Short Stirling, a good or a bad aircraft?

Shortround6 · Mar 6, 2019

stona said:
In 1937 the proposed alternative was the Napier Dagger, which would have been interesting.

A bit like the supposed Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times".

stona · Mar 6, 2019

I think the interest in the Dagger stemmed from its impressive performance, it ran at 635 hp in 1934 and was cleared for production in 1936 at 1,000 hp (at an incredible 4,200 rpm).

The well known issues killed it off and anyway the Air Ministry fell for Napier's proposed 'Hyper' engine in 1935. That led to another interesting story, that of the Sabre. When the Dagger was still being listed as a possible alternative to the Hercules the Sabre had just about had a first run, but was a long way from production; further than most realised at the time.

Cheers

Steve

Shortround6 · Mar 6, 2019

A problem with the Dagger was that it was running out of places to go.
It was a 1027 cu in engine running at 4200rpm.
The 1000hp was at 8750 ft.

They were using 7.5:1 compression ratio and the BMEP was 183.

I am not saying they couldn't have gotten a bit more out of it but they were pushing things pretty hard as it was, only the piston speed was on the low side.

wuzak · Mar 6, 2019

Maybe the Vulture was a possible alternative - prior to the war.

Even detuned, it would have provided a useful performance increase over the Hercules.

Mind you, the Vulture wasn't exactly high altitude rated ether.

stona · Mar 7, 2019

I think that it is a bit difficult to categorise the Stirling as good or bad.

It started as a back up for the Supermarine heavy bomber and then became the last man standing.

The specification was extremely demanding for the time. I doubt that any aircraft could have met it. Supermarine claimed that theirs would but then, to paraphrase the lovely Mandy Rice Davies, they would wouldn't they.

An ever evolving design, and particularly the huge increase in weight from drawing board to reality, more than 10,000 lbs, is what did for it. I'm not sure that bolting more powerful or better performing engines was the answer. It was the first real heavy bomber, but it was too low and too slow.

We should also remember that though withdrawn from operations against Germany in October 1943, shortly before the Wellington, the last bombs dropped in anger by Stirlings were dropped on Le Havre on 8th September 1944. Stirlings continued to operate with 100 Group until the end of the war. The last Window operation I can find for 100 Group Stirlings was covering a raid on Stuttgart on 18th January 1945, The last Mandrel mission was flown on 14th March 1945. That's not bad really.

Some wag at 199 Squadron wrote this little ditty when the last Stirling operation was completed.

Goodbye old Stirling, goodbye old friend,
You've never let us down from beginning to end,
Whate'er it was, where're you went,
On bombing, mining, supporting bent,
You did a grand job, the best on Earth,
You're Stirling by name - you were sterling in worth.

Not a bad epitaph.

Cheers

Steve

Shortround6 · Mar 7, 2019

wuzak said:
Maybe the Vulture was a possible alternative - prior to the war.

Even detuned, it would have provided a useful performance increase over the Hercules.

Mind you, the Vulture wasn't exactly high altitude rated ether.

Well, it was certainly rated at higher altitude than the Dagger.

Vulture may have added hundreds of pounds per engine. For some reason the Vulture in published sources weighs 2450lbs which is just over double what the Peregrine weighed (I know it is not a double Peregrine) which is a bit strange as most "doubled" engines weigh a bit less. The Vulture is going to need bigger propellers and the radiators and cooling fluid is going to add hundreds of pounds per engine. You get a lot more power but you might too much "new" airplane to use them.

Shortround6 · Mar 7, 2019

stona said:
I think that it is a bit difficult to categorise the Stirling as good or bad.

It started as a back up for the Supermarine heavy bomber and then became the last man standing.

The specification was extremely demanding for the time. I doubt that any aircraft could have met it. Supermarine claimed that theirs would but then, to paraphrase the lovely Mandy Rice Davies, they would wouldn't they.

It may not have been a bad airplane to fly, It didn't have any bad habits to bite the unwary pilot, It didn't break any more than anything else. It was actually supposed to fairly maneuverable (at least if not operating near max load). It just wasn't a good "bomber" for what the British were trying to do. Even if it didn't gain as much weight (and all the 4 engine bombers and the two engine bombers gained weight ) that big, bulky fuselage would have meant more drag than it's contemporaries and that means less speed/range on the same amount of power.

Supermarine's plane was never subject (not having really got passed the mock up stage? or first prototype?) of self sealing tanks or other increases in operational equipment. From pictures of the mock up a small man could have stood up inside the wing root.

So it most definitely was not using the thin wing of the Spitfire.
As you say, performance estimates should not be taken as guarantees. 370mph Beaufighter anyone?

stona · Mar 7, 2019

Shortround6 said:
From pictures of the mock up a small man could have stood up inside the wing root.

One problem flagged in a report of 5th October 1937, following an inspection of the Supermarine mock up by officers from Bomber Command is that there was very little room in the fuselage.
They reported that headroom throughout the fuselage was restricted and that even the captain and navigator did not have room to stand.

Supermarine was clearly ignoring the paragraph of B.12/36 which read.

"Consideration is to be given in design for fitting a light removable form of seating for the maximum number of personnel that can be accommodated within the fuselage when the aircraft is being used for reinforcing overseas commands."

