MiTasol
2nd Lieutenant
True but equally true is the fact they would not have even existed if the USAAC/F had been making the decisions
Westland Whirlwind revisited
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It was a matter of great luck that the Mustang was ordered by the British and no one else at the start, as far as I can see NAA had a better relationship with the RAF than the US military.
Shortround6
Major General
They tried keeping the Vultee Vanguards too, Turned out to be not such a good idea
Admiral Beez
Captain
Given that (with the exception of the Audacious class that entered service in the 1950s) all the post-Illustrious/Implacable class carriers were slower, smaller CVL, I have to question why the twin engined Sea Hornet was pursued. The limitations you mention still apply to the Majestics, Colossuses and Centaurs.
Shortround6
Major General
You will have to ask the British.
Apparently they built 79 single seat Sea Hornets and issued them to one squadron (No 801) and were deployed to the Implacable in 1949, They were replaced by Sea Furies in June of of 1951.
They built 72 two seat night fighters, one squadron (No 809) was equipped with them and while the squadron used them for several years the time onboard carrier was brief, Not sure if there were two deployments to light fleet carriers and according to Wiki (correction welcome) it was found that the Sea Hornet was not suitable for use on the light fleet carriers. This was in 1952?
What they were thinking in 1944-46 I have no idea. 3 (?) were put on board the Magnificent in 1948 along with a few other aircraft for a North American tour.
There were 23 recon versions, Not going to say they never operated off a carrier but it doesn't seem like they were ever assigned to one.
A number of squadrons used them from shore bases for various roles.
The use at sea seems to have been rather limited?
Wild_Bill_Kelso
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,231
- Mar 18, 2022
Any kind of prop drive aircraft is in a race to relevance by around 1943 or so, as soon as it was clear that jet aircraft would indeed be viable - and much faster than propeller planes.
They did linger in naval service a good bit longer though. The Firefly and the Corsair were active in Korea, and AD were still being used in the Vietnam era.
They did linger in naval service a good bit longer though. The Firefly and the Corsair were active in Korea, and AD were still being used in the Vietnam era.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
It would be well into the 50's before naval jets were able to provide range and reliability to fully replace piston powered aircraft.
yulzari
Staff Sergeant
Whatever changes one might suggest, the raison d'etre of the Westland Whirlwind was a four cannon interceptor for the air defence of the United Kingdom. It was never planned to go to France and it was never planned for France to fall. For strategic reasons it required UK production and UK power plants. Range was not a critical item. Weight was.
Once you find you want to start changing the wings, changing the engines etc, and generally buggering up the centre of gravity you are looking at a new aeroplane. The Spitfire basically kept the same fuselage and wing throughout the war and its development. The Hurricane morphed into the Henley to try to make it a light bomber but it carried no more bombs than Hurricane II. Just more aeroplane following the same engine.
You can scheme a twin engined carrier fighter but it won't leave much left of a Whirlwind. Just as Westland did for a high altitude fighter which had nothing left of the Whirlwind. The key to a better Whirlwind is just that. A better Whirlwind. Tidy up the faults and upgrade the Peregrine.
The pilots liked it even though they were still flying a 1940 fighter barely six months before Overlord. Tidied up with upgraded Peregrines on increasingly better fuel it should manage the last 18 months of the war. They ought to know how good it was. Their lives depended upon it.
Once you find you want to start changing the wings, changing the engines etc, and generally buggering up the centre of gravity you are looking at a new aeroplane. The Spitfire basically kept the same fuselage and wing throughout the war and its development. The Hurricane morphed into the Henley to try to make it a light bomber but it carried no more bombs than Hurricane II. Just more aeroplane following the same engine.
You can scheme a twin engined carrier fighter but it won't leave much left of a Whirlwind. Just as Westland did for a high altitude fighter which had nothing left of the Whirlwind. The key to a better Whirlwind is just that. A better Whirlwind. Tidy up the faults and upgrade the Peregrine.
The pilots liked it even though they were still flying a 1940 fighter barely six months before Overlord. Tidied up with upgraded Peregrines on increasingly better fuel it should manage the last 18 months of the war. They ought to know how good it was. Their lives depended upon it.
Admiral Beez
Captain
I think a better Whirlwind is an earlier Whirlwind. Get into production sooner and in greater numbers so that there are a dozen or more frontline fighter squadrons by spring 1940.
Other than that, the Whirlwind needs more ammunition (belt fed cannons or if unavailable, swap in mgs?). The Whirlwind with its original spec Peregine and fuel load is more than capable of clearing the skies of twin engined Messerschmitts, Heinkels, Junkers and Dorniers.
