Improve That Design: How Aircraft Could Have Been Made Better

[Shortround6]

No radiators, no oil coolers, and vision to the rear is non-existent.

Yes it is a preliminary sketch.

 

[wuzak]

I said Vogt earlier, it should have been Volkert.

It must be noted that his paper was on bombing policy in general, and that he advocated the use of poison gas bombs, predicting that at the altitude and speed he expected of that aeroplane the accuracy would not be good enough to hit targets.

 

[tomo pauk]

Okay, I've gotten more than carried away with my proposals, some of them being more 'let's make it of another shape from ground-up' rather than 'let's improve something that actually existed'.
- P-47: earlier introduction of better prop, wing racks for fuel, perhaps also introduce a self-sealing conformal tank of, say, 75 gals?
- P-51: the V-1650-1 is an obvious improvement, but making the P-51A instead of A-36 also improves WAllied long-range fighter assets, even if mostly for under-20000 ft job (talk anything but ETO bomber escort) from early 1943 on
- P-38: elongated chord of the wing by 20% as suggested by NACA in 1941, coolers in the new leading edge, plus all of late improvements that P-38L had need to be introduced earlier (from better cockpit heating on)
- Bf 109E and on: drop tanks, HMGs under front cowling ASAP, wing cannons retained, main wheel well covers, more streamlined cooling system. Once 3 cannons are standard, delete cowl guns.
- Fw 190: DB 603A option is beaten to death. I'd delete cowl guns ASAP and persist with external ram air intakes for the plain vanilla Fw 190As. The turboed BMW 801 option should be explored, hopefully in a more streamlined package than it was the DB 603A + turbo prototype.

 

[Shortround6]

Well, Tomo, the Gladiator could have been improved, If it had existed in any other air force it would have gotten at least a two pitch propeller if not a variable pitch (or constant speed?)

Grumman F3F
Fiat CR 42

doing something with the cowling

Adjustable cowl flaps???? We don't need no bloody adjustable cowl flaps!!!!
Or apparently any baffles on the cylinders?

Not that the Gladiator was ever going to really beat 109s but some sort of improvements could have been done.

 

[fliger747]

Most of the things that didn't involve engines that hadn't come to fruition yet were physically possible, it wasn't as if the construction technology for airframes had really advanced much as the war progressed. Just better design and detail in construction. Of course most of this knowledge came about by trial and error.

 

[tomo pauk]

- Me 162 - redesign it for jet engine
- MB.2: perhaps it will not be any more difficult to re-engine it for Merlin than it was for the Italian fighters to receive the DB engine? Add the suggested retractable U/C and we should get a better performer than historical Hurricane
- Gloster F.4/34: indeed, re-engine it for Twin Wasp
- Fw 187: two Czech HS-12Ys + bomb 'belly' to make a fast bomber out of it?
- Fokker D.XXI, Ki 27, A5M: retractable U/Cfor all; 100 oct fuel for the D.XXI, Zuisei for the Japanese + at least two MGs

 

[MiTasol]

As far as figuring power goes, General motors put out a booklet during WW II comparing 7 different supercharger systems.
View attachment 540441
It may be available for download? They used a hypothetical 1000hp engine to illustrate the differences.
GM owned Allison, a coincidence???

The full title is Engine Design as Related to Airplane power With special reference to engines and altitudes.

I have previously posted a PDF of the Australian version of that manual and links to two other versions at
Engine design as related to airplane power : with particular reference to performance at varying alt

I can post a non-google PDF of the 1943 US Edition if you want.

 

[MiTasol]

Unfortunately the "Fury Monoplane" means many things to many people. Since the plane pretty much only existed on paper how much it actually had in common with the Fury biplanes is certainly subject to question.
Hawker Fury I which flew in 1931 about 21 built?
turning this into a monoplane is going to be hard

Nobody was using flaps yet (except experimenters), you need an all new much larger wing than the existing bottom wing.

