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The Shark was replaced in frontline service by the Swordfish prior to Sept 1939.Great Lakes TG2 124 mph top speed 56 mph landing speed, 656sq.ft area and 4155 pounds of payload. 200 gallons of fuel. Cruising speed 96 mph. The TG-2 was a slightly improved T4M from Martin that dated to 1928, but more powerful 620HP Wright Cyclone in place of the P&W Hornet. These stayed in service til 1938
Fairey Swordfish 138 mph top speed, 104mph cruising speed, 46mph landing speed 607sq.ft and 4000 pound payload 201 gallon tank, optional 82 gallon tank in observers place
Blackburn Shark MkII 152 mph top speed, 62 mph landing speed, 489sq.ft area and 4011 pounds of payload, 171 gallon tank. optional 150 gallon tank. Cruising speed 118 mph
Devastator had a 206mph top speed, 128mph cruising speed, 63 mph landing speed, 422sq.ft area and 4594 pounds of payload, 207 gallon tank.
Swordfish was able to stay in service, from Allied air supremacy.
What was the weight of the -239s vs the porky F2A-3?Quote:
"The B239Es were taken to Trollhättan, Sweden (the home of Saab Aircraft) where the Finns replaced the flight instruments with metric calibrated units, installed four 12.7-mm machine guns, armour plate behind the pilot's seat and self-sealing tanks...."
Nordic Buffalos — How An Obsolete U.S. Navy Fighter Found a New Lease on Life in Finland's War with the Soviets - MilitaryHistoryNow.com
“Despite their superiority in numbers and their losses, the Soviet’s never gained air superiority. That belonged to the Finns.” By Marc Liebman BY THE END of the Russo-Finnish War in March 1940, military planners in...militaryhistorynow.com
In it's Finnish modified form the F2A would not have been operable from a carrier, at least for any length of time before it's LG would have failed.
Great article! I spent way too much time looking at the picture of the Buffalo.Quote:
"The B239Es were taken to Trollhättan, Sweden (the home of Saab Aircraft) where the Finns replaced the flight instruments with metric calibrated units, installed four 12.7-mm machine guns, armour plate behind the pilot's seat and self-sealing tanks...."
Nordic Buffalos — How An Obsolete U.S. Navy Fighter Found a New Lease on Life in Finland's War with the Soviets - MilitaryHistoryNow.com
“Despite their superiority in numbers and their losses, the Soviet’s never gained air superiority. That belonged to the Finns.” By Marc Liebman BY THE END of the Russo-Finnish War in March 1940, military planners in...militaryhistorynow.com
In it's Finnish modified form the F2A would not have been operable from a carrier, at least for any length of time before it's LG would have failed.
As someone else has said, the Vindicator/Chesapeake couldn't dive-bomb, and I'm not sure how easily it could get off a deck with a useful cargo in the first place... it rather shows up the speed performance of Fleet Air Arm fighter types, but not the dive-bomber part...Vindicator was better than the Skua. Hell, the Curtiss SBC Helldiver Biplane was better than the Skua
That seems logical...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).
The story of all these switcharounds seems rather odd...One account of the Skua says it got the Perseus after the two prototypes got Mercury's because all the Mercury's were being allocated to Blenheim's.
In fact there was a shadow factory built to make Mercury's which may explain the preponderance of Mercury engines compared to other 3.
I have no idea if there was any parts interchangeable between the engines (Taurus may have used a few nuts, bolts, washers) the Mercury and Pegasus used the same diameter cylinders. Don't know if the heads were the same or any of the valve gear. The Perseus also used the same diameter cylinders and the same stroke as the Mercury but with the sleeves holding the piston and rings nothing outside the crankcase would be the same and a lot of stuff inside would be different.
The big problem Bristol had in 1939-40 and later was sleeve production. They thought they had it solved in 1938-39 but they could not maintain quality in volume production and since the Hercules and Perseus used the same cylinders (or at least the same size) it turned out that for every 3 Perseus engines you could have built two Hercules (sort of, 27 cylinders vs 28 cylinders) .
This may (Guess by me) the reason that around 1/2 of the Lysanders built had Mercury engines. This includes 150 0f the Canadian production (after the first 75 got Perseus) ALL the Lysanders III, all the Lysanders IIIAs and the 100 TT.MK IIIA target tugs (only ones specially built and not converted.)
How much more drag does a longer airframe produce, though? All I know about drag along the sides of the plane is that no-one realised that that the air along the side of the fuselage needed to travel through the same space as the air over the wing root, except possibly the people who designed the English Electric Lightning...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.
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.
The 72 knot stall speed was 'all up' LG and flaps raised. Stall speed was ~66 knots in landing condition with flaps and LG extended according to Wings of the Navy.
yeah, the speed itself isn't bad, but sudden stall behavior you don't want.
So the issue is less the landing speed than the abrupt sideways plunge out of the sky?Devastator had a 63 mph landing speed, B5N Kate had a 72 mph landing speed
SBD had a 57 knot landing speed with full flaps and low fuel, to 73 knots , if trying to land at max take-off weight.
Leaving flaps up, added 8-11 knots to landing speed
stall behavior seems to have been to drop the left wing, but no warnings on a spin after that.
I've certainly not been accused of lacking the Scottish equivalent, though I'm not sure we have a word for it in quite the same way...Moxie means chutzpah.
