just not the love from government.

Build the Arrow instead into a multirole fighter to compete with the F-4 Phantom II and the Mirage series and Hawker-Siddeley will have a good chance of orders from the RAF, RCAF, FAA, plus the Euros, Indians and Israelis.

 

[Graeme]

Here's Derek Wood, crying in his beer and playing "what if" in a 1976 magazine regards the P.1121...

 

[tomo pauk]

For the starters - make the Typhoon with a more modern wing: 15% t-t-c at root, maybe the NACA 230 series profile (it is a known thing, and it works), ~300 sq ft, while also making a proper tail joint so there is no mid-air disintegration waiting to happen. Perhaps also go with radiators in the extended leading edge. All combined, it should've lowered the drag and thus improved speed, and save some pilot's lives since the aircraft will not part with it's tail that easy. Bigger wing might also improve flying qualities past 20000 ft.
Fuel - a 2000 HP+ engine on a fighter will be best served with as much fuel as it is a case with two 1000+ HP engines? Meaning 170-180 imp gals in the internal tanks, plus drop tanks once available. Combined with lower drag, it will improve the range & radius handily, hopefully to cover the real estate between the North Sea and best part of France, as well as past Ardennes.
Guns - as it was the case historically.
Engine situation: Sabre as-is (yes, it will be a rocky road until well into 1943), 2-stage Griffon by early 1944, perhaps import the R-2800s from the USA while the Centaurus is being perfected.

Start thinking about jet-powered fighter by 1943.

 

[Shortround6]

perhaps import the R-2800s from the USA while the Centaurus is being perfected.

Which R-2800?

If you go for the Navy two stage engines you need a lot of duct work and intercoolers.
Recovered Birdcage F4U undergoing restoration.

Some (but not all) of the piping that allowed the intakes to either feed the carb and main supercharger or go through the intercoolers between stages.

schematic showing the port and centerline parts of the induction system. Starboard side omitted for clarity

If you go for the P-47 Turbo charged engine you need even more duct work.
If you go for the Bomber engine (A-26?) you have 1600hp at 13,500ft without RAM.

Start thinking about jet-powered fighter by 1943.

Then keep the piston engine choices to a minimum. Spending thousands of hours (if not 10s of thousands of hours) for interim piston engine installations is only going to slow things down.

You can physically fit a R-2800 in a Centaurus cowl but the air flow will be wrong and you are going to need a lot work on baffles, exhaust systems and cooling flaps in addition to sorting out the placement of accessories to get the CG correct.
A few modeling sites show different cowls between the F4U-1 and the F4U-4. The -4 has cowl with "liner" so there is a space between the outer cowl and the inner cowl.

 

[SaparotRob]

Reality can be a real pain.

 

[tomo pauk]

For a jet-engined fighter - make something like a big Gloster E.28/39: a simple 1-engined fighter with 4 cannons, perhaps using the Ghost engine? 1st flight hopefully not later than early 1944.
Later, make it's swept-wing sibling (yes, it has be a whole new aircraft), so Mikoyan and NAA have some good and timely competition, unlike what was the Hunter (good as it was).

 

[Shortround6]

For a jet-engined fighter - make something like a big Gloster E.28/39: a simple 1-engined fighter with 4 cannons, perhaps using the Ghost engine

The split air intake allowed for a big fuel tank behind the cockpit and in front of the engine. The split tail pipe allowed for a fuel tank behind the engine.
With a straight through engine design like the E.28/39 you have more problems storing fuel.

with the thinner wing sections there is less room to put fuel in the wings. Which leaves you with a fatter fuselage to put the fuel above/below the air duct.

 

[SaparotRob]

What if Hawker came up with something F-86ish?

 

[Shortround6]

They did, it is called a Hunter

 

[Shortround6]

If you try to stuff a 4ft diameter centrifugal engine into a fuselage you are probably going to get a different fuselage than using a 3ft diameter axial engine.

 

[tomo pauk]

The split air intake allowed for a big fuel tank behind the cockpit and in front of the engine. The split tail pipe allowed for a fuel tank behind the engine.

Someone probably has gotten the fuel-mileage math wrong on the Sea Hawk during the design process, that ended up with very short range - 480 miles (probably on just internal fuel).

BTW, to a person that parroted stuff from the books into the Wikipedia entry: not carrying any fuel in the wings was a bug on the Sea Hawk, not a feature.

With a straight through engine design like the E.28/39 you have more problems storing fuel.
with the thinner wing sections there is less room to put fuel in the wings. Which leaves you with a fatter fuselage to put the fuel above/below the air duct.