Wild_Bill_Kelso
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,231
- Mar 18, 2022
it seems that it was pretty good, the problem is they stopped making Peregrines and the Peregrines had some problems (not fully sorted out). That's why all the speculation about merlins, hispano etc.
It is true that the British carriers of the 1930s carried less aviation fuel than their US counterparts in absolute terms, but that fails to take account of several things:-
1. The RN ships were intended to operate much closer to their worldwide network of ports so allowing much easier replenishment than the USN operating across the vast expanse of the Pacific. So less need to have such a large tankage.
2. RN standards of protection for the aviation fuel tanks were much higher than in the USN, courtesy of lessons learned from the loss of the seaplane carrier Ben-my-Chree in WW1.
3. US carriers were designed to carry more aircraft.
When you look at the carriers from the 1930s the US ships had roughly 35% more fuel per aircraft than the RN ships.
It is unfair to use the Essex class (designed in 1940) for comparison with either navy's 1930s ships. The early Essex carried about 30% more fuel than a Yorktown for the same number of aircraft. But it was designed around the prospect of a later generation of much thirstier aircraft (F4U, TBF, SB2C). In later Essex class the aviation fuel capacity had to be cut to provide it with a greater degree of protection as a result of lessons learned from the loss of Lexington & Wasp in 1942 (reduced by some 22,650 US gals or about 10% in later ships) so moving part way towards RN standards of protection.
You can't divorce the development of the aircraft from the development of the carriers and need to take account of cancellations / changes of role around the end of WW2.
In 1941 & 1942 there were only a couple of Specs issued for new naval aircraft, neither of which came to anything. In July 1942 the RN set up the Future Building Committee (FBC) to discuss its future needs for both ships, including carriers, and also naval aircraft. Note this is something that the USN didn't do until post-war. It issued its first interim report in Nov 1942 and that placed the carrier firmly at the centre of the fleet with battleships, cruisers & destroyers in support, as some in the Admiralty had been arguing for some time.
Carriers
By that point the Colossus / Majestic classes had been designed and nearly all the orders placed. The Colossus / Majestics were all meant to be in service by the end of 1945 and were never meant to have the long life they ended up having. The Colossus class were designed to operate aircraft up to 15,000lb and the Majestics 20,000lb.
The Audacious class were meant to start entering service from March 1946, in time for the then predicted end of the Far East war (end of 1946). Then delays. But they had their initial design altered in Nov 1942 so that they could handle 30,000lb (instead of 20,000lb) aircraft in view of the FBC report recommendations see below.
Then comes the next generation of carriers. The Malta & Centaur classes of the 1943 Programme. These were only ever going to be ships for peacetime / next war. Earliest completion was expected to be Albion in Aug 1946 with the rest entering service from 1947 onwards. The Maltas began as an enlarged Audacious in 1943 before being redesigned in 1944/45 as an open hangar ship but the revised design was never signed off. The Centaurs were controversial from the start. 8 planned but authority to proceed was only given for 4, as they were already seen as postwar ships. The RN wanted them beause they would be able to handle the new bigger / heavier / faster generation of aircraft (see below).
Aircraft
Feb 1943 saw the FBC recommending a relaxations of the design limits for FAA aircraft. So the new designs, particularly for strike aircraft, are able to become physically larger and heavier, with higher landing speeds and longer range. And so in 1943-1945 Specs for the following types were issued, some intended for operations from existing ships, and some intended only for operations from the Audacious & later designs of carrier (these are the ones that bore fruit of some sort):-
N.4/43 Naval fighter - Seafire XV
O.5/43 Dive / torpedo bomber - Fairey Spearfish
S.8/43 & S.28/43 Torpedo fighter - Blackburn Firebrand TF.III/IV
S.11/43 Twin engined reconnaissance / bomber - Short Sturgeon
22/43/H - Sea Fury X
N.5/44 Long range fighter - Sea Hornet
7/44/P1 - Naval Spitfire F.21 (Seafire 45/46/47 line)
N.11/44 Naval long range fighter - Westland Wyvern
S.14/44/II Flying boat amphibian - Supermarine Seagull
N.15/44 - Naval Mosquito
E.1/45 - Supermarine Attacker F.1
N.5/45 Naval fighter - Seafang F.32
S.10/45- Backburn Firecrest development from Firebrand
GR.17/45/2 - ultimately led to the Fairey Gannet
N.21/45 - Sea Hornet NF.21
When it came to strike aircraft then existing aircraft carriers were expected to continue to be equipped with deriviatives of existing designs with improved performance. So the intended replacement for the Barracuda II was to be the Barracuda V, while the Audacious and subsequent classes would field the Spearfish & Sturgeon. And with the longer range of these aircraft, a long range escort fighter was required which is where the Sea Hornet & Wyvern fit in. Up until that point the FAA would have to rely on US types to fill the role.
