Supermarine Attacker question

Originally posted by mike currill
Sorry if this upsets you VoyTech but about 80% of the German designs that were publicised in Luftwaffe 46 were viable given sufficient R&D funding

Glad to see someone missing my point now 🙂
I would risk saying that ANY design is viable with SUFFICIENT funding, the point is how much funding is ‘sufficient’, and how this compares with the funding you are likely to get.
What I meant to say (unclear probably) was that they did not make sense in the situation of the Third Reich at the time, not that they could not be made to fly at all.
And I will stick to my opinion that many were developed according to the rule ‘the more weird it looks, the more chance the Führer will love it’.

V.
PS. I can see we are in agreement once again, JDK. Read the same book recently? 😉

Originally posted by JDK
Oh, dear you’ve missed my point again! 😀
I wasn’t thinking
that on the other side of the Atlantic companies like Bell and Sikorsky were innovating,

Oh, now I see your point! Supermarine should have gone for choppers. Their fault, clearly…

Supermarines were very cautious –
to the extent of not getting anything right after the Spitfire;

Missing your point again: was Spiteful not ‘right after the Spitfire’? Or should they have developed a transonic swept-wing jet fighter in 1944? The problem was it was up to the Air Ministry to assign development work to companies, and as far as I remember they told Supermarine that Spitfire development had priority over any other projects.

V.

Hmmm…

Having just proof- read a book on 46 fighters, all the effort put into these designs was another reason the Germans lost. Council of dispair. The ‘what-if’ simply doesn’t work. If they were on top, they wouln’t have tried them; as they were losing they tried anything.

Sure several designs (maybe most) can be got flying given enough money and thrust – most of the Luft 46 stuff wouln’t get either from anyone!

Sorry if this upsets you VoyTech but about 80% of the German designs that were publicised in Luftwaffe 46 were viable given sufficient R&D funding

Originally posted by JDK
Good point,
Again, Hawker’s score. Don’t show them up for fools (see Sir Richard Fairey, Fairey Fox) don’t give them what they ask for (Blackburn Botha, Saro Lerwick etc etc etc… ) Give them what they need, and convince ’em they thought of it – Hawker Hurricane!

😀 That’s about the size of it

Oh, dear you’ve missed my point again! 😀

To be honest, I wasn’t clear enough –

No, I wasn’t thinking of the wacky unviable Luft 46 trivia, nor indeed that on the other side of the Atlantic companies like Bell and Sikorsky were innovating, but that relative to other British companies, it seems to be (very subjective!) thar Supermarines were very cautious – my point being that they were too cautious, to the extent of not getting anything right after the Spitfire; and too much caution is anotyher way of failing as much as too much innovation – neither feeds the family. TThis is VERY subjective, based on hindsight, and I’m not claiming I’d do any better, but…

Cheers

Originally posted by JDK
if I’m running a business with a design office, I’d be looking further ahead than Supermarine’s ever seemed to do. That takes us neatly back to the start of this thread – why were Supermarine’s so conservitive?

‘Conservative’?
I suppose you mean to say that while German designers developed innovative aircraft (swept wings, tri-cycle undercarriage, supersonic performance perhaps), at Supermarine’s it was all old-fashioned, with straight wings, tailwheels, slow and ugly?
One could also put it differently: British designers used well proven solutions, while the Germans did their best not to employ anything that had proved its worth in the past.
Now, was it because the Germans were full of new ideas and the Brits completely unable to develop anything new? I don’t think so.
When you run a company with a design office you have to think, first of all, who’s going to pay for all the work done there. Are you going to pay it from your own income? Or is it going to be paid for by the government? Now, in this respect the situation in Germany and in Britain was completely different at the time the first jets were developed.
Germany was about to lose a war, being run by a political system in which the führer would decide everything. If you wanted to get a contract for your aeroplane in late 1944/early 1945 you had to bring something looking like a wonder weapon able to win the war overnight. Nothing short of science-fiction spaceship could possibly attract the attention of the ultimate decision maker. This situation favoured all sorts of visionaries, and if you look through all those “Luftwaffe 46” projects you will see how few of them made sense at all!
At the same time Britain was winning a war, and this meant imminent cuts (very dire cuts) in military spendings. Aircraft makers had to think of selling what they already had, rather than starting completely new innovative projects.
So, if you were one of those conservative-thinking Supermarine managers you’d think like this: “We have spent all that time and money on the blinking Spiteful, but now the Air Ministry won’t buy it, and won’t even let us sell it abroad. Let’s try to make as much use as possible of all the stuff we have developed over the last few years. Hey, let’s put one of them jet engines in a fuselage that will require minimum additional work, perhaps we will obtain a useable machine that we will be able to sell to somebody.” And if a designer came to you at that moment saying “No, no, the straight wing from the Spiteful is no good, we have to start developing swept wing, and we cannot use the Spiteful landing gear either, we should have tricycle undercarriage” you’d probably choke him with your bare hands. Not because you were against progress in aircraft design, but because you had a family to feed.