But in 1931 both the DC-1 and Boeing 247 were already on the drawing boards. Both flew in 1933 with flaps from day one, and retractable gears, and variable pitch propellers, and all metal construction except control surfaces and jig built so major components could be swapped for repair.

 

[pinsog]

I like Pinsong's argument for a production F5F. With first flight in Feb 1940 (three months before the XF4U), it would be pushing it to get a service fighter available in 1941. (Perhaps with "Battle of Kansas" style modifications it could be done.) Admiral Tower slow tracked the plane because of the resources consumed by the twin-engined design, and in truth, he was right, we needed more Wildcats more than we needed 350-mph carrier fighters, but practicality isn't what this thread is about.

I think the F5F would follow the same timeline as the Wildcat if they had been told to cancel the Wildcat. If you read the timeline on the F5F it was certainly not a priority.

 

[pinsog]

When you guys are suggesting how fantastic a Seafire would have been, consider how it compared to a 6 gun Wildcat:

 

[PAT303]

Am I guessing right in saying the Gladiators guns had to fire down the fuselage, through the cowl, between the cylinder banks and dodge the prop before they had even had a chance to do any work?, you'd what to hope you didn't get a squib load.

 

[Zipper730]

When you guys are suggesting how fantastic a Seafire would have been, consider how it compared to a 6 gun Wildcat

I didn't think the 6 gunned set ups were F4F's but FM's.

Either way, I'm surprised the turn-rate of the F4F was significantly greater than the Seafire: From what I remember the regular Hurricane or the Sea Hurricane (forgot which) were similar in turn-rate to the F4F.

 

[Zipper730]

Some of this will sound a little silly, but with the Admiralty wanting the navalized Spitfire to be built by Fairey, which they said no to, why didn't the Admiralty decide to change the specs for the Firefly into a one seater.

There were proposals that involved either the existing engine or the Napier Sabre.

 

[wuzak]

I didn't think the 6 gunned set ups were F4F's but FM's.

F4F-4 as well.

 

[pinsog]

I didn't think the 6 gunned set ups were F4F's but FM's.

Either way, I'm surprised the turn-rate of the F4F was significantly greater than the Seafire: From what I remember the regular Hurricane or the Sea Hurricane (forgot which) were similar in turn-rate to the F4F.

I didn't think the 6 gunned set ups were F4F's but FM's.

Either way, I'm surprised the turn-rate of the F4F was significantly greater than the Seafire: From what I remember the regular Hurricane or the Sea Hurricane (forgot which) were similar in turn-rate to the F4F.

F4F-3 was a 4 gunned Wildcat. F4F-4 had the folding wings, 6 guns and gained 700 pounds or so. FM1 was an F4F-4 built by GM and also had 6 guns. FM2 was the late model hot rod that had 1350 hp and it went back to 4 guns. The Martlet II, III and IV were all 6 gun Wildcats with various engines Wright's, single stage P&W etc, but all had 6 guns and performed like an F4F-4 or worse

 

[Kevin J]

F4F-3 was a 4 gunned Wildcat. F4F-4 had the folding wings, 6 guns and gained 700 pounds or so. FM1 was an F4F-4 built by GM and also had 6 guns. FM2 was the late model hot rod that had 1350 hp and it went back to 4 guns. The Martlet II, III and IV were all 6 gun Wildcats with various engines Wright's, single stage P&W etc, but all had 6 guns and performed like an F4F-4 or worse

IIRC only F4F-4/4B had 6 guns.

 

[pinsog]

Top left corner on each document. 6 guns. Notice differences in engines and performance of the plane

 

[dedalos]

