Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
You have an 'emergency', not enough fighters at the moment and facing a German Sea invasion. What happens in 1941 is not the 1st emergency. It might very well be the 2ndBut they did not have those engines to spare. They were the there to keep the trainers in the air. The production lines were turned over to Merlin's long before. Put the Kestrels in (needed for training) Masters single seaters then you turn off the 1940 tap of newly trained pilots which was the real RAF log jam at that time. That was the whole reason for the vast investment in the Empire training scheme that paid off handsomely thereafter. Even Miles realised the finite supply of Kestrels and flew the first Mercury powered Master in 1939.
SRIt might, depends on the definition.
However double check the engine. while it was not in wide spread use in the Army planes (it was used in the Ki-46 III) it was in used in a number of navy planes.
It was also planed to use it to replace the Sakae engine in some planes.
I'm thinking the simplest was the Vickers Venom. It did NOT make production, but was extremely simple and robust. Likely SHOULD have made it into production.
Straight, untapered wing, easy fabrication, lots of "easy to make and repair" type features. A low-wing monoplane single-seat, single-engined, eight-gun fighter aircraft. It was fast and manoeuvrable but its Bristol Aquila radial engine was underpowered. Together with other designs built to the same specification, which included the Bristol Type 146, Gloster F.5/34, and Martin-Baker MB 2, it was rejected by the Air Ministry and only one Venom was built.
View attachment 732539
Hard to imagine an easier-to-make, easier-to-repair aircraft.
So, naturally, they didn't build it!
It had no future. Some what is said about it is a bit dubious, not going to say impossible but dubious.Wow, that is awesome! Every time I think I've seen all the WW2 military aircraft, another design shows up that I'd never heard of... I really like the look of this one too.
A long nose P-40 was about 30mph faster than a P-36. we can argue about effectiveness.
The "simple" idea sounds good for about 3 seconds. Then reality kicks in. Much like the light weight/cheap fighter theory.
Lets break a few things down.
Landing gear, once you use retracting landing gear the parts numbers are not that much different. A larger fighter will use bigger, heavier parts but it doesn't use more of them, Like twin hydraulic struts for each wheel. So landing gear maintenance is roughly the same. Russians tried to use pneumatic retraction but they had more failures, including landing gear collapsing while parked. Brake maintenance?
Radios, unless you do away with the radios or try to use a single channel you have mostly the same maintenance issues aside form access (hatches) issues.
Instrument panels. Unless you leave out instruments (some I-16s didn't have fuel gauge, Pilot depended on his wrist watch and the sound of the engine) most planes are going to need pretty much the same maintenance.
Armament, again, unless you leave out guns (four .303s vs eight .303s) there is not a much savings there. OK Hurricane only had 3 doors to expose 4 guns vs the 4 doors on the Spitifre per wing but you have to pull all the guns out, break them down, clean them, reassemble and reinstall. total time saved by the better door arrangement??
engines? V-12 or 9 cylinder or 14 cylinder or 18 cylinder?
French tried a few planes with 700hp 14 cylinder radials, spark plug and valve adjustment were going to take pretty much the same time as a 900-1200h 14 cylinder radial. time it takes to open and close the cowl vs the time it takes to do the plug change and valve check/adjustment?
Some planes were designed for better access or fewer parts. But a lot of airframes were designed to go for several hundred hours without taking the basic airframe apart.
Repair battle or crash damage is a bit different than normal maintenance.
And if you sacrifice combat effectiveness for ease of maintenance/repair you may wind up doing a lot more repair
It had no future. Some what is said about it is a bit dubious, not going to say impossible but dubious.
It was 'supposed' to have flown with full armament starting at it's first flight.
Trouble is no known photograph shows guns, gun hatches, cartridge ejection slots. Like
View attachment 739865
Maybe they took the guns out and covered up the openings? Then you get stuff like this "The compact radial engine gave the Venom a better rate of roll and turn than its long nosed water-cooled competitors but it was soon clear the potential power from the Merlin was greater than was likely to be available from the Aquila in the near future, with only limited development of this engine being undertaken, while no other engines were available suitable for fitting in such a small airframe."
Hmmm.
1650 cu in vs 950 cu in engine.
Potential power was all too clear.
