Aesthetics

Originally posted by dhfan
A Whirlwind with Merlins would have been a hairy beast. Hornet five years early?
The Peregrine ws designed especially for the Whirlwind, based on the Kestrel. I suspect duxfordhawk’s right, by the time they found out it was a dog, all available Merlins had been allocated.

Peregrines were used to avoid a shortfall of merlins earmarked for other purposes but the production of merlins turned out to be more than sufficient, especially after the Packard production be came available

Originally posted by Mark12
I’ll chuck Westland Whirlwind in to the pot for discussion.

Mark

Count me in on that one

The P-35 won more than one Bendix and Thompson Trophy. I can’t remember how many off the top of my head but it was at least 2 Bendix Trophies and maybe the same number for the Thompson.

The P-35 was used by the Swedes in the early part of the war. It didn’t see combat of course but it did see some action in the Philippines on December 8,1941. I don’t think it faired too terribly well. Certainly couldn’t do what a P-40 could. Another thing too. If you take a good look at the Reggiane Re.2000 it is plainly obvious that the P-35 was the pattern aircraft. The only major improvement that the Italians did was a very effective clean up of the gear. Instead of the large bulges in now retracted cleanly into the wing like the P-40.

Also, I posted about the He112 being a good looking machine. It was the He110 that I meant to say. Gorgeous and potent looking beast.

Here are four links for both the He110 and Reggiane.

http://www.avrosys.nu/aircraft/Jakt/111J20.htm

http://home.att.net/~historyzone/Reggiane.html

http://www.encyclopedia4u.com/h/heinkel-he-100.html

http://www.studenten.net/customasp/axl/plane.asp?cat_id=10&ple_id=555&page=0

“Didn’t the P-35 lead to the P-47 eventually?”

Yup,it certainly did,via the Republic P43 Lancer…

http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p43.html

Didn’t the P-35 lead to the P-47 eventually?

While on the P-36ish subject…

I always have like the look of the Seversky P-35.
Great looking aircraft that wan’t successful.
IIRC, i think it also won a Bendix Trophy back in the mid ’30s

(photo by Jack McKillop)

Being a Yank, but curious about failed designs, I find myself fascinated by the Defiant, and thinking of ways in which it COULD have worked…we’ve already discussed ‘Gunning up’ the Defieant with forward firing guns, I have to wonder what would have happened if they removed the turret and replaced it with a pair of flexible .30 caliber machine guns, ala the Dauntless dive bomber…a fighter that could defend itself, or at least seriously discourage any attackers…and then arm it up like the Spitfire, 2 x 20mm cannons and some .30’s in the wings…i think it would have been VERY formidable…it was an attractive design, and I spent long moments at Hendon looking over their plane and thinking of what should have been done to make the plane a better fighting machine…

Then there is the Curtiss P-36, another design that never made it to its full potential, but was a nice looking ’round engined’ P-40. Very nice.

Mark

A lovely a/c the D-520. In Vichy French hands, it did quite well against the British and Americans, and was back in service with the Free French in ’44. Underrated in the west because it was written about by the French, in French perhaps?
Cheers

P-39
Is it right to place the aeroplane here? If you consider its achievements in Russia, I don’t think it really deserves the title of an unsuccessful design. I wonder, if you compared the number built to the number of victories scored, how would Airacobra fare in comparison with, say, Hurricane?

N1K1
A beautiful aeroplane, indeed. (Show it to P-47 addicts to prove that a powerful radial-engined fighter doesn’t have to be ugly!) But have the Japanes not developed it into a series produced land based fighter, and a very good one?

Whirlwind
I have always thought that the reason why it was never fitted with Merlins was the difference in power output, compared to the Peregrine. To absorb the Merlin power the airframe would have to be beefed up substantially. Just like with the turretless-Defiant-vs.-Hurricane-&-Spitfire dilemma: why would you bother redesigning the whole Whirlwind if you had the Mosquito waiting round the corner.

Finally, my candidate (sorry about its country of origin):
Dewoitine D.520
Almost as lovely-looking as the Spitfire, and some veterans I talked to said that about as delightful to fly. If the French have not gone down so quickly, what could have become if it?

V.

Defiant.

There’s a lot of rubbish about this aircraft. Couple of overlooked points, answers to above:

One: The defiant was a bomber destroyer, intended to attack unescorted heavy or medium bombers, which is what the Germans would have been using IF France hadn’t fallen. It was never intended to mix it in fighter combat, which is why it was never intended to have forward firing guns. As a bomber destroyer, it was very effective, both in the early Dunkirk days and as a night-fighter, before bomber performance left it behind.

All the stuff about mistaken for Hurricanes etc is real enough, but a distraction. Having had the privilege of squeezing into the Defiant’s turret (N1671, Hendon of course) I take my hat off to those pilots (just a chauffeur) and gunners (mostly Sergeants, no Officer’s pay and privileges for them) The fact that they DID shoot down Bf109s in combat is nothing short of amazing.

Two: Boulton Paul did convert a Defiant to a single seater with (IIRC) ballast for forward firing guns. But like the Miles M20 (go Google…) the Spitfire & Hurricane production was keeping up, and new aircraft were not the problem – not enough pilots was the issue. Yes, I think it’s a good looking aircraft.

Boulton Paul Assoc website: here

To take the original point. The looks of an aircraft are based a lot on how you feel about it. Take the Stuka – to the allies, as potent a symbol of Nazi evil as the Swastika – to a German infantryman, a mate in need, nothing more beautiful.

Cheers

Re: Are you calling the pot – black?

