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Your adjective in the title is lightweight. I do not see how the above three requirements can be achieved in anything considered lightweight. What weight class are you considering as "light"?
- 1700-2000+hp Rolls Royce Merlin or a 2000-2300+hp Rolls Royce Griffon.
- top speed 440-460+mph, a range of 700+ miles on internal fuel (and up to 1500 with drop tanks)
- the ability to carry 1000-2000 lbs of bombs
I did mention that I favored a format similar to late war IJA/IJN fighters that favored speed, climb rate and agility in fighter vs fighter combat. An example would be the Mitsubishi A7M. It was nearly as big as the F6F Hellcat, but was faster (near 400mph top speed) and was designed to mimic the agility of the A6M Zero. Of course, that meant a large wing and low wing loading, given its size.
Also, I'm not a big fan of annular radiators, and I'm not sold on the Meredith radiators from a survivablity standpoint. So I'd favor either leading edge radiators or a boundary layer control version of the Spitfire radiators that can make better use of the Meredith effect.
I was thinking of an aircraft powered by a 1700-2000+hp Rolls Royce Merlin or a 2000-2300+hp Rolls Royce Griffon. Both are intended to use two stage superchargers. The intended roles are interceptor, escort fighter and ground attack. This aircraft is intended to be the lightest for the power plants, and suitable armor, self sealing fuel tanks, and range, while being both fast climbing and highly maneuverable.
Basically, the broad specs are a top speed 440-460+mph, a range of 700+ miles on internal fuel (and up to 1500 with drop tanks), a climb rate of 4500+ ft/min., a large wing to minimize wing loading, the ability to carry 1000-2000 lbs of bombs or 8-16 RP-3 rockets or 6-8 HVARs, and the use of Fowler or Fairy-Youngman type flaps for good low speed performance and combat maneuvering.
Now the Sea Fury meets just about all of your goals except the weight, It went around 12,000lbs clean which sort of shows what Hawker at least, thought was needed to do the job.
Or look at the F8F-2, or a late model Corsair (F4F-4)
You are going to need to be very tricky indeed to get all of the performance goals into an airplane that is 3-4000lbs lighter.
So it seems that I may be off in terms of weight specs even for my speculative fighter, especially for Merlin power, since I was basing that estimate on the fact that the Hornet and the F-82 Twin Mustang (powered by similar Merlin engines) weigh nearly twice as much as common single seaters.
Now, maybe to add to the discussion, or at least confusion, I dug out my DH Hornet and Sea Hornet book that I bought quite a few years ago. Notably, I decided to check the weight specs. It turns out the Hornet F1 had a normal takeoff weight of just above 14,000 lbs, and normal max take off was less than 17,000 lbs. I don't know how accurate those figures are, though that book also notes that most sources do get the Hornet's dimensions wrong, namely length (based on DH plans, the Hornet is at least a foot longer in overall length than often stated). So, I do assume that the same type of research was done on the Hornet's weights.