Getting a British Phantom

[uk 75]

The TSR2 might have done that if things were different.

The TSR2 was an object lesson in how not to do it That is how the RAF ended uo with a shorter ranged replacement called Tornado.

 

[Rule of cool]

The TSR2 was an object lesson in how not to do it That is how the RAF ended uo with a shorter ranged replacement called Tornado.

As you know we see the failure of the TSR2 differently. I see many of the TSR2's issues as external to the project itself and could have been ameliorated by better procurement policy decisions.

 

[uk 75]

Possibly, but in the real world TSR2 unlike F4 could not be delivered as a working weapon system to a realistic price.
After we bought F4, all involved learnt the lessons and we got Jaguar and Tornado.

 

[Rule of cool]

Possibly, but in the real world TSR2 unlike F4 could not be delivered as a working weapon system to a realistic price.
After we bought F4, all involved learnt the lessons and we got Jaguar and Tornado.

The TSR2 price wasn't unrealistic, it was the British politicians expectation of how much a threate nuclear strike aircraft would cost that was unrealistic.

 

[red admiral]

Hawker S sensibly stuck to what they were good at, making pretty airframes and gave us the Hawk. It replaced both the Gnat but also Hunters in the no radar single engined combat aircraft slot.

They also made money from it! Shock, horror. From a fixed price contract! Even more horror.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The TSR2 might have done that if things were different.

Disagree.

The TSR2 price wasn't unrealistic, it was the British politicians expectation of how much a threate nuclear strike aircraft would cost that was unrealistic.

Dude, BAC could not give any estimate of how much it would cost to develop the TSR2 to completion.

That is not an unrealistic-Politician problem, that is an absolute failure of project management problem!

 

[zen]

I can't imagine any 50s British design being reworked enough to approach the outlier Phantom.

?

The Phantom was such an outlier that only the latest late 50s supersonic/Mach 2 aerodynamics will suffice.

The OR.339 submissions be Mach 2+ aircraft, that includes Type 571 single engine.
P.1121 and it's earlier P.1103 be Mach 2+ designs.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The OR.339 submissions be Mach 2+ aircraft, that includes Type 571 single engine.
P.1121 and it's earlier P.1103 be Mach 2+ designs.

Those were all good airframes, but not a weapons system with integrated radar and missile systems like the F-4.

 

[Rule of cool]

Disagree.



Dude, BAC could not give any estimate of how much it would cost to develop the TSR2 to completion.

That is not an unrealistic-Politician problem, that is an absolute failure of project management problem!

That was virtually standard in the era of switching to Mach 2 and digital avionics, the F4 had analogue computers IIUC. The F111 development was exceedingly troublesome which is why it was built in small-ish batches, cost a fortune and the RAAF's were delivered 6 years after being built. The fixed price contract for the F14 almost bankrupted Grumman and the F15 was so expensive that they invented the Light Weight Fighter to make up the numbers. The TSR2 fit more or less in with those state of the art development programmes.

I'm aware that there were significant project management problems, however Britain firms had recently successfully project managed 3 V bombers and project management practice was something that could be studied elsewhere and new practices incorporated.

The fact of the matter is that developing state of the art combat aircraft to demanding specs in the 60s was expensive, but the newly elected Labour government wasn't keen on spending the money. However they did spend the money, they had to, there is no cheap way to field a modern, competitive military.

 

[Rule of cool]

?

The OR.339 submissions be Mach 2+ aircraft, that includes Type 571 single engine.
P.1121 and it's earlier P.1103 be Mach 2+ designs.

Thin wing Javelins and other such 50s subsonic aircraft might be able to massaged into supersonic, but they'll never make a Phantom.

You need the likes of the Type 571 or P.1121 to really match the Phantom.

 

[zen]

You need the likes of the Type 571 or P.1121 to really match the Phantom.

Yes we agree

 

[zen]

Those were all good airframes, but not a weapons system with integrated radar and missile systems like the F-4.

The F4 is just an airframe.
The avionics forced changes as much as any engines.

 

[zen]

Stepping back for a moment and examine a big picture view.
To parallel the F4 we'd have to have a firm start such studies in 1952, when we lagged in supersonic and reheat behind the US.
By late '53 to early '54 said firm would have to approach government with a design worth development.
At this stage primarily an Attack machine.
But with government support, shifting into a All Weather Fighter-Bomber by late '54 early '55.
Then in mid-55 transition to Fleet Air Defence with 2 prototypes ordered.
These would fly in 1958.....
Conduct carrier suitability trials in '59 and enter service in '61.