We certainly won't have a very small & restricted wing - 147 sq ft, t-t-c of 12% at root - like it was on the Gloster's fighter. Going with ~250 sq ft will give a lot of room for the fuel tanks. Drop tanks are a known thing, too.
There is also the small FJ-1, it was very rangy (no wonder - NAA's product).

 

[Shortround6]

Someone probably has gotten the fuel-mileage math wrong on the Sea Hawk during the design process, that ended up with very short range - 480 miles (probably on just internal fuel).

BTW, to a person that parroted stuff from the books into the Wikipedia entry: not carrying any fuel in the wings was a bug on the Sea Hawk, not a feature.



We certainly won't have a very small & restricted wing - 147 sq ft, t-t-c of 12% at root - like it was on the Gloster's fighter. Going with ~250 sq ft will give a lot of room for the fuel tanks. Drop tanks are a known thing, too.
There is also the small FJ-1, it was very rangy (no wonder - NAA's product).

The FJ-1 Fury carried no fuel in the wings. There were 3 tanks in the belly and the wing tip tanks.
The Sea Hawks wing was supposed to be 0.095 %

https://alternatewars.com/SAC/FJ-1_Fury_SAC_-_1_May_1949.pdf

The FJ-1 carried less guns/ammo than the Sea Hawk.

Hawker started work on the Sea Hawk in 1944. How much time was lost due to the government not being interested (or not interested enough to spend money) is subject to question.
However it may have given time to straighten out some of the details. The Sea Hawk certainty took years and years to develop and put into production. it also over lapped Hunter development by years.

Not sure that a Hawker FJ-1 would do much more than delay things in 1944-46.

For the British the Nene was running about 1 year ahead of the Ghost.
Trying to get actual service aircraft in late 1945 or 1946 would probably require Goblin or Derwent engines.

 

[nuuumannn]

Hawker started work on the Sea Hawk in 1944. How much time was lost due to the government not being interested (or not interested enough to spend money) is subject to question.
However it may have given time to straighten out some of the details. The Sea Hawk certainty took years and years to develop and put into production. it also over lapped Hunter development by years.

The P.1035 pretty much received government support from the outset. Part of the time taken between development was designing the bifurcated exhaust system and not a lot of priority was placed on it in 1944/45 by Hawker or the government, mainly because there was still a war on and Hawker was busy. It wasn't until after the war ended that priority was placed on the P.1040 and even then it was prompted by the Admiralty.

The problem Hawker faced in terms of timing was engine development. The Nene proved, in Russian aircraft of all things, to have much life left within it when Rolls-Royce decided to focus on the Avon axial flow engine, which in its earliest incarnation brought RR a whole heap of trouble. The Sea Hawk could have had a brighter future as the P.1052, an aircraft that differed from the P.1040 because of its swept wing, but it offered greater performance than the former. Its slightly more advanced prototype P.1081 offered even better performance and performance wise was a clear match for the MiG-15 and it would have been a useful stepping stone between the centrifugal flow Meat Box and axial flow Hunter, but development of the Nene was ceased in Britain at least and RR concentrated on the Avon, with the implications that had on existing fighter designs at the time.

Because RR was taking so long to get the Avon right, the first Hunters were delayed into service and the Nene powered Hawker prototypes were not developed further bar a few experiments by the Admiralty. The P.1081 became the "Australian Fighter" despite its promise and went to Australia. As a consequence the RAF had to lease Canadair Sabres as stop-gaps because the MiG-15 proved so effective in Korea and the Meat Box was no match for it. The Hunter didn't get into service until 1954, and even then the first F.1s were troublesome. Apart from compressor surge issues that caused rashes of engine failures, they tended to suck their gun exhaust and cannon shells into the air intakes. Hawker developed bulges that were placed under the forward fuselages to collect spent shell cartridges, these were naturally called Sabrinas after a popular pin-up model...

The early Avons suffered compressor surge issues and it took the placement of big blow-off valves in the compressor section to stem the problem, but in the interim the mating of the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire front end with its straight compressor section replacing the Avon's tapered compressor section solved the issue. The Sapphire was in many ways a superior engine to the Avon in its first incarnation, but RR had lots of clout, so the Sapphire only appeared in the Javelin, which wasn't exactly the best advertisement for it. The Americans liked the Sapphire, building it under licence as the J-65, which powered a lot of good US stuff in the 50s and 60s.

 

[Graeme]

The P.1072 went to Australia.

Hi Grant.
No - I believe it was the P.1081.

 

[Admiral Beez]

What if Hawker came up with something F-86ish?

The swept wing F-86 first flies in Oct 1947, a month after the straight wing Hawker Sea Hawk. We just need Hawker to reach further and to go with the P.1052's swept wing format from the onset. Granted the Royal Navy and FAA will need to sort out how to land and takeoff with swept wings.

