Drake's Drum (redux)

[Nick Sumner]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to one and all!

There are minor updates to the, USN, USAAF, US Naval Aviation, Italian Naval Aviation, Regia Marina and Order of Battle appendices at the Drake's Drum website if anyone is interested over the Christmas holidays.

Back in the New Year!

 

[Nick Sumner]

Pleased to announce some updates to the website.

The Beta version of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Arm appendix has been uploaded while Version 1.0 of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Arm appendix has replaced the Beta version previously posted.

Updates, revisions and corrections to the Royal Navy Air Arm, Kriegsmarine, Italian Army, Marine National and Spanish Armada appendices have also been made.

In other news, Part 4 of the Drake's Drum series Drake's Drum: The Horizon of Our Hopes will soon have reached the first draft stage and I'm hoping it will be ready for Beta readers by December. It will complete the story, bringing it up to the first decade of the 21st​ Century.

Some eye candy…

The following pictures are Photoshopped

The Q2M Taiyo was a Mitsubishi design for a patrol bomber for the IJN to replace the Kyushu Q1W in that role and the Mitsubishi G4M in the torpedo attack role.. In OTL it never got off the drawing board. In Drake's Drum, it does…

The Ki-97 was another OTL Mitsubishi design that didn't get off the drawing board, this time for a transport aircraft. It was based on the wings, engines and tail surfaces of the Japanese Army's Ki-67 Hiryu bomber.

A flight of fancy… In the Drake's Drum timeline the onset of the Second World War is delayed and so the development of civil aviation advances more rapidly in the early 1940s than it did in OTL. Consequently Mitsubishi develop a new transport aircraft and like the Ki-97 and the Ki-57 of OTL they use their latest bomber design (in this case the G4M 'Betty') as a basis.

The Tachikawa Ki-94 II was an OTL high altitude fighter that in OTL only got as far as the mock up stage.

Another flight of fancy… The Kawasaki Ki-164 a fictional design based on the OTL Ki-64. Instead of the tandem engine set-up of that aircraft (which flew in prototype form in OTL) the Ki-164 uses the Yokosuka Ha-74 (YE-3B) experimental 'X' block engine which was under development at wars end in OTL. There is an excellent article here about the YE3B and you can read about its TTL development path in the aircraft engines appendix at the Drake's Drum website.

L to R The Kawasaki Ki-64 (flew as a prototype in OTL), the Kawasaki Ki-88 (design only in OTL), the Kawasaki Ki-164 (conjectural design from the Drake's Drum timeline.

The Kawanishi H11K 'Soku.' In OTL it was to transport troops and cargo from Japan to the far flung Pacific outposts and only got as far as the mock-up stage.

 

[SaparotRob]

Great stuff!

 

[Nick Sumner]

This first image in this post is photoshopped.

This is a Japanese aircraft that never flew in our time line. It is based on the Plan VIII reconnaissance aircraft designed by the Rikugun Kokugijutsu Kenkūjo in 1941 and finalised by 1943/4. An example is depicted here as it might be after capture by American forces.

As can be seen from the drawings, Plan VIII was a four engine designs meant to use Ha-211 Ru engines. It must be noted that the aircraft seems too small for the planned four engines. It's possible that the correct dimensions of the design have not been found or that different engines were planned and this version has Mitsubishi Ha-53 engines. The Ha-53 was a 28-cylinder supercharged four-row, seven-bank, radial that was designed, but never built.

Works consulted include: All the Experimental Aircraft in Japanese Army by Minoru Akimoto; Japanese Secret Projects Volume 1 by Edwin M. Dyer III, Illustrated Warplane History Number 8: The X-Planes of Imperial Japanese Army and Navy by Nohara Shigeru, Japanese Aero Engines 1910 to 1945 by Mike Godwin and Peter Starkings, 陸海軍試作戦闘機 (1) 太平洋戦史シリーズ (Army and Navy prototype fighter Part 1: Pacific War History Series, Gakken 31) and 三菱航空エンジン史―大正六年より終戦まで 1915‐1945 (History of Mitsubishi Aero Engines 1915 to 1945) by Matsuoka Hisamitsu and Nakanishi Masayoshi.