It was not a requirement (as is so often claimed), but Supermarine seem to have discounted it entirely. I don't believe that this was intended as a troop carrying capability at all. I think it refers to the ability to carry of RAF ground crew and other personnel when moving to Overseas Commands.

Cheers

Steve

tomo pauk · Mar 7, 2019

wuzak said:
Maybe the Vulture was a possible alternative - prior to the war.

Even detuned, it would have provided a useful performance increase over the Hercules.

Mind you, the Vulture wasn't exactly high altitude rated ether.

Vulture II, per data sheet for the Manchester I, was good for 1710 HP @ 15000 ft, vs. 800 HP at same altitude for the Dagger. Data sheet for the Beaufighter I gives 1270 HP there for the Hercules III.

wuzak · Mar 7, 2019

Shortround6 said:
For some reason the Vulture in published sources weighs 2450lbs which is just over double what the Peregrine weighed (I know it is not a double Peregrine) which is a bit strange as most "doubled" engines weigh a bit less.

The Vulture's reduction gear was basically 4 times as many gears as two Peregrines.

A planned future upgrade was to change to an epicyclic reduction, like those used on radials, at the saving of 200-300lb.

And a bore spacing about 0.5" longer than the Peregrine's.

Shortround6 · Mar 7, 2019

Thank you, I knew the blocks were actually bigger due to the bore spacing but didn't know about the reduction gear.

wuzak · Mar 7, 2019

Yep, the crankshaft drove 4 idler gears, which were coupled to another 4 gears which drove the propeller shaft.

GreenKnight121 · Mar 7, 2019

swampyankee said:
swampyankee said:

However, I CAN see 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.

Click to expand...

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.

6 years late, but:
Boat-hulled retractable-ski version development work 1964-73, no prototype built.
Split-float version proposed 1997, no prototype built.

yulzari · Mar 8, 2019

The Supermarine stuffed it's bombs in cells into those thick wings. A thinner 'Spitfire' wing would have needed a far bigger fuselage for a full size bomb bay.

Reluctant Poster · Mar 9, 2019

yulzari said:
The Supermarine stuffed it's bombs in cells into those thick wings. A thinner 'Spitfire' wing would have needed a far bigger fuselage for a full size bomb bay.

The following link has a plan view that illustrates how extensive the wing bomb cells were. Note the the wing leading edges were torsion boxes that also served as fuel tanks, a similar arrangement to the later long range reconnaissance Spitfires. All in all a very innovative design. Note that it could carry 3 x 2000 lb bombs in the fuselage and 2 x 2000 lb bombs in each wing root.
R J Mitchell and Supermarine: R. J. Mitchell's Bomber and his death.

stona · Mar 9, 2019

Reluctant Poster said:
Note that it could carry 3 x 2000 lb bombs in the fuselage and 2 x 2000 lb bombs in each wing root.
R J Mitchell and Supermarine: R. J. Mitchell's Bomber and his death.

It had to. The ability to carry seven 2,000lb SAP bombs was part of the specification.

Cheers

Steve

Kevin J · Mar 9, 2019

stona said:
It had to. The ability to carry seven 2,000lb SAP bombs was part of the specification.

Cheers

Steve

So like the Stirling it can't carry any of the bigger bombs so not as good as the Lancaster. In fact removing the turrets from a Lancaster was supposed to give you an extra 50 mph so it would have matched the Supermarine proposal in top speed but not in range.

stona · Mar 9, 2019

The Lancaster was a development of the Manchester which was built to a different specification. That specification, P.13/36, did originally specify that two 18" torpedoes should be carried. They were 18' long.

When a dedicated torpedo bomber to B.10/36, the Bristol Beaufort, was being developed the torpedo carrying capability of P.13/36 was nearly deleted, but in the end was maintained.

Eventually the Operational Requirements branch announced that torpedoes could not be dropped at 150 mph from 200 feet and that this requirement for P.13/36 was redundant. It appears that no more thought had been given to the practicalities of torpedo launching than was later given to catapult launching.

Peirse decided, in May 1937, that bombers built to P.13/36 would no longer be required to carry torpedoes. It was too late for the Manchester, and a totally unintentional benefit of the deleted requirement was the Lancaster (and Halifax's) ability to carry bombs larger than 2,000lbs.

Cheers

Steve

Admiral Beez · Dec 16, 2019

swampyankee said:
I think the Stirling would have had a much better reputation had it been assigned to maritime patrol duties. Could it have been more useful? Yes: ASW patrol.

The large bomb bay would hold a lot of depth charges.

Waynos said:
As well as the short wingspan and short range, I think one of the Stirlings biggest handicaps was the structure of its bomb bay which would make it impossible to carry larger munitions.

Could it carry as brace of torpedoes like the Wellington?

Take out the nose gunner, replace it with a battery of forward firing cannons.

Shortround6 · Dec 16, 2019

Admiral Beez said:
The large bomb bay would hold a lot of depth charges.
Could it carry as brace of torpedoes like the Wellington?

Take out the nose gunner, replace it with a battery of forward firing cannons.

Why?

The Stirling sucked fuel like nobody's business.
While it could lift a heavy load for short distances at longer distances it's bomb load wasn't that much greater than a Wellingtons sp it would have been a lousy patrol plane or long range strike aircraft.

Playing low level strafer with a 4 engine plane is not a good idea as you are risking a lot for little return.

Short Stirling, a good or a bad aircraft?

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