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Which R-2800?perhaps import the R-2800s from the USA while the Centaurus is being perfected.
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.Start thinking about jet-powered fighter by 1943.
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.
The FJ-1 Fury carried no fuel in the wings. There were 3 tanks in the belly and the wing tip tanks.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).
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.1072 went to Australia.
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.What if Hawker came up with something F-86ish?
Hi Grant.
No - I believe it was the P.1081.
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.
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.