V.

Good point,
Again, Hawker’s score. Don’t show them up for fools (see Sir Richard Fairey, Fairey Fox) don’t give them what they ask for (Blackburn Botha, Saro Lerwick etc etc etc… ) Give them what they need, and convince ’em they thought of it – Hawker Hurricane!

Originally posted by JDK
Hi VoyTech,
As ever, we are basically in agreement (boring I know!)

As you say the P-11c was the best in the world at the time of its introduction. Sadly that was almost a decade too early, as you say. I don’t think the Hurricane was ever the best – but the point here is it was more than adequate and it was avaliable, in sufficent numbers at the right time – niether too early or too late. It was also more repairable than the Spitfire, and a better gun platform, etc, etc, etc, as we’ve heard time & time again.

Quite. Still, if I’m running a business with a design office, I’d be looking further hahead than Supermarine’s ever seemed to do. That takes us neatly back to the start of this thread – why were Supermarine’s so conservitive?

Finally a minor quibble. The 109 anf Hurricane are worlds apart in construction and therefore manufacture. At the time, I don’t know if there would be a lot in it in tems of production hours per airframe, but if anything the edge would favour the Hurricane – if only that the factories producing them would be familiar with the Hawker construction method from what went before…

Cheers

If you looked further ahead than Supermarine did the one stumbling block would be the lead footed perambulations of Airministry deision making and MOD procurement decision making today is as bad. By the time any thing goes into service it is usually on the verge of being obsolete (certainly that’s the case in the Army). We always used to say that the MOD would not release anything to unit use until was 20 years out of date.

Hi VoyTech,
As ever, we are basically in agreement (boring I know!)

As you say the P-11c was the best in the world at the time of its introduction. Sadly that was almost a decade too early, as you say. I don’t think the Hurricane was ever the best – but the point here is it was more than adequate and it was avaliable, in sufficent numbers at the right time – niether too early or too late. It was also more repairable than the Spitfire, and a better gun platform, etc, etc, etc, as we’ve heard time & time again.

Don’t recall saying that (my English again?) If you have a successful design (= Spitfire) and have no prospect of getting a next one in production why waste your time working on it?

Quite. Still, if I’m running a business with a design office, I’d be looking further ahead than Supermarine’s ever seemed to do. That takes us neatly back to the start of this thread – why were Supermarine’s so conservitive?

Finally a minor quibble. The 109 and Hurricane are worlds apart in construction and therefore manufacture. At the time, I don’t know if there would be a lot in it in tems of production hours per airframe, but if anything the edge would favour the Hurricane – if only that the factories producing them would be familiar with the Hawker construction method from what went before…

Cheers

Originally posted by JDK
Hi VoyTech,
I think you misunderstand me. Technically, and in design terms, there was, definitely, a clear lead from one Hawker design to the next.

Right, I misunderstood you. My poor English, you know.

as you started by saying, Supermarine’s had noting to replace the early Spitfire; a management failure.

Don’t recall saying that (my English again?) If you have a successful design (= Spitfire) and have no prospect of getting a next one in production why waste your time working on it? Spitfire was only ordered as a stop-gap because Hawkers were not able to make enough Hurricanes in time to meet the RAF expansion plans. In 1939 Spitfires were ordered with the express explanation that they were surplus to RAF requirements, but Supermarine production lines had to be kept running until a new licence type was available for manufacture.

