What aircraft (any side) would you develope further

[Marshall_Stack]

Originally Posted by Konigstiger205

I would modify my country's I.A.R. 81 and replace the 7.92 mm FN machine guns with 13 mm MG 131 from the Bf109 and perhaps mount a 30 mm Mk108 cannon in the nose but for that probably would have to take out the 20 mm MG 151/20 from the wings...

How about a more powerful engine?

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by MacArther

Also, what would you introduce earlier? I would give the P40 Q a chance, (as is well known by most), give the Dautless a 2000 hp engine and two 20mm's in the wings along with normal armament. Hurricane could have used a bigger engine, and for the sake of being laughed at, a bubble canopy. Then the Miles M20 (21?), a good fighter that showed up early on with a bubble canopy, possibly 12.7mm guns in lieu of the 7.7mms, or a combination of 7.7mm and 20mm.

I would take a different slant on the 'What if" design or production considerations.

1. What if the F4U had also been purchased by the USAAF - the 8th AF would have had a longer range, more maneuverable escort fighter much earlier in the war.

2. What if the Spit had been blessed with more internal/external fuel much earlier to enable long range escort in daylight - or long range sweeps deep into Germany.

3. What if the Fw190D had been pushed much faster, or the Me262 been fitted w/twin DB603s until the jet engine problems solved (with the same super clean airframe.)

4. What if the prototype P-38 had not been destroyed and survived long enough to give Lockheed clues to compressibility issues/solutions two years earlier?

5. What if the idiots that stipulated that the He 177 be capable of dive bombing and/or stipulated a two nacelle design had died of a heart attack before then.

6. What if the original Mustang had been designed around the Rolls rather than Allison from the very beginning?

All these would have greatly influenced tactical doctines in 1943-1944

[kool kitty89]

Well there's also the Me-209II which was canceled due to slow development and was outperformed by the Fw-190.

There's also the Me-309 but, though it was ready before the 209II, it was still not up to par with the Fw-190 and had poorer manuverabillity than the Bf-109.

[Marshall_Stack]

[quote=drgondog;274662]I would take a different slant on the 'What if" design or production considerations.

1. What if the F4U had also been purchased by the USAAF - the 8th AF would have had a longer range, more maneuverable escort fighter much earlier in the war.



I have wondered the same thing. But would the lack of a turbosupercharger (which the P-47 had) hinders its performance in the high altitude battles over Europe?

[Marcel]

Fokker G.I (surprise ) with RR Merlin engines. Would have put it on par with the mossie in versatility and maybe speed. I heard Fokker wanted to do this, but the dutch government chose fless powerfull engines.

[drgondog]

[quote=Marshall_Stack;274664]

Originally Posted by drgondog

I would take a different slant on the 'What if" design or production considerations.

1. What if the F4U had also been purchased by the USAAF - the 8th AF would have had a longer range, more maneuverable escort fighter much earlier in the war.



I have wondered the same thing. But would the lack of a turbosupercharger (which the P-47 had) hinders its performance in the high altitude battles over Europe?

At 22-26,000 feet - not at all. It had a supercharger early and then water/meth injection in -4's.. The only real area that it was inferior to a P-47 was above 28-30K - in speed and maybe dive.

- yes at 35+

[kool kitty89]

The 262 could have also used the Ta-152's Jumo 213E engine which was about the same size and weight but had significantly more power. Though, as a piston-engine aircraft it probably wouldn't have performad much better than the best allied planes and probably wouldn't pass 500mph in level flight, even with boost. Still it would still be quite fast and would have a longer range than the jet version; it would also likely have been able to remain aloft on a single engine, like the P-38 and would obviously have awsome dive performance.

[johnbr]

For me it is.
US make the P38k
XP67 with rr Crey
P51H with rr Griffon
UK Frank whittle lot of money to make his jet engine.
make the Tempest Mark 1
MB5
Italian G.56 with db603La
Mc 205 db605d
Piaggio P.119 bmw 801TQ
Germany FW 190 with bmw 801f
Heinkel 277 with 4 bmw 802
Heinkel 280 with he30 and 3 mauser mg.213c 20mm
Horton 229 with he011c and 4 mauser mg.213c 20mm
Bv p211.01 with bmw 003d in stead of the He 162
Me 262HG111 with jumo 004h
BV 440 with db623

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

That B-17 looks pretty interesting. Would those extra jet engines be a quicker get away device, or would it be added range? Because they still have the props to fly it.

What would happen if you went back to WWI.....Took a Spad XIII.....and put a jet engine on it?

[Snautzer]

it was done before

It could have been usefull for getting the b17 even heavier payloads up in the air and i suppose a bit of extra speed over the target.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Well there's also the Me-209II which was canceled due to slow development and was outperformed by the Fw-190.

There's also the Me-309 but, though it was ready before the 209II, it was still not up to par with the Fw-190 and had poorer manuverabillity than the Bf-109.

You are pretty much correct in what you are talking about here but you need to be careful about the info you get from wikipedia. It is really not the best source and is more often very full of mistakes and falsehoods.

Dont take me wrong I use wikipedia from time to time as well as a quick reference, but you can not believe everything that is in it and you have to cross reference with better materials.