There are number of reasons for the problems with designing the light fighter and their engines. P & W had the R-1535 14 cylinder radial which the US Navy rather liked during the 1930s. However nobody else liked it. 14 Cylinders was too expensive for commercial operators to buy/maintain when they could get the same (or more?) power from 9 cylinder engines. Army didn't by any either. P & W saw the handwriting on the wall and canceled further development. Which contributed to the end of the Grumman F5F. But that required two engines, more on that later. P & W only had so much design staff to go around. And they went off in several different directions including a trip to sleeve valve land which sucked up a lot of time money for very little return. With war looming a change of management not only stopped sleeve valves and all liquid cooled engines but also the R-2180 14cylinder radial, which should have been low risk. Just use 14 R-2800 cylinders instead of 18. But the aircraft designers decided to go big or go home. Or to stick with the R-1830 engine.I think the "light fighter" concept was very tricky to implement successfully, partly because of the reason you cite here (can't reduce size or weight of a lot of militarily necessary kit, like radios) and partly due to difficulties with the smaller engines. That in turn, was in large part because most of the development effort, money, and time was applied toward the larger more powerful engines. Also partly it was because most of these designs were not very seriously pursued by the firms which built them.
We also have to be very careful about comparing things from different times or the same time in different countries. things changed a lot in just a few years. All of those things were very important but building planes that could not actually do the job was not good. Unfortunately sometimes both expected engine power and expected aircraft weight tended to be optimistic. Sometimes wildly so.But we do see some examples which were very or at least partly successful. And there are some reasons why this is not such a bad idea from a design perspective. Thinking seriously about reducing weight, cost of production, and improving the ease of maintenance does turn out to be quite important. Weight is the enemy of aircraft design, and this was doubly true for WW2 military aircraft.
There have been several attempts to reduce the size of the fighters in the jet age, sometimes successful, sometimes not so successful. And a lot of time electronics advanced more rapidly that the airframes and engines so what started as a daylight only fighter changed into an all weather fighter as electronics got smaller, lighter, smarter.Wasn't the F-16 initially a "light fighter"? During WW2, as noted already in the part of the thread I read so far (up to this post) the Soviet fighters including Yak-1 / 7 / 9, LaGG-3 and La 5 were initially at least, basically light fighter concepts. They had many challenges making them work, but ultimately these designs were successful. And based on the ubiquitous Hispano 12Y engine that I know you dislike, but which seemed to be a pretty effective and important piece of kit during the war, just like the Hispano 20mm gun was (in spite of it's flaws).
The Whirlwind is kind of a special case, it was wasn't really a light "Twin" in the sense that a P-38 was a twin. It was much more an 1800hp fighter that used two engines than a fighter that used a single 1800-2000hp engine. Basically the same guns and range as an Early Typhoon or Tornado. Used two 12s vs a single 24. P-38 used twin 1100hp engines to start but they stuck in enough fuel to have twice the endurance of a single seat/single engine fighter.The Mosquito was also initially a 'light' design though of course it used Merlin engines. The Westland Whirlwind, which we have discussed here many times previously, used the little Peregrine engines that got discontinued, but it was quite a good fighter and strafer with a great deal of longevity as a design, as a 1940 design still proving useful without any real upgrades well into 1942.
Well the two Germans were Nickle rockets and were more akin to human guided AA missiles than actual fighters. If the bombers didn't fly pretty much over the right city they could not intercept even a few score of miles away.I'll even go to a somewhat outlier position here and note that the CW-21 was an (arguably) effective design which could have proven useful as a point defense fighter. It had rather mediocre outcomes in the Pacific but that was mainly because of the general tactical situation. You could also argue (though this too is maybe a stretch I admit) that some of the later war high tech super weapons of the Germans, like the He 162 "Salamander" jet fighter and the Me 163 "Komet" rocket fighter, were at least somewhat successful and relatively simple point-defense designs, even though they relied on sophisticated concepts.
Quite a lot here
There are number of reasons for the problems with designing the light fighter and their engines. P & W had the R-1535 14 cylinder radial which the US Navy rather liked during the 1930s. However nobody else liked it. 14 Cylinders was too expensive for commercial operators to buy/maintain when they could get the same (or more?) power from 9 cylinder engines. Army didn't by any either. P & W saw the handwriting on the wall and canceled further development. Which contributed to the end of the Grumman F5F. But that required two engines, more on that later. P & W only had so much design staff to go around. And they went off in several different directions including a trip to sleeve valve land which sucked up a lot of time money for very little return. With war looming a change of management not only stopped sleeve valves and all liquid cooled engines but also the R-2180 14cylinder radial, which should have been low risk. Just use 14 R-2800 cylinders instead of 18. But the aircraft designers decided to go big or go home. Or to stick with the R-1830 engine.