Had Sea Vixen entered production by '54 as per the early plans......RN would have set that ball rolling for it's successor. Which could have followed such a path.....

In history the closest thing here is the N/A.39 (M.148T), which ironically Blackburn did propose just such a Fighter version. Though this depended on higher thrust engines like BE.33 or getting Gyron Junior to similar output.

 

[Rule of cool]

Stepping back for a moment and examine a big picture view.
To parallel the F4 we'd have to have a firm start such studies in 1952, when we lagged in supersonic and reheat behind the US.
By late '53 to early '54 said firm would have to approach government with a design worth development.
At this stage primarily an Attack machine.
But with government support, shifting into a All Weather Fighter-Bomber by late '54 early '55.
Then in mid-55 transition to Fleet Air Defence with 2 prototypes ordered.
These would fly in 1958.....
Conduct carrier suitability trials in '59 and enter service in '61.

Had Sea Vixen entered production by '54 as per the early plans......RN would have set that ball rolling for it's successor. Which could have followed such a path.....

In history the closest thing here is the N/A.39 (M.148T), which ironically Blackburn did propose just such a Fighter version. Though this depended on higher thrust engines like BE.33 or getting Gyron Junior to similar output.

To do that you probably need the Miles M.52 to not be cancelled. Going supersonic via the EE P1 from 1949 gets you the Lightning rather than the Phantom. Also, the RAF was using later model Canberras in the all weather, medium-long range attack role from the mid 50s, which creates a lot of momentum of its own.

That said, I still believe there is no technical impediment to the British building something akin to the Phantom in the early 60s. It's just hammering the history to make it happen that's the hard part.

 

[zen]

So to follow on from my last post.

And then there was Westland W.37

A fighter-striker proposed against N.114T in April 1950 and assessed in committee in '51.

The W.37/2 stowed center line heavy weapons externally.

What this has is moderate sweepback, reheat, boundary layer control through blow, and outside of the classic wingroot inlets the design is both competent and has significant potential.

Westland nearly won this. It was in fact looking that way, but the Admiralty cut the process over weight (thinking on then limits of most of the carrier fleets) of all proposals.
N.114T.2 was issued on jet deflection and then N.131T written around DeHaviland's DH.116 design.

But what's missing is a larger twin engined version....

Arguably this is where a British F4 could emerge.

We could have had several such proposals if DH had the resources.
Blackburn B.102 which is on the way to B.103, was a twin reheated Orpheus mixed powerplant All Weather Fighter in 1952.

The more one digs, the more the fulcrum point comes back to a similar time to the initation of what became the F4.

 

[uk 75]

In 1966 the UK were on the verge of ordering a UK Phantom equivalent for the RAF and RN in the form of AFVG.
Unlike the early 1960s VG designs, many encumbered with VSTOL or the P1154RN the AFVG took the best features of the F4 and mated them to a compact VG airframe.
Such was the parlous state of the UK economy this could only work if wealthy partners like W Germany and Italy contributed to finance and manufacture.
Could the UK have got to this point earlier:

If the Economy and Industry had been more robust

If the RAF and RN could have agreed to the F4 requirement earlier

then something like F4 or AFVG could have entered service in 1968 manufactured by BAC.

 

[Rule of cool]

1967 is when the F14 Tomcat was started, with the F15 in 1969. I'd think an F4 analogue would have to enter service by the early 60s to be comparable, which is why it's difficult and why the F4 is so amazing.

 

[zen]

Could the UK have got to this point earlier:

It's possible.
Arguably AFVG is the outcome of the development of VG, the revolution in avionics matched up with the revolution in engines (turbofans) and the abandonment of the 1,000nm RoA for EoS missions.
This could have all lined up in the early 60's, with OR.346 but keeping RoA and CAP endurance down to reasonable figures.

BAC Type 583 hits this squarely on the head, and the development of later VG platform designs.....is very close to this early 60's design.
AFVG only about 4 years earlier.
Most of the avionics is rooted in TSR.2 or P.1154. The former ultimately led to the failed bid for MRCA avionics and the latter succeeded on Harrier and Jaguar. Bar the radar.

 

[alertken]

Avionics Patrimony. (We have an Avionics thread, but...)
Avionics-tech splits on 12/9/58 when TI/Dallas displayed silicon chip IC “to usurp {the) transistor(like that had) radio valve after '47” Hennessy, So Good,P591. Sadly by the time RAE et al UK Defence Research Establishments could grasp this, the design preferred for TSR.2 was committed, 1/59 with a vast cavern to accommodate thermionic valves...derived from Tizard's box of goodies to US, 10/40.