[MacArther]

I don't have one of my books in front of me, so you'll have to excuse the lack of terminology.

1. Introduce the FM-2 modifications into the original F4F-4 so that by Coral Sea or Midway the US fighters aren't sucking air whenever they go to climb to higher altitudes.

2. Give the B-17s and B-24s 2000hp engines. Why? Because I said so!

3. Ditch the F2 Buffalo original and instead use the B-339 or whatever the export was called. Give it a cannon or two, and some extra fuel tanks, use it as a long range fighter/recon plane.

4. Introduce that one battleship/cruiser launched seaplane (the replacement for the Kingfisher and those planes) made in the US that appeared only at the end of the war at the beginning of the war. The thing was practically a light fighter, with 2 .50 cals, top speed of 314 mph, and something like 650lbs of ordinance.

PS: The Me-309 V4 is soooooo prettiful!!

[Marshall_Stack]

There are two that I would like to have seen developed more...

The first is the XB-42 Mixmaster. Even though it would have been too late for WWII, it may have been useful in Korea.

XB-42 Mixmaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The second is the the XF5U Flying Flapjack. We could have learned a lot from the VSTOL characteristics and again it would have been late for WWII but may have been useful in Korea in areas that did not have developed runways.

Vought XF5U - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[kool kitty89]

Though not a plane, I think it's a shame that the HeS-30 wasn't allowed to fully develop. It could have been used sucessfully on either the He-280 or the Me 262. The prototype showed thrust of about the same amount as the 004A engine did and weighed about half as much and produced 200lbs more thrust than the 004B. At an airspeed of 500mph the engine was projected to have about 2470 lbs of thrust (coincidentally less than 300 lbs less than the HeS-011 "class II" engine produced in testing)
As stated the engine was much lighter than the other class I engines (only 390kg, 859lb) this lighter construction used far less material than the others and used only a 3-stage compressor. Though more complex in some areas, the resulting problems had been mostly rectified by the time the prototype was ready in May of 1942, only 2 months after the 004A was tested. The engine also utilized conventional flame cans an thus didn't have the same difficulties as the BMW 003, and would have likely been ready for production long before the 003, though probably a few months after the 004.

Unfortunately the German government saw the 004 and 003 as "good enough" (obveously not noticing the problems the 003 was having). They cancelled the HeS-30 along with Heinkel's other class-I engine, the centrifugal HeS-8, in favor of production of the more complex and problematic class II HeS-011 wich had no chance of being ready before the end of the war. This is too bad because 2 HeS-30 engines would have heen as good as any class II engine and would be small enough (2ft in diameter) to be placed side by side or stacked in place of a single, larger class II engine. This arrangement could have been utilized by many of the prototype/experimental aircraft designs without major alteration IMHO.

The Lockheed L-1000 axial turbojet suffered a symilar fate when the USAAF wsa uninterested in funding the twin-engine L-133 jet-fighter project in 1940. Though work the engine was resumed in 1943 and continued later on after the war (as the J37) the design never went beond testbed examples or entered production. The L133 was never developed past scale wind-tunnel models and mock-ups. GE also had a design for a centrifugal turbojet based on one of their turbochargers around the same time but the project never left the drawing board. The main difference between these projects and the German ones like the He-280 is that the Germans continued working on the projects independantly after being denied contrects and eventualy gained the intrest of the government, but sadly, this didn't save Heinkel's project. =(

Too bad Heinkel didn't defect, with his dislike if the Nazi regime's policies (and them in general) and his treatment by them he must have considdered switching sides especialy after his company was "nationalized" in 1942. Though it probably would have been virtualy impossible for someone in his position to escape the axis territory (at least not alive), especialy in that stage of the war.

There were also various other turbojets being designed independently in the US durring the war like the axial-compressor westinghouse turbojets (the J30 which produced 1600lbf and was first operted in fall of '44 and used for the FH Phantom which first flew in early '45 and was basicly the navy's equivalent of the P-59). Check them out, as well as some other early jets, here: Jets45-Engines

I wonder if the J30s or maby even the J31(if there were enough that had not been diverted to the P59 untill its cancellation and wasn't too much wider than the L-1000) would have worked in the L133 design...

I've seen the beauty of many German engeneered aircraft but of all the early German jet designs I've never seen one that I found as amazing as the L133 (though some were certainly more
unorthadox)

Though the airforce would still probably be uninterested as it was such a radical design. Still it would be cool to see a flight sim feature it, same for the He-280.

[kool kitty89]

The He-280 had a lot of potential, though it's range was't that great, but it may have been possible to fit external tanks to improve this especialy considdering the low weight of the intended engines and the high thrust and small size of the the HeS-30. (both the HeS-8 and 30 weighed about 850lbs but the 30 produced over 2000 lbf while the 8 only produced 1320 lbf, though due to its centrifugal compressor the HeS-8 was about 2/3 the length and only slightly wider.)
Since the Junkers 004 engines weighed over 1500 lbs each and put out 1980 lbf and were also much larger than the original engine, it's no surprise the 280 didn't perform well using them.

Oh cool, there are several dowloads for He-280 mods for several combat flight sims online! =)

Here's a cool page I found on a google search: Heinkel He 280 archive file