British 1944 Christmas wish-list

[Schneiderman]

In November 1944 the Air Ministry, Admiralty and Ministry of Aircraft Production submitted the following list to Cabinet to guide future planning for the aviation industry.

Five Years’ Programme for Prototype Aircraft (minimum of 3 for each type)

1) An Interceptor Fighter Type – jet, to follow Meteor
2) A Low-Medium General Purpose Fighter Type – to follow Fury, Spitfire 21 and Spiteful
3) A Long Range High Performance Fighter Type – possibly dual power, to follow Hornet
4) A High Speed Fighter/Bomber Type – jet, may be convertible to night fighter/escort fighter
5) A Cruiser-Fighter Type – to protect bomber formations
6) An Anti-Ship Attack Type – possibly derived from 3) or 4)
7) Tactical Reconnaissance – adapted from 2)
8) Strategical Reconnaissance (PRU) – an adaptation of 2), 3) or 4)
9) Naval Fighter Type – adaptations of 1), 2) and/or 3)
10) Heavy Bomber – as interim adapt Bristol heavy transport (Type 167 Brabazon)
11) A Robot Bomber – pilotless ground or air-controlled
12) Naval Strike Type
. a) 2-3 place torpedo dive-bomber
. b)Single seat high performance fighter/strike type
13) A High Speed Night Bomber
14) A Very High Altitude Bomber
15) A Jet Fighter Type – boat class by Saunder Roe (Saro SR1)
16) A Very Large Boat – largest flying boat possible
17) A Sunderland Replacement – not a firmly established requirement
18) Long Range Reconnnaissance – land plane, maximum range possible
19) Naval Reconnaissance
. a) High speed twin engine, possibly adapted for bomb or torpedo load
. b) An Amphibian
20) A Long-Range York Replacement – derived from Tudor II or new Brabazon Type 3A or 3B
21) A Short Range High Capacity Cargo Plane
. a)New conception
. b)Others derived, if possible, from Brabazon types
22) An Intermediate Trainer – to replace the Master
23) A Twin-engine interim trainer – to replace Oxford and Anson
24) A Type for Operational Crew Training – twin or four engine, possibly obsolete heavy bomber
25) Communication Class – slow landing type, twin engine. Derived from civil type
26) Military Glider – future of the glider type is not clear
27) Helicopter – roles yet to be established. Navy, at least one type, RAF at least two
28) Brabazon Type 1 – Bristol Type 167 Brabazon
29) Brabazon Type 2 – Airspeed AS57 Ambassador
30) Brabazon Type 3 – Avro, to replace Tudor II
31) Brabazon Type 4 – de Havilland to start design in early 1945
32) Brabazon Type 5A – Design has been placed (Miles Marathon)
33) Brabazon Type 5B - Design has been placed (DH Dove) – could fill the role 25)
34) Rapid development in turbine field may make it necessary to replace some Brabazon Types within a relatively short period.
. Need for intermediate Types, e.g between Type 1 and Type 3., and additional civil types; Private, Charter, Helicopter, Freighter, Flying Boat
. Allow for ~ 8 civil types
. Allow for ~ 4 pure research types

This programme gives 44 types (excluding Brabazon replacements) which must be provided for, and in many cases it will be desirable to order 2, and in some cases even 3, of each type. A round figure of 70 designs indicates the task before us.

 

[Hood]

I have a slight contribution from an intriguing minute I found at Kew by ACAS(TR) on 2 April 1945; "In programme of new type aircraft to be put in hand in 1945, 18 out of 22 to be powered by turbine or turbine-jet units."
I have never attempted to count up all of these types, but I presume all of these must feature on your 1944 wish-list. For example the Intermediate Trainer to replace the Master will be the T.7/45 turboprop-powered trainer (whose file my snippet comes from).

I assume the "New Conception" on the list is the M.52?

 

[Schneiderman]

No, the bullet-pointing went awry when I cut and pasted in to the forum. The New Conception refers to the Cargo Plane above. I'll see if I can edit it all

EDIT.......sorted now. Text taken directly from the note sent to Cabinet

 

[alertken]

SM: what a find, many thanks. Absence of M.52 (et al - AW.52 flying wing, more if I think - laminar flow airfoils...) would be that in 11/44 they were done and dusted, in funding terms.

Note the interplay, Brabazons: military, not commonly noted in commentaries. See Dove, see new Heavy Bomber, T.167 variant as Interim.

Some on this wish list lapsed as early as Feb.45, when PM ruled to cease funding anything unlikely to be deployed by 10/46. MAP and the 3 Service Ministries did a good job of working around that - for instance, Cripps funding Petter's jet bomber doodles at EE. All that moaning about UK missing out on the Sabre/MiG-15 generation forgets that, we hoped, this really was the War to end Wars.

 

[hesham]

Very good list my dear Schneiderman,

and a surprised me,any drawings to proposals available ?.

 

[Schneiderman]

Hesham, no, this is just a list of possible requirements put together for future manpower planning

The background to the list is a desire from the Ministry of Aircraft Production (Stafford Cripps) to recruit 500 additional design draughtsmen for the industry in order to deliver the programme of Brabazon civil aircraft and to handle the jump in technology from the advent of jet engines. Obviously the Forces were always going to want plenty of new toys, hence why I referred to this as a Christmas wish list, but equally there was a desire not to repeat the situation in 1919 when the industry nearly collapsed from a lack of orders and there were massive job losses. The report was issued jointly with the Minister for Labour (Ernest Bevin) and the Secretary of State for Air (Archibald Sinclair), so also very much a Labour/Liberal influenced view, not that that is necessarily a bad thing.
I highlighted the last sentence as 44 prototype aircraft types in 5 years, with many involving a fly-off, hence 70 unique designs, was beyond aspirational not to mention affordable. As alertken says a great deal of this was sidelined within weeks.