A lot of this was marketing and the economics of building engines in large quantities. Unfortunately in the middle of the 1930s many companies were scrabbling for each and every sale and tried offering too great a variety of different products trying to keep the doors open one more year (or one more month) and R & D was not quite what it could have been.
However even a glance at the R-1830 and R-2800 show the difference.
engine......................................R-1830..............................R-2800
Take-off...................................1200hp.............................1850hp
Military power hi.................1050hp/13,100ft .........1500hp/14,000ft
Weight.......................................1460lbs..........................2300lb
Now the R-1830 was after 5-6 years of development and the R-2800 was the first production model made. And for a twin (bomber or transport) you had 28 cylinders compared to 36.
If you tried for tri motor you had the power but you had a lot more maintenance. Yes they are not light fighters but help show why some companies were not interested in developing light fighter engine.
The CW-21 used R-1820 engines that were actually one or two generations behind what CW was capable of building. I have never seen the explanation of that. I don't know if they didn't have the production capability, R-1820s at the time were being built with 3 different crankcases and with different cylinders. I don't know if the airframe wasn't strong enough to handle the higher power?
We also have to be very careful about comparing things from different times or the same time in different countries. things changed a lot in just a few years. All of those things were very important but building planes that could not actually do the job was not good. Unfortunately sometimes both expected engine power and expected aircraft weight tended to be optimistic. Sometimes wildly so.
There have been several attempts to reduce the size of the fighters in the jet age, sometimes successful, sometimes not so successful. And a lot of time electronics advanced more rapidly that the airframes and engines so what started as a daylight only fighter changed into an all weather fighter as electronics got smaller, lighter, smarter.
Also be very careful with jet engines. The engine in an early (but not real early) F-16 was actually about 150lbs lighter than the engines in the early F4 Phantom but gave almost 40% more power. There were a few attempts to make light fighters in the 1950s as jet engine technology made huge changes. In fact the engine in the early F-16 was within about 100lbs of the J-47-33 engine used in the last F-86 Sabre jets. Those kinds of changes opened up all kinds of possibilities. But they also require time machines to compare designs.
As far as the Soviet piston engines fighters go, I guess it really depends on the definition of a light fighter.
Yak-1..............................6382lbs normal load
Yak-7B...........................6719lb
Yak-9D..........................6871lb
Lagg-3.........................6834lb (?)
LA-5..............................7098lb
Spitfire Vb Trop........6695lb
P-40B............................7352lb
D. 520...........................5900lb
MC 202........................6460lb (max)
109G-6.........................6940lb
The Soviet fighters were only light in comparison to American fighters or British Typhoon. They were pretty much standard on the world stage of 1940-42.
The Soviet failure to develop the follow-ons to the M-105 engine greatly hindered the development of Soviet fighter aircraft.
The Whirlwind is kind of a special case, it was wasn't really a light "Twin" in the sense that a P-38 was a twin. It was much more an 1800hp fighter that used two engines than a fighter that used a single 1800-2000hp engine. Basically the same guns and range as an Early Typhoon or Tornado. Used two 12s vs a single 24. P-38 used twin 1100hp engines to start but they stuck in enough fuel to have twice the endurance of a single seat/single engine fighter.
Well the two Germans were Nickle rockets and were more akin to human guided AA missiles than actual fighters. If the bombers didn't fly pretty much over the right city they could not intercept even a few score of miles away.
The CW-21B helps illustrate the problem.
The engine was rated at 1000hp for take-off, however there were not military ratings for that engine. Max continuous was 850hp at 6,000ft and 750hp at 15,100ft.
Fuel was a max of 120 gal but was probably at 5000lbs weight for take-off, Normal gross was 4500lbs and so a lot fuel disappears. The famous climb was also subject to question
The 4,500fpm to start seems to have petered out to 3280fpm or worse. 4 minutes to 13,200ft.
as the armament seems to have been, shall we say, flexible? it was designed to hold two .50s and two .30s but there is no evidence that any were so fitted.
Claims are made for one .50 and one .30. One was tested with four .303s and some records say that the 21-Bs were delivered with two .30s.
the useful load for a 4500 gross weight was 1118lbs, If you stick in a pair of .50s with 200rpg you have about 250lbs for guns/ammo, the standard 200lbs for pilot, a bit over 50lbs for oil, and just about 100 US gallons for fuel. Oh, you want a radio? You want the extra two .30s, any other extras? like oxygen, a flare gun?
Even four small Brownings and 350rpg is just over 200lbs.
You want the engine from a Buffalo MK I? add around 160lbs. Swap the engine from a F2A-3? add another 40lbs, may need a bigger prop than the standard 9 footer. Buffalo's used either a 10'1" or a 10'3in depending make/model.
