The Firebrand and other rubbish from Blackburn

[Shortround6]

I doubt I can untie your knickers, but if P&W Canada can assemble engines for the US, they could presumably assemble them for Canada.

Of course a subsidiary engine maintenance and assembly operation is not an engine plant. My point is that if Canada wanted to produce a radial engine a good place to start is with a call to P&W Canada to inquire if they can: expand their existing assembly/maintenance operation; build a manufacturing plant; or, consult to an existing Canadian engine producer to license build the P&W engine, such as GM Canada.

Building an actual engine manufacturing plant could take a year, Some engine manufacturing plants also required the services of hundreds (in some cases 800) subcontractors. Not something that can be arranged in few weeks.
Canada did do an amazing job of producing war materials during WW II. But it's ability was not bottomless, Please read your own sources. The Machine gun plant they talk about cost over $1,000,000 for the building and $7,000,000 for the machinery and equipment. An engine plant that is capable of making several hundred engines a month will be at least that expensive if not more.

This argument is bit like a local garage or hot rodder ordering parts and assembling an engine in a garage compared to actually making the crankcase, the crankshaft, the heads, cylinders, pistons and so on. There is little point in setting up an assembly plant in Canada if the engines are to be made from parts kits supplied by P&W in America.

Please note that the Original Ford Plant to make R-2800s (a larger engine) was 889,717 sq ft. for 800 engines a month. If you plane a smaller number of engines per month the size can adjusted accordingly.



Up until 1937/38 P&W, like many other companies, was looking to increase their market share. Having a somewhat local service center made sense, especially considering some of the tariff or import duties that some products were subject to. However up until the French start ordering in 1938 and the British in 1938/39 P&W had all the production capacity it needed.
French orders allowed P&W to double the floor space of their East Hartford factory, The British orders allowed them to double it again. In the fall of 1940 P&W was so busy they could not help Ford out with new plant. Ford could send engineers to P&W and see how P&W was doing things and how the factory was laid out but P&W had no (or darn few) engineers or supervisors to send out to Ford to assist on site.

It might have been possible to squeeze in a Canadian facility but Canada was stretched to capacity too. And Canadian factories needed to be equiped with machine tools made in the US.
A lot of the tooling has to be new, You don't make aluminium aircraft engines on machinery that made cast iron 6 cylinder car engines (not to mention Canada was supplying a good amount of the British commonwealth with light trucks.)

 

[nuuumannn]

Let's be Frank here about the ROC. Take out the turret, give the gunner a couple of LMG and stick a cannon in each wing and you'll have a worthy adversary of the Ar 196. As for the Botha, get Blackburn to make some Bombays instead as they will come in handy in the Far East when the Japanese attack. Use them for night bombing, medivac and aerial resupply for troops cut off by the Japanese advance into Malaya, Burma, Timor and New Guinea.

As much as I'm inclined to agree with you, Kevin, that something should have been done to begin with regarding these crappy designs, I don't think your suggestions are the best going forward. Firstly, the Roc. Just don't do it at all. Boulton Paul didn't want to and offered a carrier based variant of the Defiant with fixed forward firing armament as an interim fighter. That's a far better bet for a carrier fighter than the Roc, even if it is an interim with average to good performance for its time, and getting it into service would not have taken as long as a clean sheet design.

I'm very much of the opinion that nothing good can come of altering the basic design of the Skua/Roc to produce a better performing aircraft. By the time the design work has been done, the thing has been rendered obsolescent. The Sea Hurricane took very little time to work, as did the Seafire, both of which had their faults, proved the wisdom of choosing an interim single-seat fighter based on an existing design. There's no reason to believe that a single-seat Defiant would be less successful than a Sea Hurri as an interim.

As for the Bombay, again, good idea, but you are requesting Blackburn tool down an existing design and build a less advanced one, which would take time, if not a year or so. Choosing to build the Bombay under licence in 1939/40, with production rolling by 1941/42? Might as well build the Vickers Vimy. Best off to choose something more advanced and useful going forward. Why not build Manchesters that would lead to Lancasters? Or Mosquitoes?

 

[Admiral Beez]

I'm very much of the opinion that nothing good can come of altering the basic design of the Skua/Roc to produce a better performing aircraft.

Is there anything we can wrap around a Perseus that can make a good fighter?

 

[nuuumannn]

Not one that's gonna be of any use after 1940. Perhaps the most suitable might have been the Vickers Venom, but even then Vickers chose the lower powered Aquila, not the Perseus.

 

[Kevin J]

Is there anything we can wrap around a Perseus that can make a good fighter?

Yes, Westland Lysander.

 

[Kevin J]

Is there anything we can wrap around a Perseus that can make a good fighter?

