SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
Of course, your mileage may vary.
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*confused Scotsman* Whit's a moxie?I like your moxie!
Air-cooled?As you can see, I'm not that well outfitted between the ears ...
From my point of view - no.
Versions of the Pegasus were also used for pretty much every British naval aircraft that isn't a Skua, too - the Swordfish, the Walrus, the Sunderland...My view also.
But you would have had to steal them at gunpoint (.455 Webley?) from Bomber command as they were the engine of choice for the Hampden and Wellingtons of 1939/40 and part of 1941.
Logical. Does the big airframe have advantages in terms of fuel space that outweigh its size? You now have me pondering the resemblance between the rear cockpit on the actual two-seat Spitfire and the navigator's canopy on a Wellesley...Me, I'd go for a 'big Spitfire' instead of 'small Fairey Battle' in order to make a 2-seat fighter for the FAA; also the engine must be the Merlin XX, not the Merlin VIII. Sorta Supermarine Type 305, but with backseater in place where turret was to go, and with fuel tank between the crew members. Drop tank installation - mandatory.
(historically, the Type 305 was Supermarine's design from August of 1935 for the spec F9/35 from 20th May 1935; obviously, the engine will not be the Mk.X back then, but Mk.II if we're lucky)
Would this apply to the Napier Sabre too?If the Pegasus was in short supply, and Hampdens were sitting around less engines for that reason, then maybe the solution could have been to use Daggers instead? Especially if deHavillend could be consulted on cooling improvements. A ex dH engineer told me many years ago that they looked at the Napier cooling design and concluded that it needed to concentrate more on getting lower pressure exits than on high pressure entry and he thought that dH could have made it work fine and they had plenty of air cooling practical experience.
Thanks - I suppose I'm suspicious of these things because of the sort of "if we'd actually worked up to full power at design load, we calculate that we'd have met the design speed" statement that was used for ships' sea trials slightly earlier in the century (a topic I know marginally more about, though only through reading people like Friedman)...There are the specifications for what performance is required, then comes testing to see what the actual results are. The data I posted is from "Performance Tables of British Service Aircraft", Air Publication 1746 dated August 1939 but covering until 1941 or so. No graphs, just figures. Includes US built types. Signed off by the Permanent Under-Secretary of State. Since the RAF was only giving one top speed they largely chose 15,000 feet. To determine how much better or worse the Skua did versus the requirements means digging out the details of RAF specification O.27/34.
As I said, I was showing my rank amateurishness in my choice of phrasing - what I meant was, as a practical height for intercepting Heinkels, wasn't designing the Whirlwind for 15,000ft fairly high-end at the time...?And high altitude was well above 10,000 feet by the time the Skua was around.
Interesting - any idea whether the Mercury was in production for the Lysander at this point, or just the Blenheim?Engines tend to stay in production while they have customers, in Q2/1939 apart from a few Taurus and Hercules, Bristol engine output was roughly 1 Perseus to 2 Pegasus to 4 Mercury.
There are a lot of contradictory explanations for why the original attack was ordered at low level - I'd suspected it was a combination of using 500lb bombs (though I've never seen that specified) and wanting to avoid flak...263 squadron describes its 24 October 1943 attack on the Munsterland as a low level one, the weather that day was bad. Similar restrictions apply to the Whirlwind and the Battle, mostly related to the G forces in any pull out from a dive.
Thanks anyway - I'll see what I can find!It has been a long time since I read the USSBS reports, the bomb accuracy and notes about duds etc. are in various reports, like the attacks on oil industry targets. Many of the reports are available online.
The short answer would be that it would have been an interim solution; it's a proper carrier airframe that's already tooled-up in production, catapult-strengthened, tailhook-equipped, designed to belly-land at sea, with a lot of fuel, and folding wings, and if you can get a better fighter out of it with a better engine, surely that's useful?While a re-engining of the Skua may be technically possible, the question would be why you would want to in 1939 considering how aircraft roles for the FAA had developed between 1934 & 1939..
So it appears another reason for the orders for the Fulmar replacing the Skua in the fighter role was a lack of alternatives within the timescale required.
Finally, something that looks like it's based on an actual flight test! I'm guessing that the "position error" is to do with measuring its actual performance on the ground during trials...?What I have re: performance -
Skua L.2888 (8,450 lb) 6,500 ft.