While you can draw a line from the Spitfire, prior to the Spit, Supermarines had NO service fighter, and only a couple of ropy prototypes.

Interestingly, this was the case with most of the outstanding WWII fighters (109, 190, Mustang).

Spitfire, Hurricane and 109 at the Battle. The Hurricane was the 3rd place in ranking, sure, but it wasn’t a P-11c;

Funny you should mention that. When the PZL fighters were introduced into service at the beginning of 1930s they were the best in the world. Was Hurricane ever the best in its class?

1. There were more Hurricanes than Spitfires. (Because it could be pass produced quicker – a strike against the Spitfire)

The eternal question of quality vs. quantity. Compare the Hurricane and the 109 – no difference in ease of production and what a difference in performance and development potential. And remember that unlike the 109 or the Hawker fighters, the Spitfire was not designed with mass production in mind. Everybody knew big fighter contracts would go to Hawkers rather than some flying-boat-makers.

V.

Hi VoyTech,
I think you misunderstand me. Technically, and in design terms, there was, definitely, a clear lead from one Hawker design to the next.

I said:

Hawkers, on the other hand, developed from one design to the next very, very sucessfully.

I did NOT say:

during WWII Hawkers developed one successful fighter design after another

I mentioned nothing about W.W.II or service use or effectiveness in role – those are what, in the point I was trying to make, I would call ‘external factors’. I was talking from 1930s to 50s as a contuinuous line.

Looking ONLY at the design, Hawker’s designs were safe, and effective in design terms. The Tornado failed bvecause of its engine – not a Hawker responsibility. The Typhoon hit compressabily, and in hindsight the thick wing was a mistake – but only in hindsight. I’m not saying they were the best, just that Hawker’s iterated and moved their designs along – as you started by saying, Supermarine’s had noting to replace the early Spitfire; a management failure. While you can draw a line from the Spitfire, prior to the Spit, Supermarines had NO service fighter, and only a couple of ropy prototypes.

Spitfire, Hurricane and 109 at the Battle. This old chestnut has gone round and round. Fact remains, in good hands, each could be the equal of the other. The Hurricane was the 3rd place in ranking, sure, but it wasn’t a P-11c; that was a penalty for being ready for war in 1937; the Hurricane was adequate, if not superlative in 1940. And during the battle only three things seem to matter to me.

1. There were more Hurricanes than Spitfires. (Because it could be pass produced quicker – a strike against the Spitfire)
2. Hurricanes shot down more aircraft than ALL the other defences COMBINED. Yes, these two facts are related, but swap a P-11 for the Hurricane, and a very different story would come out.
3. “The RAF was glad to have the Spitfire. it HAD to have the Hurricane.” Mason.

Still, it’s all just interpratations. We know what happened!
Cheers

Originally posted by JDK
Very interesting point there. Personally I think Mitchell was a great seaplane designer (which, before the Spitfire, is what he was best known for) and got lucky with the Spitfire in terms of it’s aerodynamics. As an aircraft intended for production, it was awful, and K5054 needed to be redesigned for production.
I suspect the fault lay more with Vickers or Vickers-Supermarine board being very conservitive in what was going to get developed rather than Joe Smith’s approach – but that’s just a thought.
Hawkers, on the other hand, developed from one design to the next very, very sucessfully. Their only(?) hiccup was the Typhoon’s wing and tail, which was a concequence of pushing the envelope rather than a lack of ‘good design practice’.
Some here are better qualified to comment, and I may be wrong with some of that, but it’s an interesting area…

I am not better qualified to comment than you, but a few things come to my mind having read this:

I think Spitfire was developed throughout the war because no other operationally useful British fighter.
Stating that during WWII Hawkers developed one successful fighter design after another sounds a bit unusual to me.
As distinguished as it was, the Hurricane was obsolete compared to the 109 by the time of the Battle of Britain, and it had virtually no development potential. Typhoon/Tornado, intended to become the standard RAF fighter from ca. 1940 were both failures in their intended roles (no intention to get into details why this was so, just stating facts from the RAF viewpoint).
The first usable Hawker fighter was the Tempest, but this entered service too late to really affect the war.
All in all, there was no other way but to develop the Spitfire, and fortunately for the RAF the Mitchell design had the necessary development potential.
If you look at the Spitfire/Spiteful development it is clear that introducing a completely new design, or even a much modified Spitfire version had always lower priority than hasty stop-gap modifications. So, even if Mitchell was still alive, there was little chance of a new Supermarine fighter replacing the Spitfire during the war.