And if you decide you want armor or any fuel tank protection, even a CO2 bottle?
That is the problem with light weight fighters, you have less capability.
The P-40B had a 1737lb useful load to divide up between guns/ammo, oil/fuel (120 US gallons), pilot, armor, and equipment.
P-40Bs didn't have drop tanks or bombs as built.
I actually had trouble picking numbers for the Soviet fighters so quibble away, I had 8 numbers to choose from just on the Yak-1 from 6,078lb to 6,468lb depending year, engine and armament. Spitfires were both largish and light, at least they had a big wingThe Soviet fighters were not quite that light, I could quibble on some of your numbers but you are right they were not a whole lot lighter than a Spitfire. But they were simple, they were cheap. They were quite small. No-frills, typically carrying one to three guns, only one of which was a cannon.
Soviet pilots were barley trained to fly, they were "told" to get close, gunnery training completedThese little planes had short range, just a few guns but concentrated in the nose and trained to shoot from close range so it didn't matter so much. These Soviet fighters could operate in conditions that the Germans and most of the Western supplied fighters could not (or not as well, or with more difficulty). They were simple, and didn't have all the features that German or British planes had. But they had enough to do their job.
Plain to the bone as it is, the Sten has a luxury that its MP 40 opponent lacks : a fire selector.Bill is right that we have drifted from the 'Sten' OP to 'lightweight fighter' as the subject.
Consider the Sten. It was not a lightweight machine carbine. It was lighter than many but as a consequence rather than by doctrine. It was production optimised to use dispersed subcontractors and not (other than barrel rifling) impinging upon the existing firearms manufacturing capacity. It used a typical machine carbine ammunition and magazine. Nothing was in a reduced power form. One could have made it as a 'lightweight' with .32acp instead of 9x19mm Parabellum and based it around a fully automatic pistol with a shoulder stock but the model was full size but quick and cheap to use semi skilled and unskilled labour.
That would seem to be the model for a fighter to fit the OP. Such as the Miles proposal to use surplus RR Kestrels in a single seater Miles Master.
I actually had trouble picking numbers for the Soviet fighters so quibble away, I had 8 numbers to choose from just on the Yak-1 from 6,078lb to 6,468lb depending year, engine and armament.
Spitfires were both largish and light, at least they had a big wing.
The D 520, Bf 109 and MC 202 were about the same size as Soviet fighters, I am not going to argue about 10 sq ft or so. French were using a single cannon and 4 LMGs,
Germans were using a single cannon and two LMGs until 1942. (Not counting the 190 here). So the Soviet fighters were not really lighter armed than many other fighters (Italian and Japanese Army were worse in the early years).
Soviet pilots were barley trained to fly, they were "told" to get close, gunnery training completed
However the Soviet planes could not do what some of the German or British (or American or Japanese or other) fighters could. They often did not have instruments that allowed for "blind flying" like flying through clouds. Or being able to navigate long distances, their long Yaks had extra equipment fitted.
The Soviet fighters had enough equipment to their job on the Eastern front under the conditions they were operating in with acceptable operational losses (to the soviets). Does not mean they were good solution for anybody else. Soviet fighters in the Pacific? Poor range, poor navigation, poor performance at high altitudes and not talking turbo-charger land here either.
The Soviets had some real problems, they were somewhat stuck with the M-105 engine. They had made prototypes of both the M-106 and M-107 engines before the Germans had invaded and were hoping to get them into production and solve the power problem with the higher powered engines, but they both took more development that originally thought and forced the quickey modification of the M-105PF engine, lower the supercharger gears, run it harder and accept less engine life. Not what they want, it was what they could do to stop the invasion. Necessity did not make it a virtue. Same with the armament. They wanted more/bigger guns. They tried putting in more in originals or at times during production but the increased weight lowered performance more than they would accept.
There were other problems at times. The LA-5 worked, but only just. Soviets were also having trouble building enough guns, but the LA-5 also had a weight problem. The LA-5 only got 3 guns when they came up with a new, lighter gun than the standard one. They also had to reduce the number of rounds per gun. Yes it worked, but the two 20mm in cowl was not what they wanted, it was what they had to accept.
Soviets didn't have to shoot down large 4 engine bombers, they didn't have to fly long distance, they didn't have to fly over water (German and British lost pilots getting lost over the Channel) mostly. They often never flew over 12,000ft (sort of the dividing line for oxygen). They did what worked for them, it didn't mean they actually liked it as they knew that if conditions changed they were stuck.