Handley Page 'He.177'?

[robunos]

While looking for something else, I came across this,
from page 408 of Putnam's 'Handley Page'...
" ...the more urgent aspects of improving bomber effectiveness had become
Godrey Lee’s direct concern in December 1941, when he reported on the
optimisation of high-altitude bomber design. Lee suggested an aircraft of
Halifax size, but of much better aerodynamic shape and lower drag, with
four Merlin 60 engines mounted transversely in pairs, buried in a forward
extension of the centre-section leading edge, with each pair geared to a
contra-rotating coaxial airscrew unit mounted in a slender nacelle at each
end of the centre-section, thereby combining the power and reliability of
four engines withthe low drag of a half-submerged twin powerplant installation.
This project would have been heavily defended with nose, dorsal and
ventral turrets, and would have had a nosewheel and a sideways-retracting
main undercarriage. Lee’s proposal was too advanced and idealistic for
immediate implementation in 1942 and he did not attempt to design the
structure in detail, but concurrent experience with the Consolidated B-24
Liberator had shown the benefit of choosing a high aspect ratio."
Does anyone have any more information on this?




cheers,
Robin.

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[alertken]

bump to note this, a few lines further down same page: "it resembled the Davis wing of the Consolidated Liberator, which HP Ltd. had briefly fostered early in the war."
Que?

 

[Rickshaw]

Not quite a He 177. The DB610s were essentially two engines sharing a common crankcase driving a single propeller. This design proposed two separate engines driving contraprops through a separate gear box.

 

[Vahe Demirjian]

While looking for something else, I came across this,
from page 408 of Putnam's 'Handley Page'...
" ...the more urgent aspects of improving bomber effectiveness had become
Godrey Lee’s direct concern in December 1941, when he reported on the
optimisation of high-altitude bomber design. Lee suggested an aircraft of
Halifax size, but of much better aerodynamic shape and lower drag, with
four Merlin 60 engines mounted transversely in pairs, buried in a forward
extension of the centre-section leading edge, with each pair geared to a
contra-rotating coaxial airscrew unit mounted in a slender nacelle at each
end of the centre-section, thereby combining the power and reliability of
four engines withthe low drag of a half-submerged twin powerplant installation.
This project would have been heavily defended with nose, dorsal and
ventral turrets, and would have had a nosewheel and a sideways-retracting
main undercarriage. Lee’s proposal was too advanced and idealistic for
immediate implementation in 1942 and he did not attempt to design the
structure in detail, but concurrent experience with the Consolidated B-24
Liberator had shown the benefit of choosing a high aspect ratio."
Does anyone have any more information on this?




cheers,
Robin.

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I have a copy of the book British Secret Projects 4: Bombers 1935-1950 and the Handley Page high-altitude bomber project with four coupled Merlin 60s is mentioned on page 217, with the length and wingspan being given as 74 ft 5 in (22.70 meters) and 100 feet (30.48 meters) respectively, while a three-view drawing of the design is provided on page 216.