Originally posted by Mark12
EN830

That is the discussion pot – not the smelting pot.

Mark

Pity that they were all consigned to the Smelting pot.

Are you calling the pot – black?

EN830

That is the discussion pot – not the smelting pot.

Mark

Originally posted by Mark12
I’ll chuck Westland Whirlwind in to the pot for discussion.

Mark

Have to disagree slightly, even though only just over 100 were built they were in operational service from late 1940 until late 1943, yes they didn’t fulfill their intended role as a long range heavy fighter, but they did excel in the ground attack role, and given a chance they could out perform many of the single engined fighter below 15,000ft.

A much maligned aircraft, which on the whole was loved by all that flew them and an example should have been preserved for future generations.

“Just regarding the Westland Whirlwind, why was it never repowered with Merlins as they knew the Peregrine’s were unreliable.”

The Peregrines weren’t necessarily anymore unreliable than any other engine from the same period, they were however particularly poor performers above 15,000 ft and with the advent of such types as the Typhoon the need to re-engine the Whirlwind was deemed un-necessary however Westland did produce the Whelkin towards the end of the war which was basically a Whirlwind with Merlins.

Yes, but as Nermal touched on, why bother modifying the Defiant to a great extent, when the Hurricane and Spitfire were doing a fine job already.

Anyway another aircraft I mentioned in an earlier thread was the He-119. Showed a lot of promise and flew really well but was never followed up.
(I’m referring to the single (mid) engined recon aircraft that looks similar to the He-111.)

Originally posted by Nermal
They did remove the Defiants turret – turned it into a target tug. Suspect that the Spitfire and the Hurricane were much better at their job without the major redesign needed to fix guns to the Defiant…
Its big selling point was the turret!

The German prototypes were all referred to by the ‘V’ desination – V1 was the first prototype, V2 the second, etc. Might have something to do with prototype being something in German beginning with ‘V’? – Nermal

Nermal

Yep, I knew about the V designation – it was common for all German prototypes – I think the German word was “Versuchs” (not sure but I think it means “experimental” or “research”)

There were reports that the He-100D was used in combat but the small number produced were divided up as follows:

6 to the Soviet Union
3 to Japan ( and look at the similarity with the Kawasaki Ki 61)
12 were retained as a Rostock defence unit but were publicised by Goebel’s propaganda machine in such a way to convince Britain that there was a fighter in large scale production called the He-113. In 1939, the V3 prototype flew at 463.92 mph!

With regard to the removal of the Defiant’s turret, I knew they removed them to create the target tug – an Airfix magazine many years ago had an article to convert the Airfix kit into one. The problems with the Defiant principally arose from the additional weight of the turret, which was quite substantial, and the increased drag it created. Removal of both would undoubtedly have improved the performance substantially and I can’t think that installation of wing armament would have been all that difficult – the Defiant had a reasonably thick wing with a wide chord so you would assume there would have been the room to install guns.

Just as a further thought, how would the Defiant have looked if the turret removal was accompanied by a similar redesign to the fuselage as other high-backed aircraft underwent, and a bubble canopy installed? I reckon she would have made a reasonably potent fighter.

Regards

Wombat

Dunno much about the subject, but I think the Heinkel 100D never went into full-scale production because it was a more complicated plane to build than the Bf109.

Strangely enough, there are a lot of combat reports from the Battle of Britain stating that pilots had actually engaged the Heinkel fighter in combat (I forget what the designation was – He113??)

Originally posted by Wombat

The Defiant and Whirlwind were both handsome aircraft let down by either design parameters or inadequate engines. I often wondered why the turret wasn’t removed from the Defiant and the wing re-engineered to accept forward firing armament…

They did remove the Defiants turret – turned it into a target tug. Suspect that the Spitfire and the Hurricane were much better at their job without the major redesign needed to fix guns to the Defiant…
Its big selling point was the turret!

Originally posted by Wombat
The He-100D, which was used by the Nazis for propaganda purposes, was a very purposeful and impressive looking aircraft. I too wonder why it went nowhere apart from a very small number of V series prototypes.

The German prototypes were all referred to by the ‘V’ desination – V1 was the first prototype, V2 the second, etc. Might have something to do with prototype being something in German beginning with ‘V’? – Nermal

A couple of really good points have been raised which are pet topics of mine.

The Defiant and Whirlwind were both handsome aircraft let down by either design parameters or inadequate engines. I often wondered why the turret wasn’t removed from the Defiant and the wing re-engineered to accept forward firing armament.

And the same comments as other members regarding the Whirlwind. Re-engined with Merlins, this might have been a truly great fighter, some time before the Mossie. Perhaps the coming of the Mossie was also a nail in the Whirlwind’s coffin.

I mentioned the P-39 because it always struck me as a pretty, well proportioned fighter. Yeah, “pretty” probably isn’t a very good way to describe an aircraft, but the Aerocobra was definitely easy on the eye. Pity it never achieved its intended performance.

Somebody mentioned the pre-Merlin Mustang, but because it could be re-engined and looked even better when it was, and was a total success as a consequence, it probably doesn’t belong here.

The He-100D, which was used by the Nazis for propaganda purposes, was a very purposeful and impressive looking aircraft. I too wonder why it went nowhere apart from a very small number of V series prototypes. The He-112, an eliptical winged fighter, wasn’t quite so aesthetic and was less impressive, but did see limited production.

Any other nominations?

Regards

Wombat

I was referring to the Peregrine being a dog, not the Whirlwind.:)

Very interesting, Tom.

At the risk of jeering here,…I believe the Whirlwind is every bit as good looking as a Mossie..:p