Hawker Tempest and Sea Fury engine/radiator arragements

[BarnOwlLover]

Other than aerodynamics, is there a reason why Hawker seemed to like leading edge wing radiators for the Tempest I and Fury I (and chin mounts for the Tempest V/VI)? Is this because they were looking at radial engine versions (Tempest II and Sea Fury) and running a ventral radiator (like on the P-51 Mustang) would've meant a lot more modification to the fuselage? That's a theory I recently thought of. Or is there something else going on?

 

[GTX]

Other than aerodynamics,

Does there need to be a reason beyond aerodynamics? Would seem that would be enough.

 

[BarnOwlLover]

The Tempest and especially the Fury/Sea Fury were intended to use inline or radial engines as per order requests. And having to shoe-horn in a ventral radiator would've meant significant modifications to the rear fuselage. I do wonder if that was a motivation aside from aero/Hawker's fascination with LE radiators.

 

[z42]

One of the Typhoon prototypes did have a ventral radiator http://www.aviation-history.com/hawker/typhoon2.jpg. It wasn't very good however (think an enlarged Hurricane radiator rather than a P-51 one), so the chin radiator won that contest.

And then for the Tempest V they just went with the existing one to get the thing into production ASAP.

As for the LE radiators, perhaps minimizing the extra frontal area was an argument?

 

[ThomasP]

Hey BarnOwlLover,

When you say Hawker had a "fascination with LE radiators" what are you trying to say. Not being snarky here, but aside from the Tempest & SeaFury did Hawker attempt to apply the LE radiator concept to any of their other aircraft designs?

 

[BarnOwlLover]

Then I have to ask, who drove it, Hawker or Napier? I know that Napier also looked at annular radiators for the Tempest and a Sabre powered Warwick.

 

[ThomasP]

I am sure that Hawker designed the LE radiator arrangement for one of the Tempest and one of the Sea Fury prototypes. However, all production Tempests used the Sabre engine with a chin radiator, while all Sea Fury used the air-cooled Centaurus engine with a LE radiator for the oil.

I am asking if you know of any other Hawker aircraft (other than the 2 prototypes mentioned above) that were designed with the LE radiators?

 

[BarnOwlLover]

Other than the Tempest I and Fury I (both only prototypes), not that I'm aware of. Oddly, the Griffon powered Fury had a Rolls-Royce designed chin radiator similar to what was used on the Avro Shackleton. There was also the Fairey Firefly IV (and later versions), but that wasn't built by one of the Hawker group of companies.

I know that they stuck with the chin radiator on the Tempest V and VI due to production and cost expediency, and the Sea Fury used a Centaurus radial because the RN probably weren't too fond of the Sabre.

Also, Hawker never looked at running a Mustang-type ventral radiator post-Hurricane and post-Tornado prototype aside (which calling them Mustang-type is stretching it) from the P.1027 (R-R Eagle powered Tempest), and the P.1030 design reverted to leading edge radiators. Both of these were just designs, which were ditched when Camm and Hawker decided to focus on new jet fighters.

 

[EwenS]

However, all production Tempests used the Sabre engine with a chin radiator, while all Sea Fury used the air-cooled Centaurus engine with a LE radiator for the oil.

You are forgetting the production Centaurus powered Tempest II. 452 built from Oct 1944. 247 squadron became the first on the type from Aug 1945 followed by 183 (renumbered 54) in Oct.

Mark II

www.hawkertempest.se

 

[ThomasP]

Oops! mys bad, I knew that, but my grammar left something to be desired. I should have said 'However, all production Tempests with the Sabre engine had a chin radiator.' or maybe ''However, all production Tempests that used the Sabre engine had a chin radiator.'?

 

[z42]

There has been several recent threads discussing different (optimal?) radiator layouts. I think the takeaway, sort of, is that you can find good and bad examples of various types, and ultimately the "goodness" of a particular design to a large extent comes down to attention to all the small details.

Perhaps with modern CFD and a lot of detailed design work by experts we could find out which is the "optimal" layout, but we're not going to resolve that question in a forum thread.

 

[pbehn]

The Typhoon, Tornado Tempest Fury series tried out almost every possible engine. These engine set ups had to be a "power egg" type otherwise you have two completely different set ups for air cooled and water cooled engines. The wing mounted radiators on later designs were for oil cooling which both engine types required. If someone came up with an air cooled engine that magically fitted into a P-51, much of the radiator system would probably have to be retained to preserve the CoG or a complete re design ordered, like putting the turbocharger there and resulting in another P-47 type.

 

[z42]

The Typhoon, Tornado Tempest Fury series tried out almost every possible engine. These engine set ups had to be a "power egg" type otherwise you have two completely different set ups for air cooled and water cooled engines. The wing mounted radiators on later designs were for oil cooling which both engine types required. If someone came up with an air cooled engine that magically fitted into a P-51, much of the radiator system would probably have to be retained to preserve the CoG or a complete re design ordered, like putting the turbocharger there and resulting in another P-47 type.

Not sure you can claim any kind of "power egg" considerations were relevant here. Like you say, they tried various engines with quite a few radiator configurations, all requiring more or less invasive changes to the fuselage or wings.

As for a radial P-51, given the size of the P-51 I don't think you could fit in all the pipework required for a turbocharger in the rear like the P-47. But, with a shorter radial engine the CoG would move aft, to an extent compensating for the removal of the radiator. In addition, perhaps the wings could be moved forward a bit.

 

[z42]

As an aside, there might be some particularly British fascination with utilizing the wing leading edges; consider the post-war jets like Vampire, Venom, Comet, Nimrod, all three V-bombers, Hunter, and probably others I missed as well.