Perhaps a Perseus powered Whirlwind for use in the Far East?

 

[nuuumannn]

To illustrate the futility of attempting to up-engine the Skua/Roc airframe, let's make a basic comparison between the Defiant and the Skua/Roc. ( For sources, read to the bottom of this post) The Daffy Mk.I fully loaded, surprisingly weighed 8,350lb, the Skua weighed 8,124lb, the Roc, 7,950lb.

Dimensionally, the Daffy reads as follows: span 39ft 4in, length 35ft 4in, height: 12ft 2in, wing area 250sq ft. The Skua and Roc: span 46ft 2in, Roc 46ft 0in, length 35ft 7in, height 12ft 1 in, Skua slightly higher owing to taller radio aerial.

The Defiant I was powered by a single 1,030hp Merlin III, the Mk.II a 1,260hp Merlin XX. Both the Roc and Skua II were powered by a single 890hp Perseus XII.

Performance wise the Defiant Mk.I recorded a maximum speed of 303mph at 16,500ft and 250mph at sea level, the Defiant II, 315mph at 16,500ft. Cruise speed was 175mph at 15,000ft, climb was 1,900ft/min and ceiling was 30,350ft, range 465mph.

The Skua's maximum speed was 225mph at 15,000ft, sea level speed was 204mph. Economic cruise speed was 114mph, max cruise 187mph. Climb was 1,580ft/min, ceiling 20,200ft and range 435 miles.

The Roc's maximum speed was 223mph at 10,000ft, sea level speed 194mph, cruise speed 135mph, climb 1,500ft/min, ceiling 18,000ft, maximum range 810 miles.

So, this illustrates basic data and gives an indication of what our up-engined Skua and Roc might be able to achieve, although I doubt it could even match the Defiant. Summing it up, at a heavier weight than both types, the Defiant was faster by a wide margin, not unexpectedly, it's engine had more horsepower and cylinders than the Skua and Roc and it was physically smaller.

By 1941 however, the Hawker Hurricane Mk.I, with a maximum speed of 316mph at 17,500ft is considered too slow and the aircraft is obsolescent, so the Daffy's performance as a fighter is also the same. Fitting a more powerful engine to the Skua/Roc airframe is going to give it better performance, granted, but it isn't going to be any better than the Defiant owing to the fact that both aircraft are physically larger than the Daffy for starters.

The Skua and Roc did not accelerate well and neither handled like a fighter. Both had severe spinning characteristics and aircraft were lost having entered a spin. Neither were particularly aerobatic and they required lots of height to carry them out, if coaxed into manoeuvring. By contrast, the Defiant was described as almost viceless to fly and was easy to aerobat.

Sources: Aircraft of the Royal Air Force since 1918, Owen Thetford, Putnam, 1988, Blackburn Aircraft since 1909, A.J. Jackson, Putnam, 1988.

I'll put up some pilot's reports on flying the Skua soon.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Perhaps a Perseus powered Whirlwind for use in the Far East?

The Perseus was the intended engine for the Bristol Type 148 two seater. Did Bristol do any better than Blackburn on the aerodynamics?

Perhaps a single-seat 148 was the Perseus' best chance to find a useful fighter application.

 

[nuuumannn]

Perhaps a single-seat 138 was the Perseus' best chance to find a useful fighter application.

The Bristol 138 was a single-seater. it was a high altitude research airframe. Not gonna make a good fighter.

Wasting time trying to make the Perseus a fighter engine. The Mercury was the Bristol fighter engine of choice of that power output. If the Perseus could have been put in a fighter, why did Gloster not use it in the Gladiator? Look at what the Perseus was fitted to compared to the Mercury. The only single-seat fighter the Perseus was fitted to was the Bristol Bulldog and that was for trials, although the Mercury was also fitted to the same airframe and put into production.

 

[Admiral Beez]

The Bristol 138 was a single-seater.

You were too quick for me, I meant the 148, pictured above.

 

[Shortround6]

Is there anything we can wrap around a Perseus that can make a good fighter?

In a word............NO!

Perseus
24.9 liter 9 cylinder radial 55.3 in diameter.

Wright R-1820G200
29.88 liter 9 cylinder radial 55.1 in diameter.

You have to have been hitting the Sleeve valve kool-aid pretty hard (and often) to believe that the Perseus at 905hp at 6500ft was going to give you anything but a target for the enemy when planes powered by the Cyclone (most with 2 speed supercharger) and 1200hp at 4200ft or 1000hp at 14,200ft were not considered first line aircraft (Martlets, Buffaloes and Mohawks). The Cyclone had about a 20% greater displacement, The Perseus is going to need to turn either 20% more rpm or use more boost or both.


