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That wouldn't have applied to the Vc early Seafires, though.As far as the later Spitfires needing the raked forward landing gear for the cannon? I think it might have had something to do with heavier 2 stage engines and the larger, heavier propeller hanging off the nose.
...while the frontal area is less than a conventional twin they a lot more surface area creating friction and drag and you have to build two fuselages instead of one fuselage and two engine nacelles.
They may actually be heavier than a conventional twin or at best not any lighter.
While you may have the tooling in place, if you can't build the single fuselage fighters fast enough building twin fuselage machines is only going to cut your total fighter production.
It is debatable as to wither their rolling performance is better or worse than a conventional twin.
If you are going to have twin cockpits (nice for night fighters and very long range escorts) the extra weight and volume will count against it compared to a true single seat twin engine fighter.
Those cannon are going to shorten the prop blades a bit unless there was some synchronizationI'd prefer Supermarine makes this cannon armed fighter than the twin Spit.
http://gallery.kitmaker.net/data/18160/13.jpg
http://gallery.kitmaker.net/data/18160/14.jpg
Supermarine type 327 image by Mark12 on Photobucket
Those cannon are going to shorten the prop blades a bit unless there was some synchronization
Yesterday, I had a look in the government files, in our National Archives, and found the following. There was never a plan to fit Merlins to a Mk.II, because they simply would not fit; the Whirlwind was designed around the Peregrine to be as small as possible. There was even talk of trying to find an American engine that would fit.
The biggest problem was the Peregrine; the original specification called for a maximum ceiling of (at least) 30,000', but the Whirlwind could barely reach 25,000', where its fighting qualities tailed off dramatically. The engine needed to be able to use 100 octane, but had only been designed for 87, so would need a lot of further development, and Rolls-Royce simply didn't have the capacity.
Edgar
they were running out of airframes and engines by 43, the surviving aircraft from 263 squadron who were being re-equiped were passed on to keep the 137 squadron going, (think thats the right way round)
Hi
SNIP
I have corresponded with an ex westland employee in the USA who was on the design team in 1939/40 who designed the fitting of early merlins to the whirlwind.
Again in 1941 menesforth offered the whirlwind with merlin XX engines 'after sorting out undercarriage retraction issues'
So the manuafcturer at least believed the whirlwind airframe could take merlins..
SNIP
I have still personally not convinced myself which American engine was used in the 1940 proposal, ( when the peregrine production was cancelled ).
Cheers
Jerry