Wild_Bill_Kelso
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,231
- Mar 18, 2022
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And...AGAIN, it would be a LOT of effort. I keep telling you that it would be a lot of effort and you keep coming back and questioning whether it would be. Trust me...it would be a LOT of effort. You can't make a large change to something like the wing without there being a lot of knock-on consequences for other aspects of the design. IT IS A MAJOR CHANGE THAT WOULD DRIVE REDESIGN OF ALMOST ALL THE REST OF THE AIRFRAME.
The same can be said, I think, for putting a 70' wing on a 'similar airframe' plus two merlins, but they seem to have done that fairly quickly.
Aside from the Spitfire 21, off the top of my head, they increased the wing size of the B-26 rather quickly. F4F went from non-folding to folding wings pretty quickly. A6M was made with shorter wings for the A6M3 in time to participate on the war. The British version of the Corsair had smaller wings.
Wings were redesigned for the Ju 88 had it's wing span increased between the A-1 and A-4 and A-5 versions, and both the Ju 88 and the Pe 2 to strengthen them for dive bombing (in both cases rather hastily), and the Ju 88C also had enlarged wings.
And the Spitfire had wings which could be modified for high (extended) or low (cropped) altitude configurations
Aside from internal strengthening for dive bombing (which seems pretty substantial), in most cases this was just either lengthening or shortening the wings. So I know that is not as involved in terms of knock on effects and so forth as actually changing the shape of the wing. The first (pretty famous) example which comes to mind where a wing shape is substantially changed is the Tempest (originally Typhoon Mk II, interestingly enough), as distinct from it's 'cousin' the Typhoon. The Tempest had a fairly long development but the new wing seems to have been designed rather quickly. According to the Wiki, engineers were assigned to look into the NACA laminar flow wing in March 1940, they got a specification in March 1941 and the prototype flew in November 1941.
Subsequent delays were down to the various engines, not the wing so much as far as I can tell.
I love what you have done with the drawings!!! I am planning on building a 74" wingspan rc model and it gives me some ideas on a paint scheme!!!Some purely FICTIONAL versions drawn up years ago:
View attachment 711086
View attachment 711087
And some alternate users (and developments):
View attachment 711088
Wings were redesigned for the Ju 88 had it's wing span increased between the A-1 and A-4 and A-5 versions, and both the Ju 88 and the Pe 2 to strengthen them for dive bombing (in both cases rather hastily), and the Ju 88C also had enlarged wings.
Actually, the one on floats seems very possible, especially with the high stabiliser.Some purely FICTIONAL versions drawn up years ago:
View attachment 711086
View attachment 711087
And some alternate users (and developments):
View attachment 711088
If I can add one comment that supports this. We were taught when being trained as an artificer that weight grows incredibly.And...AGAIN, it would be a LOT of effort. I keep telling you that it would be a lot of effort and you keep coming back and questioning whether it would be. Trust me...it would be a LOT of effort. You can't make a large change to something like the wing without there being a lot of knock-on consequences for other aspects of the design. IT IS A MAJOR CHANGE THAT WOULD DRIVE REDESIGN OF ALMOST ALL THE REST OF THE AIRFRAME.
If I can add one comment that supports this. We were taught when being trained as an artificer that weight grows incredibly.
As a rule of thumb, if you add a pound in empty weight to an aircraft and want to keep exactly the same performance in every way, it actually added 10 pounds to the weight.
View attachment 711105
The longer wings on the JU-88 were developed for the A-4 but due to delays with the engines they started making the A-5s with the bigger wings and the engines from the A-1s.
The early Ju-88Cs had the short wings and the later Ju-88cs got the same longer wings (outer panels) as the A-4/5 got.
Not sure if there was any reinforcement of the innner wings but if not, all of the changes were outboard from the joint that started the Ailerons.
View attachment 711106
Note the Break in both the leading edge and the trailing edge and on the Ju-88s they just extended the wing tips using the same angles and extended the ailerons.
You can play a few games with exact center of lift but most of the change is pretty close to the center of wing as it was.
The Martin B-26 was similar, the leading edge stayed the same. The Trailing edge from about the engine nacelle outboard was changed and about an extra 3 feet was added to each side and the cord was increased a bit as the wing got further out.
View attachment 711107
Note the short span in the center of the drawing. No kink at all in the wing trailing edge, also the different ailerons and also note that they changed the flaps (added them outboard of the engine nacelles) to handle the higher speeds, increased weight. More changes than the Ju-88 had.
