Hurrican evolution - you are the boss ;)

[tomo pauk]

I'll readily admit that Hurricane was not the modern plane, but since it still had to fight almost till the war's end, a better capability would've come in handy.

With wing fold rather close to the fuselage, Seafire's wing was not been capable to fold more than 100-110 degress, or it would meet the wing from the other side. So the 'mid wing' part was almost vertical, and the second fold was envisaged in order to keep the height within limits of the hanger's height.
With wings folding akin to what was done to Nakajima Kate or Jill torpedo bombers approx. (midway between root and tip), the wing can fold some 150+ degrees, so the plane in stowed position can fit in the carrier.

 

[stona]

With wings folding akin to what was done to Nakajima Kate or Jill torpedo bombers approx. (midway between root and tip), the wing can fold some 150+ degrees, so the plane in stowed position can fit in the carrier.

You'd fold it through the middle of the landing flap,presumably splitting the flap with all the asocciated modifications? It could be done,but these things are easier to write than do. Outboard of that still takes up a lot of space.
Cheers
Steve

 

[woljags]

with hindsight bring through the sea fury development program quicker,although i am a fan of the hurricane it was the final development of a line of aircraft that started with the original fury/hind/demon byplanes

 

[Shortround6]

I know this is a "what if" but I personally have a bit of trouble with "modifying" a plane by changing the engine, the wing, the landing gear, the fuselage, the tail (Vertical/horizontal stabilizers) the cockpit/canopy and a few other bits also. The only thing left of the "Hurricane" is the name plate

Don't over complicate it. they knew in 1937-38 that the Hurricane was an interim aircraft. You want a better Sea Hurricane? fold the wings out board of the gun bays and/or inboard the ailerons. It won't give the maximum storage but better than no folding wing.
The Hurricane as a fighter was a done deal at some point in 1942. Production after that was for lend-lease and/or as a close support aircraft.

With a shortage of engineers/draftsmen the more time spent fooling around with the Hurricane is some other project delayed/canceled.

 

[tomo pauk]

You'd fold it through the middle of the landing flap,presumably splitting the flap with all the asocciated modifications? It could be done,but these things are easier to write than do. Outboard of that still takes up a lot of space.
Cheers
Steve

Wing fold at red line.
Perfect CV bird? No. But fine for 1941-43 (with cannon inboard, of course).

 

[stona]

With a shortage of engineers/draftsmen the more time spent fooling around with the Hurricane is some other project delayed/canceled.

Exactly! The phrase "flogging a dead horse" springs to mind

Cheers
Steve

 

[tomo pauk]

Too bad that horse still had the courses to run at. Or should I start the sentence with 'luckily'?

 

[fastmongrel]

Too bad that horse still had the courses to run at. Or should I start the sentence with 'luckily'?

Damn right RAF would have been in trouble in 41 and 42 away from the Home Isles without the Hurricane. You cant replace thousands of Hurricanes with a few hundred US planes that might not make it across the pond.

 

[davebender]

RAF would have been in trouble in 41 and 42 away from the Home Isles without the Hurricane

It would be their own fault.

After June 1941 the RAF had a lot more Spitfires based in England then were necessary. So many they were used to strafe ground targets in France of marginal value to the war effort. A lot of good RAF pilots such as Stanford Tuck were squandered that way. Cancel these strafing expeditions and move the excess Spitfire squadrons to places like Egypt and Malaya.

 

[michaelmaltby]

" .... Keep Hawker's factories busy?

There are plenty of other things Hawker could build. Why not Mosquitoes rather then building the "Wooden Wonder" in Canada?..." [db]

DeHavilland Toronto was building Mosquitoes for the RCAF, USAAF and RAF.

"Better use of Hawker factories" ... ... in Thunder Bay ON (formerly Fort William - Port Arthur) .... build Typhoons and Tempests.
Instead they (Hawker) switched to Curtis HellDiver IIs .... not an easy fit with "Curtis' execs" .... a woman, Elsie McGill .... was running the Hurricane line. .

Good bye Elsie

MM

 

[wuzak]

with hindsight bring through the sea fury development program quicker,although i am a fan of the hurricane it was the final development of a line of aircraft that started with the original fury/hind/demon byplanes

How are they going to do that?

If they started the Sea Fury earlier you probably won't end up with the an aircraft as good as the Sea Fury was. The Sea Fury is the result of lessons learned from the Hurrican, Typhoon and Tempest, and experiences in the war.

 

[davebender]

Why?

Canada was awash with aluminum. They should have been building aluminum aircraft. Build wood and/or fabric aircraft in England where aluminum is scarce.

 

[michaelmaltby]

Why ...?

".... Canada was awash with aluminum. They should have been building aluminum aircraft. Build wood and/or fabric aircraft in England where aluminum is scarce...."

Lots of furniture factories in England ... lots of skilled craftsmen in England.

Your strategic acquisitions strategy based on "local conditions" only works to a point, DaveBender.

MM

 

[davebender]

During the 1940s my home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan was a huge center for manufacturing furniture. During WWII firms like Steelcase built shipboard furniture for the U.S. Navy and furniture for military bases.

Furniture factories in England should have been building furniture for the RN as well as for all those new RAF Bomber Command and 8th AF airfields.

People who normally build bunk beds, waste baskets and office desks don't need to be building aircraft.

 

[Shortround6]

Since a good part of the wood to build the Mosquito was imported I don't see how it makes much difference. Balsa doesn't grow in either England or Canada. Aircraft quality Spruce isn't as common as many people believe either (although Canada should have had that.) Canada was already supplying the Birch.

