Short Stirling, a good or a bad aircraft?

[michaelmaltby]

"....Loading anything bigger/heavier than people in the thing is a problem "

Workaround .....

 

[nuuumannn]

Workaround .....

In short, how to make the Halifax even uglier...

 

[Denniss]

One positive side for the Stirling: I didn't require Merlin engines. They were most likely prioritized for fighters like Spitfire so Lancaster production may have been somewhat limited (or forcing the II design with Hercules engines).

 

[fastmongrel]

The Stirling tail is raised because it was a cut down flying boat myth doesnt hold up when you look at the plans. It has a straight line top to the fuselage which can give the impression the fuselage is bent up from some angles but it isnt.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Short_Stirling.svg

 

[Njaco]

I've always believed that the Stirling was more a stop-gap machine somewhat similar to the P-40 at least until they could get the better bombers produced and online.

 

[Gixxerman]

No, this is another one of those legends that has mistakenly become 'fact' due to authors repeating it in countless books. The truth of the matter was that at the time the British had hangars with door spans that were 120 feet, which negated the 'less than 100 ft to fit in existing hangars' statement. The Stirling's wing span was deliberately made smaller than 100 ft to prevent it becoming too large; it's biggest handicap was its increasing weight whilst under development.

Thanks for that, always learning!

 

[l'Omnivore Sobriquet]

Most impressive bomber aircraft, anyway.
An evil 'bomber' look.

 

[pattle]

Njako, yes the Stirling was a bit of stop gap sort of airplane and like a lot of other aircraft it was used because it was all there was to use.

 

[pattle]

Nuuumannn, regarding the raised tail. If Shorts had of designed a four engine bomber completely from scratch it would have looked a lot different from the Stirling, there was no need for the raised tail just the same as there was no need for the Stirling to have such a long or deep fuselage or have such a tall undercarriage. The tall undercarriage was there only to shorten the Stirlings take off which was to long due to the angle of its wings. Each solution to a problem caused a fresh problem needing a solution. I am confused as to what documentary evidence you require to be convinced of this and do you have any documentary evidence to the contrary. In one sentence you say the Stirling and Sunderland share a similarity in their wings and the next you say the Stirling was a completely new aircraft. Out of curiosity why do you think the Stirling came out looking the way it did?

I don't think it realistic that Harris would have wanted the Stirling removed from active service before it was able to be replaced, after all he was desperate enough to send Hudsons to Bremen on 1000 bomber raids!

 

[pattle]

Duplicate post.

 

[pattle]

The Stirling tail is raised because it was a cut down flying boat myth doesnt hold up when you look at the plans. It has a straight line top to the fuselage which can give the impression the fuselage is bent up from some angles but it isnt.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Short_Stirling.svg

I was talking about the bottom of the fuselage.

 

[nuuumannn]

In one sentence you say the Stirling and Sunderland share a similarity in their wings and the next you say the Stirling was a completely new aircraft.

The Sunderland and the Empire boats were two different things. Read my post again. What I stated were that there were similarities in structure, but they were not exactly the same as the Empire boats' wings. This can be found in Shorts Aircraft since 1900 by C.H. Barnes, which, despite rehashing the 100 foot hangar door myth has a good description of the structural design of the Stirling. The reference to B.12/36 comes from British Secret Projects Fighters and Bomber 1935 to 1950 by Tony Buttler. The absense of any suggestion in any books I have read about British aircraft and access to archival material that Shorts swept the Stirling's tail upwards as a result of it being derived from flying boats and the fact that the committee rejected the original S.29 to B.12/36 because it was too similar to flying boat design is ample suggestion that this is not why the tail was swept up. Look at pictures of the Stirling on the ground. It is in that position because of the angle at which it sits. The designers have even canted the entry door at the same angle as the ground.

No worries Gixxerman - it's a common myth and is repeated in almost every reference to the Stirling out there. When B.12/36 was written the requirement also stipulated that the aircraft had also to be able to be maintained out in the open at airfields where hangarage was not available, further evidence that the myth is exactly that.

I've always believed that the Stirling was more a stop-gap machine somewhat similar to the P-40 at least until they could get the better bombers produced and online.

The Stirling might have unintentionally turned out as a stop-gap, but it was not intended that way. It was, as built to B.12/36 intended as the next primary heavy bomber in RAF service to replace the existing types; Wellington, Whitley and Hampden, but delays in its trials and entry into service meant that it was overtaken by events, notably the war and subsequent development of better aircraft. Originally, the Supermarine 316 and twin finned Hercules engined '317 were the preferred design to B.12/36 with the Short Brothers instructed to proceed with a prototype as a back up. Like Pattle states, earlier the partly completed fuselages were destroyed in bombing raids and a concentration on Spitfire development spelt the end of the Supermarine bomber, thus leaving the Stirling as the only contender to B.12/36 to be completed.

Simultaneously to B.12/36 being released was P.13/36, a duplicate specification for a Medium Bomber, although it is also often described as another 'heavy'. The winning submission to this was the twin engined Avro 679 that became the Manchester. The runner-up was the Handley Page HP.56, which was destined never to be built when George Volkert, HP's designer changed the design from two Vultures to four Merlins and created their HP.57, which became the Halifax. Initially the Halifax was also beset by delays and a fatal quirk of over controlling rudders that put the aircraft into an unrecoverable dive, among other defects that required sorting out, but the RAF clung to the hope that these would be rectified in the new Halifax III, promised by Volkert and this was to become the new primary heavy because the Stirling was not living up to promises.

