Fairey ER.103 fighters

The FD-2 fighter developments were only ever the most paper of paper proposals, a vague effort at sketching out a fighter from a technology demonstrator. None of the variants were ever going to be built.

Ok, so the timing suggests that Dassault got little if anything from the FDII tests, but could the 103B have been developed into a Mirage equivalent?

Not so sure. The intake layout of the Mirage gave it a lot more useable volume in the wing for fuel, for starters. I’m by no means qualified to discuss the actual airframe of the FDII, but i doubt that being designed purely as a testbed it was strong enough to be hauling munitions and combat systems around. Would have needed a major if not total redesign.

Derek Wood goes onto say ‘It is recorded in Mirage, Warplane of the World by Jack Dee that ‘later when the Mirage was conquering markets all over the world, Dassault told a British aircraft chief, “If it were not for the clumsy way in which you tackle things in Britain, you could have made the Mirage yourselves”.’

It’s actually something i started wondering about last night, after energetically typing my post above (apologies if it was a bit vitriolic, but it’s not the first time i’ve had to debunk the Mirage-FDII-myth). During the 1940s and 1950s, the UK was extremely busy with designing and building pure research aeroplanes, with way too little consideration of actually turning those testbeds into proper operational aircraft. Add to this that those research projects were more often than not underfunded and overmismanaged, by the time the ‘breakthrough’ test results were achieved, these results were totally outdated and already in service with operational aircraft abroad.

The Fairey Delta is a fine example. Set a nice yet short-lived speed record, but at the end of it’s career as a testbed, the F-102 and Mirage III were entering squadron service. There are others, either flown or cancelled projects after the 1957 White Paper.

On the Duncan Sandys’ destructive memo: while it definately did a lot of harm to Britain’s aviation industry and the British military, i can’t help but think that it finally cut away some dead wood which was time to remove. Or do people seriously think that a mixed-power (turbojet/rocket) interceptor entering service in the mid-1960s would have been a good idea?

Ok, so the timing suggests that Dassault got little if anything from the FDII tests, but could the 103B have been developed into a Mirage equivalent?

Derek Wood goes onto say ‘It is recorded in Mirage, Warplane of the World by Jack Dee that ‘later when the Mirage was conquering markets all over the world, Dassault told a British aircraft chief, “If it were not for the clumsy way in which you tackle things in Britain, you could have made the Mirage yourselves”.’

Well, from reading ‘Project cancelled’ Dassault got a lot of information for its Mirage series from this.

Testing over built up areas in the UK was banned so Fairey had to test its Delta II in France……

You look at the fairey design and superimpose the Mirage over it and, well…..

The only way you can really support this delusion of British grandeur, is by acknowledging the French had the capability to travel through time in the mid-1950s. Dassault began his delta studies (based on the pioneering work by Payen pre-WW2, and eventually leading to the MD550 / Mirage I) in 1951, with the Mirage I flying in june 1955, one year BEFORE the Delta II moved out to Cazaux. The Mirage III flew for the first time in ’56, and was way, way more advanced design than the still rather primitive testbed that was the FD II. You know, with the Mirage actually being a combat aircraft with a useful payload and such.

The whole theory of Dassault somehow ‘stealing’ the delta design from the Fairey Delta is pathetic nationalistic hogwash, with sour grapes for the dead-end development of Fairey’s delta jets only a very pathetic excuse.

And since you posted a link to Overscan’s forum: http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=3074.msg24799#msg24799

Those links are for the FD.2… the Fairey Delta 2, which is a single-seat research aircraft..

The link PMN1 gave goes to drawings & specifications for a larger, two-seat fighter proposal.

But, that explains why “Fairey ER.103” came up blank… ER.103 was NOT a Fairey designation, but a Ministry of Supply-issued Experimental Requirement number, which applied to several proposals from different manufacturers (including EEs proposal, which became the Lightning).

This is what I got when I googled ER.103

http://www.skomer.u-net.com/projects/fd2.htm

http://aviation.elettra.co.uk/rafmuseum/page.php?aircraft=delta

Well, thanks to the link, I finally have a clue what you are talking about.

Interesting… but probably a bit large* for anything but a missile-fighter/strike bomber… similar to the later F-111.

* only 5 feet longer than the Mirage III, but 10 feet 8 inches greater wingspan (37’7″ vs 26’11”), which matches that of the Mirage IV. This would adversely affect roll rate, and thus slow its ability to initiate/terminate turns… but should improve sustained turn rate.

The B version was apparently smaller with a span of 28ft, length 54.67ft and an all-up-weight with 200gal fuel in external tanks of 20,650lb.

Well, thanks to the link, I finally have a clue what you are talking about.

Interesting… but probably a bit large* for anything but a missile-fighter/strike bomber… similar to the later F-111.

* only 5 feet longer than the Mirage III, but 10 feet 8 inches greater wingspan (37’7″ vs 26’11”), which matches that of the Mirage IV. This would adversely affect roll rate, and thus slow its ability to initiate/terminate turns… but should improve sustained turn rate.

Well, from reading ‘Project cancelled’ Dassault got a lot of information for its Mirage series from this.

Testing over built up areas in the UK was banned so Fairey had to test its Delta II in France……

You look at the fairey design and superimpose the Mirage over it and, well……

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,3074.0.html

Well, I just Google’d it, and got:
“Your search for “Fairey ER.103B” returned no results.”

So, could you explain a bit more… like: was it WW1… ‘tween wars, WW2, early jet*?

Land or carrier… etc.

*As the Fairey name went away in 1960 (courtesy of Wastelands), it can’t be after that… can it?