This aircraft would have entered service in the Drake's Drum timeline where it would be given the designation Ki-124 and the Allied code name 'Irene.' I'm happy to announce that Drake's Drum: Horizon of Our Hopes has just been released as an e-book and the paperback version will be released shortly. The finished versions of both the IJA Air Arm and Ejercito del Aire Appendices are now up at the Drake's Drum website. The new book covers the period 1948-2015 and I hope to post pictures of ships and aircraft from that period in the coming weeks.

 

[Nick Sumner]

Some more from the world of Drake's Drum

These are 2 aircraft that never flew in our time line. They are a variant of the Tank Ta 152 with a Jumo 222 engine and a conjectural Heinkel fighter design based on the P.1076. The final book in the series, Drake's Drum: Horizon of Our Hopes which covers the period 1948-2015, is out in e-book form and the paperback is days away from release.

Both aircraft were single seat fighters. First the Ta 152, the first two images are FW drawings the third and fourth images are Photoshopped

 

[Nick Sumner]

The second aircraft is a bit more conjectural. As can be seen from the accompanying drawing, this Heinkel design was originally to have swept forward wings, a DB 603 engine and evaporation cooling (the hatched areas on the fuselage). However, it seems unlikely that swept forward wings made from materials available when the P.1076 was designed could have withstood the strain of combat manoeuvres. (In the drawing the aircraft looks to be asymmetric, but it is merely that the left side shows the wing of the high altitude version and the right side the low to medium altitude wing.) Furthermore evaporation cooling was too delicate to be effective on a fighter aircraft. The conjectural He 351 presented here has wing mounted radiators, the larger openings in the leading edges of both wings. The engine is also different, in the Drake's Drum timeline the inverted V16 DB 609 engine becomes sufficiently mature to be see regular service. The air intake is the smaller of the leading edge openings in the port wing. The one in the starboard wing is for the oil cooler.

Sources consulted include Warplanes of the Second World War Volume 1 by William Green, German Aircraft of WW2 by Smith and Kay, The Ultimate Piston Fighters of the Luftwaffe by Justo Miranda, Luftwaffe Secret Projects: Fighters 1939-45 by Schick and Meyer, Focke-Wulf FW190 and Ta 152 Aircraft and Legend by Heinz Nowarra, Flugmoteren und Straltreibwerke by Gersdorf, Schubert and Ebert, The Secret Horsepower Race by Calum E. Douglas and the Old Machine Press website at Old Machine Press.

The following drawing is conjectural

The following images are Photoshopped

 

[Nick Sumner]

A significantly updated Beta version of the Luftwaffe Appendix has been uploaded at the Drake's Drum website.

And...

If I may brag...

As of just now, 71% of the ratings for DD4 on Amazon are 4 or 5 stars.

 

[Nick Sumner]

A big update to the Drake's Drum website has just gone live. Photographs from Part 4 Drake's Drum: Horizon of Our Hopes have been added and there have been updates to several of the Appendices. Here we see an FW 206 airliner, designed in OTL but never built. A sort of German DC3.

The first two images in this post are Photoshopped.

 

[Nick Sumner]

The FW 206' big brother, the FW 300 airliner. Calculated performance suggests an aircraft comparable to the Douglas DC6, but it never flew so we'll never know for sure...

The first image in this post is Photoshopped.

 

[Nick Sumner]

Colour!

Here are the FW 281 A2 and the Ta 152K in colour!

These are the aircraft in post 3 and 25 of this thread and they can also be seen in the Seeluftstreitkraft appendix at the Drake's Drum website (link in my sig line).

The images in this post are Photoshopped.

 

[Nick Sumner]

In other news there is a new update to the Drake's Drum website which includes the addition of password accessible content.

It consists of Annex 19, which is a complete Drake's Drum timeline and an Interlude chapter which was an attempt at comic relief, but didn't really propel the plot forward.

If you would like to know the password please email me with a picture of your copy of either the paperback version of Drake's Drum: Horizon of Our Hopes or a picture of the screen of your reading device with the map of Africa that is printed near the end of the penultimate chapter. My email is available in the 'Author' section of the Drake's Drum website and there is a link in my sig line. Please allow a day or two for a response.

 

[Nick Sumner]

And...

A Luftwaffe FW 206 and an RCAF Martin Baker Raven dogfighting over southern England, 10th June, 1946...

This image is Photoshopped