Westland Whirlwind alternative engines?

Greyman said:

Mason had this to say in his Hurricane book:

... despite a complete absence of spare parts, most survived to see operational service in the Continuation War ... They were employed principally for interception duties owing to their lack of range, but are generally remembered by the Finnish pilots with affection, who judged them to be their best fighters until the arrival of new German aircraft. They gained a number of victories over Soviet aircraft in the early months of that war and none was ever lost in air combat.

Click to expand...

Where on Earth did Mason get that fertilizer? Not a single Finnish source supports Mason or Chorlton.

Trilisser said:

That is the R-R way to save face.

Click to expand...

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

You seem to do a lot of Rolls Royce bashing but a look at some Facts by Rolls Royce shows that a Hurricane II at 30,000ft was getting 778hp to the prop. it was getting 89hp from exhaust thrust. The power from thrust varies with the speed so while climbing the actual power is less.
Now I would say that over 80 extra hp (and peak of 126hp) anywhere from 15,000ft to over 30,000ft for the investment of 30-40 lbs of manifold is a pretty good return.

Blaming RR for NOT building turbos is also a bit harsh. P&W, Wright and Allison never built a turbo than went on a production engine. What they did in an experimantal shop I have no idea but they probably had more work than they could handle to fool around much with their own turbos (they did work on their own compressors)

ALL US turbos came from General Electric.

General Electric also could NOT build turbos in mass production until the casting of the turbine blades was worked out. This happened, just about in the nick of time, when someone ( I forget who but he was famous in engine circles) noted that the the materials in turbine blades was very close to the materials used in some dentures/false teeth and that by using the technology the dental industry used precision castings of the blades could be done.

Everybody praises the German direct fuel injection but few want to actually consider it's faults.
1. RR got a drop of 25 degrees C in the intake due to the fuel vaporization in the supercharger and manifolds. This allowed for slightly higher boost pressure to be used.
2. The German fuel injection as used did not allow for running extra rich and using the extra fuel as coolant allowing for higher boost.
3. The German fuel injection as used did not allow fro running extra lean and allow for long range flights in non-combat environments.
4. The German fuel injection used many more parts than the British carburetors. RR did not make their own carbs, they bought them form an outside vendor, so did the American engine makers.
Who was going to make the direct Fuel injection systems for the British and what else was NOT going to get made?

Perhaps RR glosses over the last part a bit easily but it is a very real concern to the British.

I would also bet a bit more careful in comparing the RR Meteor to diesel tank engines. Yes the British held onto it for too long but comparing a 1943 engine to 1950/60 diesels doesn't paint a fair picture either. The US for all it's industrial power, didn't switch to diesels in it's medium tanks until the late 50s and was still running gas engines in the older models into the 60s.

Once you have a power pack for a tank you have to be careful about changing it. Taking out a 2400rpm engine and replacing it with an 1800rpm engine for instance, even of the same horse power, will lower the top speed in each gear by 25% unless you change the final drive ratios. If you change the final drive ratios hopefully the new engine makes similar torque once multiplied by the gear ratios.

It also helps if the existing gear box/steering gear hand handle the power of the new engine. Otherwise you are replacing everything at a much greater cost. And that brings us to a final point.

RR was in business to make money, They were going to build what the customer wanted/would pay for. If RR offered and improvement but it was costly the customer (British Government?) might decide to keep the old engine or arrangement.

Shortround6 said:

RR was in business to make money, They were going to build what the customer wanted/would pay for. If RR offered and improvement but it was costly the customer (British Government?) might decide to keep the old engine or arrangement.

Click to expand...

The British government, in the shape of the Air Ministry, was the only customer for Rolls Royce aero engines in the 1930s. In 1930 Rolls Royce produced 122 engines and initial expansion, to 1,182 in 1935, was based entirely on the Kestrel and almost exclusively for the Air Ministry.

By the time that Scheme L was approved in April 1938 Rolls Royce had spent about £750,000 of its own money on rearmament. When the company failed to find an alternative site for its motor car division in Derby a new factory for aero engines in Crewe was suggested, but the company did not feel that it could pay for it. Financial liability for the Crewe factory was accepted by the Air Ministry, which is close to nationalisation without calling it that.

Cheers

Steve

Trilisser said:

"...allowed an experienced pilot to land in a shorter distance than either the Spitfire or Hurricane."

Click to expand...

Going out on a limb - I'd hazard a guess they found a way around the criticisms the A&AEE had on the Whirlwind's landing:

2.7 Landing. The landing is unsatisfactory. The tail cannot be brought down for a three-point landing although the control column is fully back much before the normal "flattening out" period is completed. The aeroplane lands heavily on its front wheels, and bounds along, and thus full use of the breaks cannot be made for the first part of the landing run.