Regarding the Bf109, Fw 190, i agree almost with everythink tomo pauk says. With the historical industial german capabilities , they could be more competitive.
I woukd like to add
a) the do 317 b, basicaly the combination of the do217 k with the db610 engine. A formidable combination on paper. Both elements had solved their problems mid war and were in production anyway.
b)The poor old Bf110G. While a bad air superiority fighter was valuable at everything else. Could be even better 1. Retractable tail landing gear 2. A canopy with more streamlined windshield and internal framing 3.Annulal radiators for the DB605s 4. Remove the slats . Improve high speed aileron operation by hydraulicaly boost, and low speed effectiveness by using the flaps to assist roll control. 5. Wide blade propellers 6. Replace the mg 151s with belt fed MG FFs and the mgs with 4 mg131s or 2 more MGFFs in night fighter role. The oerlicons are light, hard hitting , and the lower velocity is less important against bombers and ground targets, and the Mg 131s are good for strafing and more than enough against soviet fighters.7. MW 50
These improvements would require some development work and some loss of production, but would not require exotic raw materials. The aircraft would be much better at everything. From night fighting , to CAS missions, and from recce work to u boat escort in biscay bay. With Gm1 would have a good chance against recce aircrafts too.With the exception of the Mw50 such a configuration would be possible to be available in late 43.
An unrealistic senario would be a new single seat version, with 2xDB603s, and new laminar flow wing.Anyway would require less development effort and crews than the Me 410 and would offer much better performance in defence against the areas bombings of the USAF

 

[Zipper730]

Is this the Handley Page High Speed Bomber?

 

[Zipper730]

Everything is trade-offs. Sidewinder superchargers require right angle drives.

Why did the Germans have such an obsession with mounting their superchargers on a 90-degree angle? There was a guy who has a channel on YouTube named Greg called "Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles", and he was also curious about that.

Why not a turbocharged F4F-3? No magical time line, just using what we already have. Bugs won't get worked out of turbocharger until early 1942, but plane should perform awesome. Wish I could calculate increase in climb.

Original 2 speed 2 stage P&W R-1830-76:
1200 hp for takeoff
1100 hp from SL-2500 feet
1050 hp from 4800-11000 feet
1000 hp from 12200-19000 feet

with a P&W R-1830-47 with a turbocharger (same engine as the P43 Lancer)
1200 hp from SL-25000 feet, still producing 1,000 hp at 30,000 feet.

SL speed increases from 278 to 286
Speed at 5500 goes from 295 to 308
Speed at 13000 goes from 313 to 332
Speed at 19000 goes from 330 to 350
Speed at 22000 goes from 326 to 351

The F4F-3 speed numbers above included 150 pounds of armor and a self sealing fuel tank.

If I may ask, how did you compute the differences in speed due to different horsepower figures?

The other plan I actually prefer is ditch the F4F-3 all together and tell Grumman to develop the XF5F Skyrocket. Original plan was for long nose and long nacelles, then they went to short nose (lower stall speed, super gentle and predictable stall) and short nacelles (no reason that I know of).

The shorter nacelles (R-1820) allowed more forward visibility than the longer R-1830. Performance was still adequate despite the R-1830 being thinner, and it was felt that it the R-1820 was simpler and easier to maintain.

Okay, I've gotten more than carried away with my proposals, some of them being more 'let's make it of another shape from ground-up' rather than 'let's improve something that actually existed'.

Actually, I gave three allowances for specifications

1. The existing specification: Basically, the idea would be working within the existing specification, but you could modify or change anything within the boundary of it.
2. A different winner: Sometimes the problem wasn't the design so much as the winner to the contender: While way after WWII, many feel the YF-23 should have won over the YF-22, for example.
3. A more realistic/practical specification: Basically the specifications are made more realistic to allow a practical design to be developed, an example would be the He-177 having 4 x DB-601's instead of 2 x DB-606's, or simply not being designed as a dive-bomber.

- P-38: elongated chord of the wing by 20% as suggested by NACA in 1941, coolers in the new leading edge

This is an idea that's interesting. Do you have any documentation on this suggestion?

- Fw 190: DB 603A option is beaten to death. I'd delete cowl guns ASAP and persist with external ram air intakes for the plain vanilla Fw 190As. The turboed BMW 801 option should be explored, hopefully in a more streamlined package than it was the DB 603A + turbo prototype.

A DB-603 with a turbo would have given it some great high altitude performance. When you say the idea was beaten to death -- I'm not sure what you mean, however.