The Sea Mosquito (100 ordered Jan 1945 and 50 cancelled) can be seen as a lead in to the Sturgeon, getting the RN used to twin engined operations. It was also a follow on to the deployment to Australia in late 1944 of the Highball Mosquitos of 618 squadron RAF intended to operate from Implacable & Indefatigable, giving the RN/RAF a long range strike capability that the USN did not then possess but which by mid-1945 was no longer required.
Firebrand TF.IV were supposed to go aboard a couple of light fleet carriers in mid-1946 had the war gone on, but again production was curtailed while the Firecrest was cancelled after a few prototypes. The Wyvern was to be the successor as well as filling the escort fighter role in succession to US types.
But post-war very little of these plans comes to fruition between finance and the advent of the jet and what does occur takes much longer than planned to reach fruition for a multitude of reasons. Barracuda V turns out little better than Barracuda II and production is limited to 30 (500+ cancelled). Spearfish gets cancelled after a few prototypes are completed. The Sturgeon survived, only just but as a target tower (3 prototypes & then 25 TT.2 some later converted to long nose TT.3). Hardly surprising really when the ships thatthey were to operate from were either cancelled or suspended until about 1948/49. That left the Firefly as the principal strike aircraft with the AS role filled by the Barracuda & Firefly until the early-1950s when the stop-gap MDAP delivery of Avengers took place until the much delayed Gannet came along, a couple of years later.
As for defensive fighters, each generation was seen as having a life of about 18 months before the performance of enemy types would catch up / supercede them. So the Seafire XV was seen as the fleet interceptor for 1944 and the F.45/46/47 generation as the fleet fighter for 1945. Of course both types production & service entry slipped by about a year or more. The successor was to have been a choice between the Seafang & Sea Fury with the RN preferring the latter.
As for the Sea Hornet, orders had already been placed by the end of the war. Only 801 squadron operated the F.20 on the front line between July 1947 & April 1951, spending time on the Home Fleet carrier, first Implacable & then Indomitable. It also used a handful of PR.22 in 1949/50. 806 was reformed in May 1948 as an RN Aerobatic Display Team for a brief tour of eastern Canada & the US. It had 3 F.20 borrowed from 801 and lost one on the tour. It also had a Sea Vampire & 2 Sea Furies borrowed from the RCN. It disbanded in Sept that year after returning home.
The Sea Hornet NF.21 was required as a follow on to the Firefly NF.I (the RN formed 3 squadrons on the type in 1945 with the first reaching Australia in Auguast 1945), to maintain FAA proficiency in the role. At the time the only other FAA night fighters were Fireflies deployed as "black" flights in each Firefly squadron. But that practice ceased when squadrons deployed to Korea. 809 operated the NF.21 between Feb 1949 and March 1954 spending time on Illustrious, Vengeance, Indomitable & Eagle during its time on the Sea Hornet. The type however was not well suited to the light carriers as it tested their arrester gear to its limits. The squadronn reformed in May 1954 on the Sea Venom FAW.20.
So in 1945 what do you do? If you cancel everything then the factories have no work, the workforce disperses and then what do you do when you need the next generation. You also have cancellation penalties to think of and the materials that had already been stockpiled. So yes keeping some types in production did serve a purpose. But others were culled because they couldn't have operated from the ships that the RN was retaining.
If you want a twin engined aircraft with more compact dimensions then you might consider a tandem engined arrangement driving contra-props as set out by Fairey in its Strike Aircraft proposal of 1944 around which Spec O.21/44 was written. A turboprop version was then proposed in 1945 to N.16/45
www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/fairey-project-a.10335/
Wild_Bill_Kelso
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,231
- Mar 18, 2022
perhaps the tipping point for NATO and Western Allies was the A4 Skyhawk and then the F4 Phantom, though the latter had a longer development phase...
Wild_Bill_Kelso
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,231
- Mar 18, 2022
At what point were gas turbine and turboprop engines becoming reliable / available?
yulzari
Staff Sergeant
Well those same Peregrines saw continuous service from 1940 up to December 1943 with much of it crossing the Channel and North Sea so there cannot have been much wrong with them. Like the Whirlwind itself they were undeveloped and could have carried more boost etc. whilst the airframe needed a new fuel delivery layout, belt fed guns and superior radiators plus other minor things.