The men flying and maintaining their Whirlwinds (for years) really got their rides down to a science to an impressive extent. I think it would be a mistake to cater only to what experienced pilots could do with the aircraft.

Trilisser said:

Where on Earth did Mason get that fertilizer? Not a single Finnish source supports Mason or Chorlton.

Click to expand...

Do you have any other information on this aside from a single Finnish veteran letting us know the Hurricane control response wasn't flawless? That said - why do I get the impression that any positive feedback the Finnish pilots had on the Hurrie will be swept under the rug ...

Greyman said:

Going out on a limb - I'd hazard a guess they found a way around the criticisms the A&AEE had on the Whirlwind's landing:

Click to expand...

One of the many problems that plagued the type was tail wheel failures (at least until a new oleo was introduced). Pure conjecture, but given the A&AEE report, maybe that was due to something the pilots were doing to get the tail down.

Incidentally, Harris did not share the RAF/Air Ministry conviction that a low landing speed was required for aircraft operating at night and disagreed with Dowding on this issue. He thought that the Whirlwind might make a decent stop gap night fighter, but at a time when nobody really knew what a night fighter should be.

"...I have never yet met an aircraft that can be safely flown by day that cannot be safely and easily flown by night, once the pilots can night fly properly on any type."

This did NOT reflect RAF doctrine of the time, which was more accurately reflected by Dowding's view. Harris was never one for toeing any line, and almost always said what he thought, so it is hardly surprising to find him at odds with official policy.

Cheers

Steve

Isnt there a difference between a night time landing and a night time landing at war?

SR6:

1. I am not bashing R-R per se, but I just find it interesting that e.g. Maybach, who had basically monopoly on tank engines in Germany, defended its petrol engines with thetoric very similar to R-R's. This despite that by that time the Russian V-2 was being applauded by German tank experts.

Just like in German literature it is fashionable to bash turbocharging exactly like R-R folks do. So is it a coincidence that representatives of nations (German, British) that failed to bring turbochargers to wider service use are so keen to bash thr technology, just like British and Americans failing to introduce direct injection tend to bash it.

2. As for the negative aspects of direct injection, it might be worth noting that Russians adopted it for the Ash-82 and the most powerful models of the Mitsubishi Kinsei had direct injection too.

I agree that the available data suggests that for long-range cruising German engines are at a disadvantage. However, is that caused by the fuel system as such? As far as I know, even the carburettor-fueled Argus engines did not allow for manual leaning.

As for the "boost boosting" via overrich mixture, the BMW 801 at least ran pretty rich at Notleistung, though nowhere as rich as American radials. And frankly, I consider ADI a much more refined way to do it.

Greyman said:

Do you have any other information on this aside from a single Finnish veteran letting us know the Hurricane control response wasn't flawless? That said - why do I get the impression that any positive feedback the Finnish pilots had on the Hurrie will be swept under the rug ...

Click to expand...

The problem is that finding that data would probably require digging in the archives. The most authoritative published book dealing with Finnish experiences of various wartime fighters is Jukka Raunio's Lentäjän näkökulma 2. Raunio is an aircraft engineer (Dipl. Ing.) by profession. And that book does not hail the HC like Brits do. It was, however, found to be an easy aircraft to fly. But not on par with the Curtiss Hawk or the Buffalo.

Some information could be found in HC pilots' combat reports, but again that would need archival digging: many combat reports have been published in Kari Stenman's books, but for some reason Herr Stenman's policy has been to publish only the combat narrative section and leave out the section dealing with enemy and technical observations.

To put things into perspective:

-11 Finnish Hurricane averaged 101 hours and claimed a total of 5.5 victories
-30 Gladiators averaged 177 hours with a total of 38 claims; most GL use was recce
-Fokker D.XXI achieved 187 claims averaging 345 hours
-and the most difficult FAF fighter to keep flying, the Fiat G.50 (35 of them) achieved 99 claims while averaging 233 hours

Start digging then....lay the proof on us, that's what we are here for. You are giving us one man's opinion

pbehn said:

Isnt there a difference between a night time landing and a night time landing at war?

Click to expand...

Black out.

A certain Group Captain A T Harris was Deputy Director of Operations and Intelligence in 1934, and it was he who drew the attention of the Chiefs of the Air Staff to the lack of 'modern' features like retractable undercarriage, enclosed cockpits and landing flaps on many designs being submitted in October of that year. He was well aware of the advantages that such devices could provide.