Wartime politicians waived mutual financial protection-by-patents, by 24/8/42 US/UK Patent Interchange Agt. and organised new entrants into (to be) avionics (Elliott's had been a mere Instrument maker; others, radiomen). Firms collaborated so that e.g. H2S could be built in UK+US in volume, enhanced as wartime experience required, so when Peace broke out such products as AI radar were, like Churchill, neither, yet both, American and Brit.

Such links as Ferranti: Westinghouse endured in 1958. All of that lapsed with IC, whose commercial volume put US firms in the driving seat of subsequent JVs. So on MRCA, Sperry/UK built Sperry/US' gyro; Ferranti INS had Kearfott gyro; laser rangefinder: US YAG-laser; radars had Hughes travelling wave tube; Elliott TFR E-Scope was US-derived.

US volume meant that, time and again, ideas floated in RAE/RRE et al - e.g: IRLS, became US products. Warm, patriotic glows might have greeted Elliott as parent of TSR.2 Main Computer...but NAA Autonetics was paid vast sums to do one for A3J Vigilante, so how sensible it was to licence it (though we do enjoy "improving" kit happily taken as is by everyone else). Today the avionics sector knows no borders and Leonardo, like BAES, has no patrimony.

 

[zen]

Just in context of 1958 ....
Is this the period of Hawkers P.37 studies?
BSP.2 has two such pictures in the OR.346 section. But as the author states he's not certain if these relate to that.
One has for Orpheus and the other two Olympus engines.

 

[Rule of cool]

Today the avionics sector knows no borders and Leonardo, like BAES, has no patrimony.

True, but that involved 60+ years and the whole 'globalisation' economic system to make happen. In the 60s the avionics task was much smaller and economic and defence procurement were much more nationally focused; countries were taking their first tentative steps at bi-lateral aircraft development and multi-lateral licence build programmes.

 

[pathology_doc]

In 1966 the UK were on the verge of ordering a UK Phantom equivalent for the RAF and RN in the form of AFVG.
Unlike the early 1960s VG designs, many encumbered with VSTOL or the P1154RN the AFVG took the best features of the F4 and mated them to a compact VG airframe.

You need to stop screaming in endless rage about how much trouble could have been avoided if only the British had trashed their aviation industry and just bought the Phantom for everything from the very start.

Just for a change, you should instead scream in endless rage against the fact that France didn't trash its entire combat aircraft industry and buy the Phantom instead of developing the Mirage family.

 

[Archibald]

Just for a change, you should instead scream in endless rage against the fact that France didn't trash its entire combat aircraft industry and buy the Phantom instead of developing the Mirage family.

Almost happened with the Aéronavale, we were lucky the Clems were a little too small for Phantoms.

 

[uk 75]

I make no apology for praising the F4 as a weapon system in comparison with the test pilot toys offered by UK industry.
I hope Archibald and other French friends will forgive me for saying that France had.nothing comparable with the F4 until the Mirage 2000 family entered service.

 

[Archibald]

Mirage F1 was close enough - simpler and cheaper.

 

[Rule of cool]

Mirage F1 was close enough - simpler and cheaper.

True, but a decade too late and too small, the F2 was closer but still a decade too late.

The most amazing thing about the Phantom isn't it's great capability, rather it's the 1961 service introduction. The F106 and Lightning can give the Phantom a contest in the air and the F105 is similar against ground targets but in 1961 nothing else can do both. I believe that's the real challenge, Britain for example coming up with an aircraft with the combination of the Lightning F3 and Canberra B(I)8 while these aircraft are in their prime, not when they're due to be replaced 5+ years later.

 

[pathology_doc]

I make no apology for praising the F4 as a weapon system in comparison with the test pilot toys offered by UK industry.
I hope Archibald and other French friends will forgive me for saying that France had.nothing comparable with the F4 until the Mirage 2000 family entered service.

This reminds me of the occasion on which Bobby Fischer, still a teenager, took the US Championship with a clean sweep, his next nearest opponent (the previous champion) a point behind. The judges congratulated the runner-up for winning the championship and Bobby for winning the exhibition.

The point: no comparison of contemporaries that includes the Phantom is fair to the other aircraft.

 

[uk 75]

Timing is everything. The F4 is available as a real plane from 1961. It can perform the fighter and strike roles in one platform and be mated easily to a range of new weapons.
The Royal Navy to their credit grasp this and try to avoid any more British alternatives. Luck in the form of small carriers was against them.
AFVG shows that a British and French aircraft able to compete with Phantoms could have been in service by the early 70s instead of the early 80s with MRCA Tornado.
France decided to go for the cheaper F1 which was a decent alternative. Saab meanwhile had built the Saab Viggen.
There were ways not to buy Phantoms but modified Scimitars and Lightnings or the various paper planes so loved here were not them.
Perhaps if Dassault had bought Hawker Siddeley something like the Mirage 2000 could have been developed in the 60s and F16s might not have served in European Air Forces.