Gills fully closed, rich mixture, 2750 rpm
228 mph
"The correction for position error has not been finally agreed and for this reason the speeds above are approximate only, but are considered to be accurate to within +/- 3 m.p.h."
25 Feb 1939, A. & A.E.E.
Thanks!!
And that answers the question. Ouch indeed. The Skua simply isn't very manoeuvrable, and... would I be right to think that stall-speed wouldn't be ideal for deck-landing?
And yet the less than 190 Skuas that entered squadron service shot down several dozen EA (mostly Luftwaffe TE bombers off Norway), and these kills were verified via Axis/Luftwaffe combat and loss records.View attachment 717103Ouch.
Too bad FAA didn't have SBDs, that was without such bad habits, and was maneuverable
He could have done to the ME-109s what Swede Vejtasa did in his Dauntless against Zeros
A minute after Sellstrom's furious attack, it was the turn of Scouting Five on anti–torpedo-plane patrol to feel the sting of Zuikaku fighters. Deployed loosely in pairs, the eight SBDs turned up between the two groups of Zuikaku torpedo planes, but in position to intercept neither. There was no way the SBDs, cruising at 1,500 feet, could overhaul faster-moving torpedo planes with altitude advantage. The kankō were past before the SBDs could react. Some of the VS-5 pilots never even saw them. Suddenly there was trouble. Birney Strong glanced up to behold the sickening sight of three Zeros peeling off into an overhead attack on his dispersed SBDs. They were the three fighters of Lieut. Tsukamoto's Zuikaku 14th Shōtai, surprised to find nine "Curtiss bombers" (as the Japanese called the Dauntlesses) flying in their area. Their amazement brief, they tore into Strong's division. On the first pass, Tsukamoto and his wingmen shot off the tail of Ens. Kendall C. Campbell's SBD, then blasted a second Dauntless from the sky. They kept the surviving SBDs too busy to join forces for their mutual defense. Joining in the fight were PO1c Kanō's three Zuikaku Zeros, and they went after Woodhull's four SBDs as well. For the next several minutes, the Zuikaku Zeros made life miserable or impossible for Scouting Five, eventually accounting for four SBDs, flown by Lieut. (jg) Earl V. Johnson, Ens. Samuel J. Underhill, Ens. Edward B. Kinzer, and Ens. Campbell. In return Scouting Five claimed four Zeros shot down, one to Lieut. (jg) Stanley W. Vejtasa (later a renowned ace with Flatley's Fighting Ten). The Japanese, however, lost no fighters in this combat. (Lundstrom, First Team Vol 1)
If the performance of the Dauntless was "sedate", particu-
larly with external load, at least it had few vices. It was a
pleasant aircraft to fly and its controls were light and respon-
sive unless it was heavily laden, and its stail, which, power off,
ranged from about 68 knots (126 km/h) at 10,000 Ib (4 536
kg) to some 62 knots at about 8,500 lb (3 856 kg), was totally
innocuous. But it did have one bad habit and that was a
vicious g stall, particularly off a tight left-hand turn, reminis
cent of that of the Fw 190. It would snap inverted without
warning, the nose falling through the horizontal and a spin
ensuing if corrective action was not taken immediately, (Wings of the navy)
Me, I'd advocate for Bristol just making one or two small radials by 1935-ish. Pegasus is a given; where the Pegasus cannot fit install Mercury; ditch Perseus and Taurus (bar as prototypes).Versions of the Pegasus were also used for pretty much every British naval aircraft that isn't a Skua, too - the Swordfish, the Walrus, the Sunderland...
And is there something about radial design that makes it more useful to keep several similar Bristol radials in production, when there's a push for RR to ditch the Kestrel, Peregrine and Vulture to streamline production on the Merlin?
Big airframe will be more amenable for increased fuel load vs. size. Problem with big airframe is that bigger size means bigger drag, and bigger drag means a slower A/C, that will tend to use the fuel in a more prodigal fashion.Logical. Does the big airframe have advantages in terms of fuel space that outweigh its size? You now have me pondering the resemblance between the rear cockpit on the actual two-seat Spitfire and the navigator's canopy on a Wellesley...