Cheers

Steve

fubar57 said:

Start digging then....lay the proof on us, that's what we are here for. You are giving us one man's opinion

Click to expand...

Hah! If you pay me all the expenses incurred, then ok. Just to please you I won't drive 1100 km, won't pay hotel bills etc.

fubar57 said:

Start digging then....lay the proof on us, that's what we are here for. You are giving us one man's opinion

Click to expand...

If you pay all the expenses incurred, fine. The archives are 500 km from me, and I won't pay one cent just to satisfy your curiosity.

stona said:

Black out.

A certain Group Captain A T Harris was Deputy Director of Operations and Intelligence in 1934, and it was he who drew the attention of the Chiefs of the Air Staff to the lack of 'modern' features like retractable undercarriage, enclosed cockpits and landing flaps on many designs being submitted in October of that year. He was well aware of the advantages that such devices could provide.

Cheers

Steve

Click to expand...

Who is atharris? I know an A. T. Harris, but atharris I don't.

Trilisser said:

Where on Earth did Mason get that fertilizer? Not a single Finnish source supports Mason or Chorlton.

Click to expand...

LMAO...you say this fertilizer yet you don't have sources to support it. Just because you are from Finland does not automatically make you correct. Sources or it didn't happen

Trilisser said:

Who is atharris? I know an A. T. Harris, but atharris I don't.

Click to expand...

WTF are you reading the posts on? In both my post and quote in your reply it is clearly A T Harris.

Cheers

Steve

Shortround6 said:

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Blaming RR for NOT building turbos is also a bit harsh. P&W, Wright and Allison never built a turbo than went on a production engine. What they did in an experimental shop I have no idea but they probably had more work than they could handle to fool around much with their own turbos (they did work on their own compressors)

ALL US turbos came from General Electric.

Click to expand...

Sanford Moss at GE seems to have perfected the turbocharger almost single handed.

Supercharger Development in the U.S. During the Inter-War Period

Both Bristol and RR had developed turbocharged engines, but they were clearly not up to mass production. And yes I do think it was the metallurgy that defeated them.

Rolls do seem to have had considerable expertise with heavy duty gear sets - both in supercharger drives and propellor reduction gears, so it is reasonable for them to have played to their own strengths. And yes they seem almost as good as Lockheed in persuading everyone else that their way is the best way

For another view on the Whirlwinds handling - how about Winkle Brown in "Wings of the Weird and Wonderful".

"All in all the Whirlwind could be said to be a contradiction of the dictum that 'if it looks good it should fly good'. Certainly I was profoundly disappointed with its handling qualities in all but single-engine flying.

The manoeuvrability of the Whirlwind was brought into question by the tendency to buffet badly in tight turns, and with a wing loading of 40lb/sq ft (195kg/m2) this was a crippling restriction. Also in dives from 25,000ft (7,620m) above 350mph (563km/h) a longitudinal pitching set in. If speed was allowed to increase there was a distinct loss of elevator effectiveness at 400mph (644km/h) at 15,000ft (4,572m) and a very strong pull force was required for recovery. These characteristics made the Whirlwind a poor bet as a fighter, so it was given a fighter-bomber role in service and and proved less than effective in that form.

The aircraft was not easy to land because speed had to be kept up to provide sufficient elevator control for hold-off. This therefore gave a long run-out - not the best characteristics for all weather operations."

Winkle makes clear that he wanted to like the Whirlwind, but was disappointed. His comments do explain why it was not used as a fighter, post BoB and why it was restricted to the number of airfields it could use.

I think castigating RR for not developing diesel tank engines is one of the sillier things I've seen on here. They didn't set out to design tank engines at all, they were in the business of building aero engines. The fact that the Merlin made a decent engine for a tank in the form of the Meteor was just a happy chance.

Why not have a go at them for not developing speed boat engines, it makes as much sense, or criticise Wright for not developing diesel tank engines.

ChrisMcD said:

Sanford Moss at GE seems to have perfected the turbocharger almost single handed.

Click to expand...

Aside from the 50 P-30s there were over 40 US aircraft equipped with turbochargers before 1940. So the US Army was at least putting a trickle of money into them for over 10 years, the P-30 being far from the first US fighters with turbos although the most numerous until the P-38.


The US army wanted turbos, it was willing to pay for turbos in small numbers over a period of years, It was promising to buy turbos in quantity once they were sorted out.

The British air ministry was doing none of those things so Rolls Royces "failure" to develop the turbo at their own expense needs reassessment.