One traditionally thinks of them opposing Bf109Es, Dornier 17s and He111s supporting Hurricanes and early Spitfires in 1940 but it also accompanied Typhoons, Spitfire IXs, P47s and P51s against Me109Gs and FW190s through 1942 and 1943. All with no development. Try that one with a 1940 Tomahawk or Hurricane I.
Wild_Bill_Kelso
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,231
- Mar 18, 2022
No argument from me on any of that. It was clearly a very effective design and I think could have been quite helpful in other Theaters like the Middle East, Burma, Australia etc. I just think it is a shame more weren't produced and it wasn't further developed. And I think it (or a similar derivative) could have been better with merlins.
More ammunition and a two speed supercharger could have really improved that aircraft, IMO. Probably also putting the guns under rather than in front of the nose as well.
But that said I argued around here in the past in favor of the Peregrine. I like small aircraft and small engines. My opinion on this was unpopular here.
More ammunition and a two speed supercharger could have really improved that aircraft, IMO. Probably also putting the guns under rather than in front of the nose as well.
But that said I argued around here in the past in favor of the Peregrine. I like small aircraft and small engines. My opinion on this was unpopular here.
301 Peregrine engines produced at RR Derby for
Gloster F.9/37 2nd prototype 2 engines
Heinkel He70G one used by RR as an engine testbed
Whirlwind - 2 prototypes and 114 production aircraft lasting until Dec 1943.
At the very end 263 squadron still had 16 on its books.
Just Schmidt
Senior Airman
I had an early crush on the Whirlwind, partly stemming from its looks and partly stemming from the performance it managed on the engine it used. My take is this was possible only by tailoring the aircraft so neatly to those engines, which then results in little slack available for later stretch of the airframe. I side with those that think Merlins, while they could be installed, were neither a free lunch nor an easy fix.
The most sensible road to higher performance would be further development of the engines, as benefitted so many other aircraft. Whether it was more difficult to upgrade the Peregrines than other engines, I cannot say. In the historical context, with few other aircraft needing the Peregrine, the decision to axe them was probably correct.
Though I would have liked to see a Mosquito with 4 Peregrines.
The most sensible road to higher performance would be further development of the engines, as benefitted so many other aircraft. Whether it was more difficult to upgrade the Peregrines than other engines, I cannot say. In the historical context, with few other aircraft needing the Peregrine, the decision to axe them was probably correct.
Though I would have liked to see a Mosquito with 4 Peregrines.
Wild_Bill_Kelso
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,231
- Mar 18, 2022
To your two reasons for liking the Whirlwind I'll add three more -
3) It was around early, with excellent performance at low altitude. Not going to be a contender for fighting the BoB as-is but a hard hitting, fast plane like that meant a lot more in 1941 or 1942 than it would later on. Performance was still pretty good by those eras, compared to what was being used especially in the Med and Pacific.
4) It had, at least on superficial examination, a pretty good combat record. Including holding it's own against Bf 109s. It seemed to be a pretty good Stuka killer which could then escape retribution against Bf 109s which it could outrun at low altitude.
5) Though criticized for having short range for a twin engined aircraft, it had better range than a Hurricane or a Spitfire. It probably had the potential to carry more fuel and thus have still better range. This would have given it a capability which would have been very useful in the Middle East or Pacific.
I know not everyone here agrees with this one so I won't add it to the list as a definitive bonus point so to speak, but it was brutally well armed, because concentrating the four cannon in the nose means effectively a great deal more firepower (IMO). It was harder hitting, at least until the ammunition ran out, than a Bf 110, but a good bit faster down low.
As for the Peregrines, to your comment, I'd note that there did seem to be some in-flight engine failures attributed to design issues with the Peregrine, and I think a lot of the aircraft which went out of service were due to engine problems (including lack of spares). But I agree with your point that it seemed to be pretty effective as it was.
2 prototypes & 114 production aircraft.
73 losses from all causes (slightly more than half on operations, some engine failures, ground / mid air collisions, training accidents. In fact the whole range of things all types experienced in their wartime service)
23 returned to Westland at different times from about Feb 1942 until Jan 1944 and struck of charge there usually after some months had passed.
1 to USA
3 to School of Tech Training or MU
16 still operational with 263 squadron in Dec 1943 when type ceased operations.
Clayton Magnet
Staff Sergeant
- 853
- Feb 16, 2013
I assume they could have been available for the BoB by September 1940, had Dowding actually approved 263 Squadron to be used
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