When Roy Chadwick suggested the Four engined Manchester it was initially regarded with scepticism because it was thought it would not live up to the paper performance of the Halifax III, but, the Manchester Mark IV could, in fact out perform the newer Halifax in terms of speed, altitude, load carrying capability over distance and versatility as a bomber. So, pretty much by default, the under performing Stirling became something as a stop-gap as a result of the success of the two other four engined bombers that began life as twins.

 

[nuuumannn]

Another aspect of the Stirling's unusually high fuselage angle on the ground is because of the angle of incidence of the wings, which was placed as such to produce minimum drag at cruise speed. When the baby S.31 aerodynamic test bed was tested, the boffins at Boscombe Down recommended altering the angle of incidence because of its long take-off and landing runs, being mindful of the inevitable increase in weight that aircraft underwent in development. Because the protoype was too far into construction for such a major redesign, Arthur Gouge had the undercarriage lengthened to increase the angle that the aircraft sits on the ground.

The upswept lower fuselage was simply to clear the rear fuselage with regards to the aircraft's sit on the ground; even the S.31 was similarly shaped. If you look closely at the Lancaster, the Halifax and most other large bombers, the parallel fuselage upper and lower surfaces where the bomb bays are located ends at the aft end of the bomb bay bulk head, which then begins a tapered rear fuselage to prevent tail strike on take-off, when the upper rear fuselage line is straight with the rest of the aircraft.

 

[GregP]

The Stirling's tail wasn't raised. The fuselage top was a straight line once past the cockpit and the fuselage bottom was tapered to match the landing gear angle.

Since Short made it, it might or might not have anything in common with the Sunderland, but certainly doesn't have any noticeable flying boat features I can see. However, I CANsee that by changing the fuselage to a hull design, you could make a flying boat out of it ... but you could do the same with a Lancaster or Halifax, too, if you really wanted to do so. Hell, if you just HAD to, you could probably make a flying boat out of a C-130, too. It might look something like the Shin Meiwa US-1A.

 

[pattle]

The fact that the Stirlings fuselage top is straight has never been disputed, this is easy to see on diagrams of it, plus I have two models here. The Stirling like a lot of aircraft can trace it's lineage back through previous types made by the same manufacturer, good examples being the Blenheim, Beaufort, Beaufighter, Buckingham and Brigand or Hawker Hind and Hurricane all different aircraft but from the same original idea, inflence or dogma.

 

[pattle]

While we are on the topic of the Stirling can anyone tell me when the last complete example was disposed of in Britain. I ask because my understanding is that all were retired from the RAF in 1946 with some being sold to private operators. About 10 years ago I was told by a former colleague that he had been aboard one which was sitting semi derelict on an RAF airfield some time in the early 50's. Had my colleague not of been so certain that the plane was a Stirling I would be in no doubt that he was confused with another type.

 

[swampyankee]

Hell, if you just HAD to, you could probably make a flying boat out of a C-130, too. It might look something like the Shin Meiwa US-1A.

I believe there was a proposal for an amphibious version of the C-130 out there. I don't think it was being actually expected to go anywhere, but was probably some IR&D project Lockheed put together when they were doing a bunch of Hercules variants: enlarged fuselage (larger cross section), twin-engined, VTOL, commercial passenger, etc.

 

[jamesinnewcastle]

The Stirling's tail wasn't raised. The fuselage top was a straight line once past the cockpit and the fuselage bottom was tapered to match the landing gear angle

Actually that is not true - the upper line of the Stirlings fuselage goes up by about 1.5 degrees at about a point midway between the end of the main wings and the start of the tail. Don't know why this is - it won't be on any model (why go to that much detail?). You can prove this yourself by taking a photo of the Stirling 'side-on' and applying a straight edge to the picture. Do this for a number of pictures to convince yourself. I have the AP for the Stirling and they also clearly show the angle mentioned.

Cheers
James

 

[T Bolt]

The Airfix kit does have this fuselage uplift at the tail, but I think it's a bit exaggerated.

 

[OldSkeptic]

I hope this is not an old chestnut dealt with in previous threads but was the Short Stirling a good or a bad aircraft?
Even though the Stirling is generally accepted as an inferior aircraft to both the Handley Page Halifax and particularly Avro Lancaster I still believe it's inferiority does offer some mitigation. True the Lancaster could fly higher, further and with a much greater bombload than the Stirling and true that the Lancaster had a capacious bomb bay while the Stirling's while large was divided in two by its structure. But in mitigation the Stirling was the only one of the three aircraft designed as a four engine bomber, and perhaps for this reason may have had the greater design potential being a larger aircraft.
The Stirling was indeed further developed with Shorts having enhanced models of the Stirling on the drawing board that claimed to improve it's performance to a point were it would have allegedly rivalled the Lancaster's in most areas and bettered it in others but these versions were never put into production. Had these versions of the Stirling been placed into production they would of not only of had increased bomb load, range and ceiling but also would have been much more heavily armed with either 50 cals or cannon in place of the 303's fitted in the earlier Stirlings and its rivals. Whether these improved Stirlings would have been a success or failure we will never really know. Further mitigation is offered by the original requirement that specified that the Stirling should also be capable of carrying troops and after the Stirling was replaced as a bomber it did enjoy success in a number of transport roles.
My own opinion on the Stirling is that it was an aircraft that suffered from it's share of limitations some of which could have been remedied while others could not. If we take the Stirling for what we actually saw of it rather than what it could have been then I believe it was an aircraft that was needed both as a heavy bomber early war and as a transport late war and as such proved itself as a very useful aircraft while not being ideal. My vote goes for the Stirling as being a good aircraft.

It was not a bad aircraft (lots of pilots liked it), but it was a bad warplane and a waste of resources.
It was bad as a warplane because if its limited performance. It was a waste of resources because it took away production from the much more useful and needed Sunderland.