And that answers the question. Ouch indeed. The Skua simply isn't very manoeuvrable, and... would I be right to think that stall-speed wouldn't be ideal for deck-landing?
The Skua stalled at about 75 mph IAS with the flaps and undercarriage up and at 69 mph IAS with the flaps and undercarriage down. If the speed was reduced in a glide in the clean configuration, the aircraft tended to self-stall if the pilot did not push the stick forward. There was very little stall warning, with no airframe buffet, but when the stall did occur, a wing would drop, followed by the nose. This tended to occur even if the control column was eased forward, but if the aircraft was mishandled by pulling the stick back, it became quite violent and a falling leaf developed. With the flaps and undercarriage down the aircraft's characteristics were very similar, but it was slightly more mild-mannered. Once the nose had dropped and speed had increased, control could quickly be regained.
yeah, the speed itself isn't bad, but sudden stall behavior you don't want.And that answers the question. Ouch indeed. The Skua simply isn't very manoeuvrable, and... would I be right to think that stall-speed wouldn't be ideal for deck-landing?
People wanting to have long range/long endurance fighters in ww2 will need to recall that droppable fuel tanks were in use already inn early 1930s, and act accordingly.
Yeah, but neither the USN F2A or F4F had them in Dec 1941. The F4F-4 had to wait until after Midway to get DTs.View attachment 717136
View attachment 717137
Not like Curtiss was keeping that a secret or anything
Blame the USAAC bomber Mafia for the USN not having drop tanksYeah, but neither the USN F2A or F4F had them in Dec 1941. The F4F-4 had to wait until after Midway to get DTs.
View attachment 717103Ouch.
Too bad FAA didn't have SBDs, that was without such bad habits, and was maneuverable
He could have done to the ME-109s what Swede Vejtasa did in his Dauntless against Zeros
Northrop, and then Douglas after the buyout, had been trying to sell attack aircraft to fill that role since the early '30s, military version of the Gamma, gradually improved, until the SBD was reachedGot to love it when we need a time machine to enable the Brits to make a "smart" decision.
First flight of the SBD was 1 May 1940.
First air-to-air kill by a Skua was on 26 September 1939. On 10 April 1940, Skuas sank the Konigsberg. Skuas remained engaged in operations over Norway until mid-June 1940.
Please explain what use the SBD would have been for ANY of these actions...and exactly how many Me109s the blueprint SBD might have shot down.
Why would the FAA want a fixed (non folding) wing DB that could not be struck down into most FAA carrier hangars?Northrop, and then Douglas after the buyout, had been trying to sell attack aircraft to fill that role since the early '30s, military version of the Gamma, gradually improved, until the SBD was reached
View attachment 717208Gamma 2E
View attachment 717209BT-1 first flight 1935
View attachment 717210 XBT-1 with R-1535 and XBT-2 with R-1820, both with retractable gear. The XBT-2 flew in 1938, and had designation changed to SBD in 1939.
If the Chinese and Spanish could buy the Gamma in 1937, so could the FAA, and keep up with the improved models.
STALLING CHARACTERISTICS
(Reference table IV)
Models BT-1 and XBT-2
Because of piloting difficulties experienced by squadrons
operating from aircraft carriers with the low-wing model BT-1
airplane, it was necessary that the stalling characteristics of
the airplane in the carrier-landing condition be materially
improved. The most objectionable characteristic was reported
to be a sudden fall-off of the left wing accompanied by rapid
aileron control-force reversal termed aileron "kick" at the stall.
Immediate flight tests were conducted at the plant to investigate
the validity of these reports and to determine a means of possible
improvement. The condition reported was verified by company pilots
and several modifications were found which could be incorporated
in service and would considerably improve the stalling character-
istics...
Just to do what the Japanese did, buy a couple, to see what other were doing.Why would the FAA want a fixed (non folding) wing DB that could not be struck down into most FAA carrier hangars?
BTW, the BT1 had it's own nasty stall characteristics, and the aircraft was sent to NACA for advise. This is from the NACA report:
All of them?...and exactly how many Me109s the blueprint SBD might have shot down.
You need a supply change that could deliver a 1000lb bomb, which the RAF could not until well into 1940.hence why put the effort into a foreign built airframe that will deliver a 1000 lb bomb, but requires a different supply chain,