Kevin J
Banned
What I'm saying is that a deck edge development of the Ark Royal is feasible in 1940.
Was single seat Firefly possible?
- Thread starter Admiral Beez
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Shortround6
Major General
Here is your 1940 deck edge elevator.
- Thread starter
- #23
Admiral Beez
Major
But what's that got to do with the feasibility of a single seat Firefly?
fubar57
General
Kevin J
Banned
Nothing.
fastmongrel
1st Sergeant
Not for an Ark Royal designed in 1934. The USS Wasp and the HMS Ark Royal were built in different ways. Wasp was designed so that all the strength was in the hull the hangar and flight deck were relatively lightweight non load bearing structures built on top of the main deck, you could theoretically have stripped Wasp of her upperworks and she would have been capable of sailing. Ark Royal was different the flight deck and hangars were part of the hull. Weaken the flight deck or hangar sides and you basically get a bendy ship the whole hull from keel to flight deck was a hollow girder. Weaken it by cutting overlarge holes in it and it would Hog, Sag and Warp.
Wasp had a wooden flight deck over a steel girder framework the hangars were simply sidewalls mounted to the flight deck supports. Ark Royals hangar sidewalls were part of the hull.
Ark Royal could only have narrow lifts and small ship handling cut outs in the hull, the situation was similar in the follow up Illustrious designs and the similar postwar Ark Royal and Eagle. It was why it was so expensive to modify the closed hangar strength girder post war to fit deck edge lifts, it was done but at the expense of strength, boat loads of money and very long rebuild times.
Its noticeable that WW2 USN aircraft carriers were less efficent in Northern Atlantic waters the much vaunted open hangars took in water and the maintenance crews got cold and wet working in the hangar. Deck edge lifts were not useable if the carrier was rolling more than a safe limit.
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- Thread starter
- #27
Admiral Beez
Major
For the single-seat or original dual seat Firefly Ark Royal's lifts are fine as they were.
Kevin J
Banned
Personally, I think you'd get a single seat Fulmar with a two stage Merlin into service quicker than a Firefly. Look how long it took to get a decent two seat Firefly.
When would you expect the Royal Navy to meet the Japanese on the high seas? What aircraft would you equip your extra carriers with? Even if you manage to achieve parity in numbers with the Japanese on carriers, Swordfish, Skuas and Fulmars are not a match with Kates, Vals and Zeroes. I believe the best thing the Royal Navy could do is stay far away from the Japanese Navy and fight the Japanese Navy with landbased aircraft like Boston's and Beaufighters.
Kevin J
Banned
I'd expect to have 3 Ark Royal type carriers with a deck edge lift ready for service 1940/41 for the Indian Ocean, with another 2 being delivered in 1942 for the Pacific Ocean. Equipment: fighters, Sea Hurricane Ib/c for 1940/41, and IIb/c for 1941/42; Scout / Dive-bomber, Fulmar II for 1941, Fulmar III for late 1942 with Merlin 32 so Pacific Ocean service in 1943; TBR, Swordfish for night attack, Albacore for radar equipped daytime recce. Any Seafires would be allocated to the armoured carriers if available. I'd expect carrier losses as the Americans lost 5 out of 7 in that period. The RN only needed to stay out of the way because it was numerically outnumbered in carriers. Perhaps 3 losses tops, maybe fewer as USN fighting IJN too.
There was a proposed single-seater proposed in lieu of the two-seater. From what I recall it weighed a considerable amount less and had a top-speed of around 382 mph. Increase the critical altitude to 20000 feet and you'd see an increase to 408 mph.
fubar57
General
These numbers are for a "proposed" aircraft? You can make up any number you want for a "proposed" aircraft
Shortround6
Major General
fubar57
General
"In February 1942, during a Firefly progress meeting at Air Ministry, the idea of a single seat version of the Firefly with the more powerful Rolls-Royce 1980 hp Griffon engine was raised. The Admiralty was not interested, saying that the Firefly's potential lay in its two-seat strike role........" Fairey Firefly in action by W.A. Harrison - 2006
wuzak
Captain
If you want a single seat Griffon carrier fighter, why not base it on the Spitfire? New folding wings with stronger undercarriage better suited to carrier use.
swampyankee
Chief Master Sergeant
- 4,020
- Jun 25, 2013
The USN, according to an article by, of I recall, Friedman, had problems with deck edge lifts being damaged in the North Atlantic, at least on the Midway class ships. The RN's experience was probably similar.
Kevin J
Banned
The RN didn't have deck edge lifts until after WW2.
That's why I was trying to figure out how to extrapolate weight changes with the same engine-power: I figured if I could calculate the numbers and get an answer.
It's a bit more complicated as the smaller version had a smaller wing of 292 ft^2, and a smaller wingspan, I'd have to do a look for it.
Shortround6
Major General
You can't, not simply anyway.
Speed is power (thrust) vs drag.
weight, unless it is accompanied by drag producing items like protruding gun barrels, ejection slots, extra radio antennas, or some other physical protuberance or drag producing slot/hole doesn't make much difference to a fast airplane.
As a general rule of thumb the lift a wing generates goes up with the square of the speed. Assuming the change in weight was internal ballast (or internal fuel) then.................
A given wing needs a large speed difference near 200mph to generate the needed lift (or higher angle of attack creating moe drag and needing more power) for a given change in weight than the same wing would need at around 400mph (it is in theory making 4 times the lift at the same angle of incidence/attack). planes flying at 400mph use a lower angle of incidence/attack than slower flying airplanes (or the same plane flying at a lower speed.)
Some sources claim that increasing the weight of a clean Mustang by 1000lbs only changed the top speed by 3mph.
Too often weight was blamed for loss of performance in older books. It was easier to write than trying to apportion drag.
Look at the Spitfire, 6mph lost due to external BP windscreen, when the BP glass was placed inside the windscreen the speed was restored even though the extra weight was still there. Not that the BP glass weighed that much on it's own. A lot of older books on the Spitfire fail to mention the IFF gear AND the IFF antennas. Or if the mention the IFF gear they blame the increase weight for performance loss and not the aerials.
On this version of IFF there was an aerial on both sides of plane running from the roundel to the horizontal stabilizer.
each plane is going to show a different change in speed for the same increase in weight depending on the airfoil used and the speed range being considered.
Read my post again. I'll put the question up and just for clarification I was talking about a single-seat Fulmar [in brackets], which did not exist, so US fighters would have been very much in service by the time one had been engineered from the original and entered service.
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