You can usually make a few parts thicker without changing to much else.
When you start changing airfoils or cords or number of spars things get complicated real quick. You are not adding a hinge point and local reinforcing, you are tossing most of the wing (all of it?) and the tooling and starting over. F4F with a folding wing flew about the same as the non folder ( a little heavier) and stall the same and you could make a large percentage of the wing parts using the same tooling.
Hawker Tempest didn't fly the same as a Typhoon (different stall for one thing) and you needed mostly new tooling to build the wing.
What about when they strengthened wings for dive bombing? that sounds like it would be pretty involved
Rule one is KISS
I would recommend we go back to Petters proposed solution as that is by far the simplest. Fit Merlins with short four blade props and move assorted heavy components like batteries and radios rearward.
Add to that better radiators with pilot control of the radiator shutters, delete the outboard slats and fit more fuel outboard and some behind the cockpit.
End result is a basically prove airframe with lots more power and probably a significant improvement in climb and altitude and less improvement in speed
Except now you have hundreds of pounds more weight (per engine) well in front of the center of gravity.If you use the power egg that was used on the Beaufighter and Lancaster you could add fuel to the inner wings as well.
Except now you have hundreds of pounds more weight (per engine) well in front of the center of gravity.
You might as well swap the Peregrine engines for Hercules engines, or buy American and stick Wright R-2600s on it
You missed a couple dates for Tempest: Laminar flow investigation - March '40, Specification March '41, Contract Nov '41, 1st flight Sept '42, 1st production Jun '43, Introduction to service Jan '44. Almost 48 months from investigation to in service.The same can be said, I think, for putting a 70' wing on a 'similar airframe' plus two merlins, but they seem to have done that fairly quickly.
Aside from the Spitfire 21, off the top of my head, they increased the wing size of the B-26 rather quickly. F4F went from non-folding to folding wings pretty quickly. A6M was made with shorter wings for the A6M3 in time to participate on the war. The British version of the Corsair had smaller wings.
Wings were redesigned for the Ju 88 had it's wing span increased between the A-1 and A-4 and A-5 versions, and both the Ju 88 and the Pe 2 to strengthen them for dive bombing (in both cases rather hastily), and the Ju 88C also had enlarged wings.
And the Spitfire had wings which could be modified for high (extended) or low (cropped) altitude configurations
Aside from internal strengthening for dive bombing (which seems pretty substantial), in most cases this was just either lengthening or shortening the wings. So I know that is not as involved in terms of knock on effects and so forth as actually changing the shape of the wing. The first (pretty famous) example which comes to mind where a wing shape is substantially changed is the Tempest (originally Typhoon Mk II, interestingly enough), as distinct from it's 'cousin' the Typhoon. The Tempest had a fairly long development but the new wing seems to have been designed rather quickly. According to the Wiki, engineers were assigned to look into the NACA laminar flow wing in March 1940, they got a specification in March 1941 and the prototype flew in November 1941.
Subsequent delays were down to the various engines, not the wing so much as far as I can tell.
Except now you have hundreds of pounds more weight (per engine) well in front of the center of gravity.
You might as well swap the Peregrine engines for Hercules engines, or buy American and stick Wright R-2600s on it
Wasn't Petter just planning to implement Merlin XX? For which have had lengths more/less equal at 73.6" for Peregine Mk.1 vs 71" for Merlin Mk XX, height of 41" for both and 27.1 vs 29.8, so 2.7" width, (2 stage Merlins are 15" longer, but he not planning Merlin 60 series at this point). Bare engine weight 1,140 vs. 1,450 lbs = 300lbs * 2 is still a lot.The Merlin is 15.1 ins longer than the Peregrine, and 3.7 ins wider...and 500 lb heavier. I struggle with the concept of moving enough weight aft to compensate for an additional 1000 lb or more ahead of the CofG. Petter was a brilliant engineer but it would be interesting to see how mature the Merlin Whirlwind concept was in reality.
Is suspect the real death-knell was economic. The Whirlwind consumed a lot more aluminium than a Spitfire (according to Wiki, three times more) and, of course, used up twice the number of engines without any promise of significant performance benefit over the Spit in terms of firepower or range.
RR decided the Peregrine had little or no future.
the last fixed wing aircraft that Westland built was the Wyvern a pretty aircraft but not a success.