And about developing one design from another: if you look at the lineage of F.7/30 to Swift, there is no distinctive break. This is not to say that the Swift had any parts from the F.7/30 (or even that Spitfire 24 had any parts from K5054), but that the development was a continuous process.
When it comes to Hawker, I don’t think the Tornado/Typhoon had anything to do with the family of the inter-war biplanes plus the Hurricane. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think work on the Tornado/Typhoon was from a scratch, not by developing the Hurricane. On the other hand, if you just mean the long line of successful (?) Hawker fighters, you can go as far as the Harrier. They all had some input from the genius of Sydney Camm, but they were not from one and the same development line.

V.

That really is interesting information.

Many thanks, MarkG:)

OK, this is an extract from the “Handling” section of the Attacker F.1, FB.1 & FB.2 Pilot’s Notes. Paragraph iii id the most relevant to the original query I suppose and does seem to illustrate the difficulty in raising the tail on such an aircraft…

“Take-Off
(i) Taxy forward a few yards to straighten the tail wheel and engage the tail wheel lock.
(ii) Open the throttle smoothly to take-off r.p.m. There is no tendancy to swing but should it be necessary, small changes in direction may be made by careful use of the brakes until the rudder becomes effective at 50-60 knots. Note – If it is necessary to check any of the engine instruments, this should be done against the brakes prior to take-off.
(iii) The elevator forces to raise the tail are very heavy, but this may be done at 75-80 knots. With full internal and external fuel, the aircraft may be flown off at 105-110 knots. At maximum take-off weight the aircraft should be flown off at 115-120 knots.
(iv) Brake the wheels before raising the undercarriage which, to avoid the risk of damage, should be locked up before the speed reaches 190 knots. Slight lateral trim changes may be felt due to one leg retracting before the other.
(v) Raise the flaps a few degrees at a time, retrimming carefully. There is a very strong nose-down change of trim on raising the flaps. This is particularly strong if they are raised at high airspeeds.”

Hope this is of interest.

I have a set of Attacker Pilot’s Notes and there is no mention in there of having to dab the brakes or perform any other specific actions to get the tail up during take-off.

I’ll have another good look at it later and double check though.

JDK, re the Typhoon’s wing and tail. I’m sure I’ve read, but wouldn’t know where straight away, that the only problem with the tail was flutter. Having finally cured that, the Air Ministry wouldn’t believe it, hence the, apparently unnecessary, fishplates.

Mark12, I was going to put that, checked with Jeffery Quill’s book thinking I would find the reference there and couldn’t. Gave up.

With the greatest respect to Joe Smith’s development abilities, it would appear he wasn’t in the same class as Mitchell in designing from scratch. Or, perhaps he was but was trying to retain the Mitchell legacy.

Very interesting point there. Personally I think Mitchell was a great seaplane designer (which, before the Spitfire, is what he was best known for) and got lucky with the Spitfire in terms of it’s aerodynamics. As an aircraft intended for production, it was awful, and K5054 needed to be redesigned for production.

I suspect the fault lay more with Vickers or Vickers-Supermarine board being very conservitive in what was going to get developed rather than Joe Smith’s approach – but that’s just a thought.

Hawkers, on the other hand, developed from one design to the next very, very sucessfully. Their only(?) hiccup was the Typhoon’s wing and tail, which was a concequence of pushing the envelope rather than a lack of ‘good design practice’.

Given you can trace a line from the Hart to the Sea Fury, or stretching a point from the Tabloid to the Sea Fury, that’s not a bad record!

Some here are better qualified to comment, and I may be wrong with some of that, but it’s an interesting area…

Cheers

dhfan,

I believe you will find the Spitfire Mk 22/24 has the Spiteful tail.

Mark