Longer fuselage will have the more favorable lenght/width ratio than a shorter fuselage that has the same width; we assume here a V12 powered ww2 fighter comparison, with crew one behind another. Cue the 20th century ships, where ~10:1 length/beam ratio was often used on fast ships (cruisers, battlecruisers), and 7-8:1 on not so fast ones ('normal' battleships). Also, cue the thickness to chord ratio on the fighters' wings, where 13-15% was a much better call than 17-19% wrt. drag of the wing (assuming same/similar profile series).How much more drag does a longer airframe produce, though? All I know about drag along the sides of the plane is that no-one realised that that the air along the side of the fuselage needed to travel through the same space as the air over the wing root, except possibly the people who designed the English Electric Lightning...
The Devastator had less range than the Swordfish, wasn't stressed for divebombing, and it's STOL and wing fold characteristics meant it wasn't operable from RN carriers, much less escort/MAC carriers, where the Swordfish soldiered on until 1945. The Swordfish was intended for replacement by the Albacore in 1939, but had to carry on as the Albacore was delayed into service by engine production problems. By May 1941 the Swordfish was fitted with ASV radar, and yet could still carry a full weapons load including the much superior RN Mk12 torpedo. The Devastator would have been completely useless for the FAA.
It's difficult to imagine how the F2A-1, with it's completely inadequate armament, would have faired against Luftwaffe bombers in 1940. Increasing the armament led to a vicious cycle of LG failure, which made the F2A a less than carrier capable fighter.
Any serious research into the Vindicator will reveal that it wasn't capable of true divebombing as it had no effective divebrakes. A large number ended up in UK service where it was found to be unsuitable for combat operations.
Only the SBC-4, which entered service after the Skua could be considered equivalent to the Skua in terms of performance, but it had fixed wings, less range and only a single .3in forward firing MG. Why would the FAA want this aircraft?
HiThe story of all these switcharounds seems rather odd...
1. As I understand it, circa 1936 the Mercury was allocated for the Blenheim, the Skua and the Lysander, while the Perseus was allocated for the M.15/35 twin-engined, narrow-fuselage torpedo-bomber project that became the Botha (though even here, I've seen a statement that the original engine allocated was the Aquila, and that the parallel Bristol Beaufort retained this, with only the Botha being swapped over).
2. The torpedo-bomber became a wide-body aircraft with a side-by-side cockpit and a more flexible carrying capacity, but while the Beaufort was allowed to upgrade to the Taurus in mid-1937, the Botha was made to keep the now-underpowered Perseus; meanwhile, the Skua and the Lysander were both swapped from the Mercury to the Perseus, first flights with the new motor being in August and December 1938. Was all this really to free up Mercury capacity for the Blenheim, or to make use of the Perseus?
3. In a quite separate line of engine production, the Miles Master was due to upgrade from the Kestrel to the Peregrine, which was also assigned for the Whirlwind... but in October 1939, the Air Ministry ordered the cancellation of the Whirlwind to switch the floor space and workforce to make more Lysanders (which seems to imply even more Perseus engines); this caused the cancellation of the Peregrine, so the Miles Master was hastily ordered to switch to the Mercury.
4. In the event, a proportion of Lysander production continued to be engined with the Mercury, switching fully back to that motor in August 1940; on the other hand, although a proof-of-concept Miles Master with a Mercury flew in late 1939, the plane continued to come off the production line with the Kestrel until I think 1941, when it switched over to the Mercury; I'm less clear over the Blenheim; I'd assume the Mk. IV continued in production until it was superceded by the Bisley (for which the internet gives an in-production date of in November 1941) and Mercury-engined Bolingbroke in Canada, but I'm not totally sure...?
Any corrections or commentary?
I phrased that poorly. A Stall, some aircraft will mush on down, staying level, others will start to drop one wing or the other but managable, while the worst will drop a wing followed by something bad, like a spin.So the issue is less the landing speed than the abrupt sideways plunge out of the sky?
USN should have asked for a more refined TBD, with uprated engine and windtunnel work.One does wonder if they could have gotten rid of those fore and aft strips on wing for reduction in drag?
Let's replace the TBDs used at Midway with Swordfish (or better yet Albacores).USN should have asked for a more refined TBD, with uprated engine and windtunnel work.
Torpedo placement was a design requirement, as rather than a recessed mount or bay, there had to be an area for the bombardier to lie prone and use the new norden bombsight for level bombing.
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Douglas should have spent some money on trying to interest the USN on a TB2D rather than wasting all that $$$ on the XB-19
Trouble is that it was the Navy that was spending the money on the TBD and it was the Army that had contracted for the XB-19. Douglas did want to get out of it much earlier as they were loosing money but the Army insisted. Douglas had to complete the contract or loose future Army contracts.Douglas should have spent some money on trying to interest the USN on a TB2D rather than wasting all that $$$ on the XB-19
And the RN couldn't do some of the missions that the US air groups could do.Each of these mission plans was unavailable to USN TB squadrons because the TBD was incapable of performing them.
I've previously researched and crunched the numbers for avgas use by Enterprise at Midway. She used about 1/3 or less of her avgas during the entire operation (about 400 sorties with most returning with 10-20% fuel). Adding 4 more aircraft per carrier, especially given the simple construction of the Swordfish, shouldn't present a problem.And the RN couldn't do some of the missions that the US air groups could do.
The Problem with some of the US carriers was not the size of the deck park but the size of of the magazines and the amount of aviation fuel, both were huge compared to the RN carriers but when you are operating 70-80 aircraft per strike at 140-180 US gallons per plane (12,000 US gallons per strike) you can run out of fuel pretty quick.
hopefully.The smaller footprint of the Swordfish will allow for more aircraft per squadron; say 18. About 5 hours before dawn, TF16 and 17 fly off 12 ASV equipped Swordfish with LR fuel tanks and (hopefully) locate the KB.