The idea that the Mosquito was somehow distinctly second rate because of it's "wooden" construction needs to be gotten rid of. Or that "ALL METAL" is automatically better. The Birch "skins" glued on both sides of the Balsa core makes for thick but light "composite" fuselage skin. The laying up of the skins in full size concrete molds (similar to the Lockheed construction technique of the early 30s although I don't believe they used the composite construction) makes for a very smooth and fair skin. No rivets, no slight surface waves between frames. The smooth low drag finish certainly helped the speed.
Unless we can come up with the weight per square foot (or square yd) of the different construction techniques (including framing and formers) it is rather hard to compare.

 

[Shortround6]

During the 1940s my home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan was a huge center for manufacturing furniture. During WWII firms like Steelcase built shipboard furniture for the U.S. Navy and furniture for military bases.

Furniture factories in England should have been building furniture for the RN as well as for all those new RAF Bomber Command and 8th AF airfields.

People who normally build bunk beds, waste baskets and office desks don't need to be building aircraft.

Even the Royal Navy was trying to get away from using wooden furniture in warships. It was a fire hazard and made shipboard firefighting and damage control harder. The US found it hard to build Wooden combat aircraft because so many furniture shops had been absorbed into the Assault glider program and production capacity was already tied up.

 

[wuzak]

Since a good part of the wood to build the Mosquito was imported I don't see how it makes much difference. Balsa doesn't grow in either England or Canada. Aircraft quality Spruce isn't as common as many people believe either (although Canada should have had that.) Canada was already supplying the Birch.

The idea that the Mosquito was somehow distinctly second rate because of it's "wooden" construction needs to be gotten rid of. Or that "ALL METAL" is automatically better. The Birch "skins" glued on both sides of the Balsa core makes for thick but light "composite" fuselage skin. The laying up of the skins in full size concrete molds (similar to the Lockheed construction technique of the early 30s although I don't believe they used the composite construction) makes for a very smooth and fair skin. No rivets, no slight surface waves between frames. The smooth low drag finish certainly helped the speed.
Unless we can come up with the weight per square foot (or square yd) of the different construction techniques (including framing and formers) it is rather hard to compare.

de Havilland did tests and showed the construction of the Mosquito was stronger than the all metal construction used in the de Havilland Flamingo airliner. Note that the Flamingo was de Havilland's first all metal aircraft.

 

[Shortround6]

Well, I would hope so

the de Havilland Flamingo was a 250mph air liner and not expected to pull the same "G" loading's as the much faster Mosquito.

All metal planes can have different thickness skins, different size/ shape/thickness stringers and formers let alone frames. and the spacing between the frames/stringers/formers can affect both the weight and the strength of the structure as can the thiickness of the skin itself.

Just pointing out, as you were Wuzak, that just saying "all metal" or "all wood" or "mixed construction" doesn't really tell us much about the actual strength or weight of the construction of a particular airplane.

One of my favorite "wooden aircraft" is the Langley Twin.

http://www.aerofiles.com/langley-twin.jpg

It took over 60 gals of vinyl-resin plastic to make one plane and that is what ended the run. By the time the plane was done (and 3 built) the feared Aluminium shortage was over and there was an actual shortage the vinyl-resin plastic materials.

A similar construction technique was used on the Timm Tutor.

Timm N2T Tutor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[wuzak]

Well, I would hope so

the de Havilland Flamingo was a 250mph air liner and not expected to pull the same "G" loading's as the much faster Mosquito. [/url]

Well, let's compare the Flamingo with the Albatross. They had much the same installed power, though the Albatross had 4 engines vs 2 for the Flamingo, the Albatross had almost 50% more span, 50%+ more wing area, 40% longer, loaded weight some 50%+ more but their max speeds were only 18mph difference. Also, the Flamingo had 3 blade constance speed propellors, teh Albatross had manually adjustable (as in on the ground) 2 blade propellors.

 

[slaterat]

A couple of points about Hurricane development, or lack there of, need to be made. The Hurricane was a derivative monoplane fighter of the Hawker Fury, as such its design was for rapid introduction into production and service. Its designed shelf life was probably good until 41 when the Typhoon /Toronado were to have entered large scale service. As a result of this, the development of the Hurricane as a fighter essentially ended in Sept 1940 when the first Hurricane Mk IIa series ones entered service. In hindsight this decision by the Air Ministry was in error, as the cancellation of the RR Vulture terminated the Toronado and the problems with the sleeve valves of the sabre delayed the large scale use of the Typhoon until well into 43. The net result was that the 1940 Hurricane had to soldier on in 41,42 and 43 as the main RAF fighter in Africa and Asia.

If continued development of the Hurricane had been pursued there were areas for improvement. Hawker had submitted proposals for a Griffon powered four cannon Hurricane and for an improved canopy project with reduced aft structure and better rearward view, both were declined by the Air Ministry.

Other improvements could of been made too. The center wing section housed the under carriage, fuel tanks and the oil tank, so there probably isn't much you can do there. The outer wing sections are another matter though. The outer wing sections on the Hurricane are connected to the center section by pin joints and are relatively easy to remove, only 1.5 hours per wing. This joint is right where you see the fairings on the wing right next to the inside mg or cannon. If you were going to make a folding wing Hurricane this is natural place to do it. It is the outer wing sections that were initially covered with fabric and were replaced with metal clad wings early in the Hurricanes production run, halfway through the second batch of 300. A quick fix would be to redesign these wings one more time making them thinner and lighter and only housing one cannon each. I would also clean up the volkes air filter too for less drag. In introducing the Mk II many small changes were made to the Hurricane that added 250 lbs, I would go back to the designers and tell them to put the Cane on a diet and lose those 250 lbs. The net result would be a 400 to 500 lb lighter tropicalized Hurricane armed with 2x 20mm cannons with a thinner wing . Initial climbrate would be in the 3300+ ft/min range and top speed would be increased from 335 mph to 365-375 mph and could of all been done in 1941.

Slaterat