Now compare the cowl of a Cyclone powered Martlet, Buffalo or Mohawk to the gawd awful contraption stuck on the nose of the poor innocent plane in the pictures above.

 

[RCAFson]

To illustrate the futility of attempting to up-engine the Skua/Roc airframe, let's make a basic comparison between the Defiant and the Skua/Roc. ( For sources, read to the bottom of this post) The Daffy Mk.I fully loaded, surprisingly weighed 8,350lb, the Skua weighed 8,124lb, the Roc, 7,950lb.

Dimensionally, the Daffy reads as follows: span 39ft 4in, length 35ft 4in, height: 12ft 2in, wing area 250sq ft. The Skua and Roc: span 46ft 2in, Roc 46ft 0in, length 35ft 7in, height 12ft 1 in, Skua slightly higher owing to taller radio aerial.

The Defiant I was powered by a single 1,030hp Merlin III, the Mk.II a 1,260hp Merlin XX. Both the Roc and Skua II were powered by a single 890hp Perseus XII.

Performance wise the Defiant Mk.I recorded a maximum speed of 303mph at 16,500ft and 250mph at sea level, the Defiant II, 315mph at 16,500ft. Cruise speed was 175mph at 15,000ft, climb was 1,900ft/min and ceiling was 30,350ft, range 465mph.

The Skua's maximum speed was 225mph at 15,000ft, sea level speed was 204mph. Economic cruise speed was 114mph, max cruise 187mph. Climb was 1,580ft/min, ceiling 20,200ft and range 435 miles.

The Roc's maximum speed was 223mph at 10,000ft, sea level speed 194mph, cruise speed 135mph, climb 1,500ft/min, ceiling 18,000ft, maximum range 810 miles.

So, this illustrates basic data and gives an indication of what our up-engined Skua and Roc might be able to achieve, although I doubt it could even match the Defiant. Summing it up, at a heavier weight than both types, the Defiant was faster by a wide margin, not unexpectedly, it's engine had more horsepower and cylinders than the Skua and Roc and it was physically smaller.

By 1941 however, the Hawker Hurricane Mk.I, with a maximum speed of 316mph at 17,500ft is considered too slow and the aircraft is obsolescent, so the Daffy's performance as a fighter is also the same. Fitting a more powerful engine to the Skua/Roc airframe is going to give it better performance, granted, but it isn't going to be any better than the Defiant owing to the fact that both aircraft are physically larger than the Daffy for starters.

The Skua and Roc did not accelerate well and neither handled like a fighter. Both had severe spinning characteristics and aircraft were lost having entered a spin. Neither were particularly aerobatic and they required lots of height to carry them out, if coaxed into manoeuvring. By contrast, the Defiant was described as almost viceless to fly and was easy to aerobat.

Sources: Aircraft of the Royal Air Force since 1918, Owen Thetford, Putnam, 1988, Blackburn Aircraft since 1909, A.J. Jackson, Putnam, 1988.

I'll put up some pilot's reports on flying the Skua soon.

Flying to the Limit, gives some data on the Defiant (see below) and on the Skua, which was stated to have a Vmax of 225mph at SL. Caygill draws his data directly from archival test reports.
The Skua had 905hp at max overboost at ~7kft. Vmax was clean was ~230mph at ~7kft, and about 210-220mph at SL. Time to 10k ft was 12.17 min using rated climb power at max weight.
Defiant 1 speed was 313 at 10K ft with 12lb boost (1310hp) but this fell to 299mph at 6500ft and 280mph at SL. Time to 10K ft was 6.7min boost not stated.
Defiant testing was done with only 104IG of fuel. Full fuel added ~450lb and climb would have suffered.

Skua range was 640nm at 135 knots with 163IG.

 

[MiTasol]

I seem to remember Napier receiving some materials technology from Bristol to improve the Sabre's sleeve valves. I can't remember where I read about it

Whenever I see a sleeve valve system demonstrated it looks rather over complicated, with too many bits of metal sliding up and down relative to each other!

I had the good fortune/misfortune to work on Bristol Hercules engines in the early 60s and the valve mechanism is far simpler than any poppet valve engine. That said the gear train to operate the sleeve valves was a freaking nightmare, lots of small cogs that had to be in exactly the right position to ensure that the sleeve drive crank was operating at the correct position in relation to the piston.
There was a promo that Bristol did that compared the number of parts in a Pegasus valve system with the Herc sleeve valve system. They left out the gear train and the cam drum and drive. Put them in and the comparison would be totally different.

I have no idea on how the Sabre sleeves were driven but my guess it was as complex as the Bristol system.

 

[RCAFson]

In a word............NO!