The swept wing F-86, de Havilland DH 108 (first flight May 1946), MiG-15 (first flight Dec 1947), and the WW2 era swept wing Me 262 and Messerschmitt P.1101 showed Hawker where the future lay. This is how Hawker can have an equal to the F-86 in Korea. Of course, Hawker could have followed Canadair's example and just copy the Sabre.

 

[nuuumannn]

Hi Grant.
No - I believe it was the P.1081.

Yes, correct Graeme, thanks. Problem when doing things on the fly, hard to verify numbers, especially those "P" numbers Hawker used. Will correct in the post.

 

[nuuumannn]

This is how Hawker can have an equal to the F-86 in Korea. Of course, Hawker could have followed Canadair's example and just copy the Sabre.

The reality was that they probably didn't need to copy the Sabre or even reconfigure what they had. If focus had not ended on the Nene then either the P.1052 or P.1081 could have been that MiG-15/F-86 equivalent fighter in terms of performance if more impetus was placed on developing them as frontline fighters for the RAF. The subsequent concentration on the Avon over the Nene effectively ended the Sea Hawk line and prompted Hawker to focus on the Avon powered P.1067 that became the Hunter.

The leasing of Canadair Sabres reflected the decision making at the time that led to a capability gap in the frontline RAF, stuck with Meteors and Vampires as its combat fighters, when these were outclassed by foreign designs.

The swept wing P.1052 first flew on 19 November 1948, the P.1081, the Australian Fighter first flew on 19 June 1950, the P.1067 first flew on 20 July 1951.

 

[nuuumannn]

Just a wee bit about engine development that caused Hawker to focus on the Avon and neglect those Nene powered fighter prototypes it had built. The Nene was a missed opportunity for Rolls Royce and in 1946 it was building the Nene and developing its higher powered brother the Tay (Mk.1, not the same as the successful axial flow engine of the same name powering business jets the world over), but most of its effort was heading toward the AJ.65 axial flow engine, which promised higher power and lighter weight compared to the centrifugal flow engines the firm was building. It wasn't long before things began to unravel, though.

By 1946/1947 the Nene was arguably the best gas turbine in production, it was better than any indigenous engines the USSR or the USA were building. Both countries put it into production and got a lot more out of it than the British. Pratt & Whitney led the development of its big brother the Tay as the J-48 and in Rolls-Royce correspondence the aircraft it was fitted to became known as the "Grumman Nene fighter" (despite being powered by a licenced version of the Tay), this was the F9F Panther of course.

Klimov put the Nene into production in the Soviet Union - RR was not happy about the lack of a licence, but there wasn't much the company could do about it. Developments of the basic Nene (which in actuality equaled the Tay in power output in the MiG-17) became a real force worthy of further development, seeing service in thousands of MiG-15s and -17s, as well as Polish, Czech and Chinese production of their derivatives, so the Nene had a very long life indeed.

A Klimov VK-1, left, and Nene together.

MoF 121

Hawker, meanwhile was looking at putting the Tay into the P.1052, and this was to become the engine that was to be fitted to the P.1081, but a Nene was fitted instead as RR had left development to P&W in the USA and was focussing by this time on the AJ.65. The P.1081 was the result of an enquiry by the Australians for a frontline fighter based on the P.1052 powered by the Tay, but nothing came from it. By 1948 the AJ.65 was causing RR quite a lot of headaches despite the company's promises, the company even hoping to get the Americans to build it under licence, but they saw the problems the AJ.65 was suffering and went for the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire instead as the Wright J-65, which Hives had assured the Americans was not worth worrying about.

So, a lot was going on. By 1948 the Avon was proving a dog, but Hawker had committed itself to it and pressed on (what else could it do?) with the P.1067 and saw no future in developing its Nene powered prototypes.

Had RR kept developing the Nene/Tay instead of leaving the latter to Pratt & Whitney, then perhaps one of those Hawker fighters could have been a real match for the MiG-15 and equivalent to the Sabre. Of obvious interest was the Australian fitting of the Avon to the Sabre airframe, which proved a good match, but it was a bit late to the scene.

Info courtesy of The Magic of a Name Part Two: The Power Behind the Jets and Hawker Aircraft since 1920.

 

[Graeme]

Yes, correct Graeme, thanks. Problem when doing things on the fly, hard to verify numbers, especially those "P" numbers Hawker used. Will correct in the post.

Not a problem.
And yes - Hawker has more "Ps" than ya can poke a stick at!

Have to check - but I think Wackett (CAC) had no interest whatsoever in the P.1081. Sabre all the way.