Perseus
24.9 liter 9 cylinder radial 55.3 in diameter.

Wright R-1820G200
29.88 liter 9 cylinder radial 55.1 in diameter.

You have to have been hitting the Sleeve valve kool-aid pretty hard (and often) to believe that the Perseus at 905hp at 6500ft was going to give you anything but a target for the enemy when planes powered by the Cyclone (most with 2 speed supercharger) and 1200hp at 4200ft or 1000hp at 14,200ft were not considered first line aircraft (Martlets, Buffaloes and Mohawks). The Cyclone had about a 20% greater displacement, The Perseus is going to need to turn either 20% more rpm or use more boost or both.


Now compare the cowl of a Cyclone powered Martlet, Buffalo or Mohawk to the gawd awful contraption stuck on the nose of the poor innocent plane in the pictures above.

The (1520in3) Pereus XII produced 905lb at 6500ft @ 2750rpm with 2.5lb boost. IIRC, R-1820G200 pulled about 7.5lb of boost at 2500rpm. There might be some room left for increased boost in the Perseus.

 

[Kevin J]

Perhaps a Perseus powered Whirlwind for use in the Far East?

Surely if you can get 905 HP out of a Perseus an 1400 HP from a Hercules in 1939 then since you get 1670 HP out of a Hercules in 1942 you should get 1080 HP out of a Perseus. IIRC the F.9/37 did about 330 mph when powered by either the de-rated 900 HP Taurus or the Peregrine I. So surely the Perseus powered Whirlwind would do about 390 mph in 1942? I think I've dreamt up the perfect Zero killer for the Far East and Pacific, would you not agree? I deserve top marks for this. We simply put the wrong engine in the Whirlwind.

 

[Kevin J]

Perhaps a Perseus powered Whirlwind for use in the Far East?

Surely if you can get 905 HP out of a Perseus an 1400 HP from a Hercules in 1939 then since you get 1670 HP out of a Hercules in 1942 you should get 1080 HP out of a Perseus. IIRC the F.9/37 did about 330 mph when powered by either the de-rated 900 HP Taurus or the Peregrine I. So surely the Perseus powered Whirlwind would do about 390 mph in 1942? I think I've dreamt up the perfect Zero killer for the Far East and Pacific, would you not agree? 0⃣ I deserve top marks for this.

 

[tomo pauk]

Is there anything we can wrap around a Perseus that can make a good fighter?

If 300 mph is wanted/needed - Polikarpov I-16.

 

[swampyankee]

If 300 mph is wanted/needed - Polikarpov I-16.

By the time of the Roc, the I-16 was past its use-by date.

 

[tomo pauk]

By the time of the Roc, the I-16 was past its use-by date.

I'm not sure that was the case.

 

[Shortround6]

Surely if you can get 905 HP out of a Perseus an 1400 HP from a Hercules in 1939 then since you get 1670 HP out of a Hercules in 1942 you should get 1080 HP out of a Perseus.

And by late 1942 the R-1820 was offering 1300hp and in 1943 went to 1350hp.
BTW the R-1820 in the FM-2 Wildcats was good for 1000hp Military power at 17,000ft.

If 300 mph is wanted/needed - Polikarpov I-16.

Most I-16s (and all the ones from the mid 30s on) used Russian built R-1820s or descended from them. And please note that the 3 fighters I quoted as using the R-1820 all were 290-310mph fighters.

By the time of the Roc, the I-16 was past its use-by date.

I'm not sure that was the case.

It would have been if you stuck an engine with 100hp less in the nose

Timing, Gentlemen, timing. And two speed superchargers, which the Perseus never got. Perhaps it should have???

Best Perseus at altitude was the Perseus X with 880hp at 15,500ft on 87 octane. Fitted to Early Bothas. Unfortunately,like the Merlin III, it had to be throttled down the closer you got to the ground until the engine offered 750hp for take-off. 100 octane would improve things at low altitude. Perseus used a 165mm (6.5in) stroke which meant it had a 2979 fpm piston speed at 2750rpm so it was already turning fairly high rpm for it's time. And pease gentlemen, 1-2 years was large amount of time in late 30s and during WWII for engine and aircraft development.

Later Bothas got the Perseus Xa with different supercharger gear, much more power at take-off and low altitude but less power at altitude. While the early Bothas were 800lbs lighter (not due to the engines) they were credited with a speed of 253mph at 15,000ft (how true I don't know) but the same source claims 220mph at 15,000 with the Perseus Xa engines and 800lbs more weight. Rate of climb was roughly 1/2 with the new engine at 15,000ft although at 5,000ft it was 20% better.

The Perseus was just too small (displacement) and bit too late to compete as a fighter engine.