 

[Rule of cool]

France decided to go for the cheaper F1 which was a decent alternative. Saab meanwhile had built the Saab Viggen.

The French Phantom contemporaries are the Mirage III & IV, with the IV in the Phantom's class in terms of strike capabilities. The Swedish Phantom contemporary is the Draken.

 

[TorpedoJ]

Was there ever a study into using Olympus as a fighter engine? In the form fitted to Concorde it would have as much dry thrust as the combined powerplant of a Tomcat...

 

[red admiral]

Was there ever a study into using Olympus as a fighter engine? In the form fitted to Concorde it would have as much dry thrust as the combined powerplant of a Tomcat...

Yes e.g. later Thin-Wing Javelin concepts, some P.1121 concepts as ones that made it a bit towards real hardware.

It took a lot of time (late 60s) and money before the high power Olympus variants got to work acceptably and reliably. By which time it was no longer the engine of choice for "fighter" applications compared to low bypass ratio turbofans like Spey.

 

[Archibald]

Imagine a fighter designed around the Concorde Olympus 593 Mk.610. What a hot rod that would be. Well, thinking about it: wasn't the P.1154 mighty BS.100 loosely related to the Olympus ?

 

[pathology_doc]

Perhaps if Dassault had bought Hawker Siddeley

Somehow everything you post ends with the destruction and subordination of the UK aircraft industry in favour of external product.

 

[pathology_doc]

Was there ever a study into using Olympus as a fighter engine? In the form fitted to Concorde it would have as much dry thrust as the combined powerplant of a Tomcat...

Someone pointed out that thanks to Concorde, the Olympus has more supersonic time than any other engine. But I seem to recall it starting out as a Bristol Siddeley project and ending as a Rolls Royce. The same thing, IIRC, almost happened to the Napier Sabre (i.e. giving it to Rolls-Royce to fix).

There were ways not to buy Phantoms but modified Scimitars and Lightnings or the various paper planes so loved here were not them.

We'll never really know because they never flew.

We know the Crusader III wasn't "it" because it lost in a direct fly-off comparison/competition (in fact it drew, but the Navy was told it couldn't have both).

The British secret projects are so controversial and engender so much discussion because of this fact. That's why we're here. Both the Americans and the Russians had a long string of failures that never got into service or that passed out of it quickly, but none of them are talked about in quite the same way because all of those failures proved themselves as failures in flight, not because circumstances (e.g. politics) either delayed them beyond the point where they were at their best (e.g. Sea Vixen) precluded them from even getting to the starting line.

 

[zen]

Timing is indeed everything and the best opportunity for something starts in '52 being favoured instead of DeHaviland's DH116.
Because the future of carrier airpower is aircraft upto 60,000lb .....as per the 1952 carrier effort.

Somehow beating M.148T (NA.49) in 1954, despite a lack of an internal bomb bay.....
Which should immediately exclude it.
Getting focused on instead of mixed powerplant interceptors like F.177.
Gaining AI.23 and Firestreak, later Red Top.

And finally becoming a two seater FAW. Gaining the AI.18/Red Dean system, with the advanced 'lightweight' AI.18 and Red Hebe or ideally Vicker Small Radar Weapon (scaled down Red Hebe).

Arguably had some British firm come up with what was a highly modular and adaptable concept wrapped around two Sapphire or Avon engines. Would likely have had the attention of both FAA and RAF. In spades.

 

[uk 75]

The point I keep making is that collaboration first on Jaguar and then on MRCATornado did give both British Industry and the RAF decent aircraft to rival US offerings.
This has continued with Typhoon and Tempest. It also gave BAe and Rolls Royce roles in the F35.
Had a narrow minded UK government in 1965 condemned the RAF to a mix of Lightnings and Buccaneers or even pressed on with TSR2 there would be no BAe combat aircraft today and the RAF would have been an F18 or Mirage 2000 user.

 

[Rule of cool]

The point I keep making is that collaboration first on Jaguar and then on MRCATornado did give both British Industry and the RAF decent aircraft to rival US offerings.

That's directly traceable to a pair of poor political decisions that damaged the British industry, the 57 DWP declaration that manned fighter were obsolescent and this decisions reversal in favour of two aircraft that were not technically feasible and whose unrealistic tech wasn't really required; P1154 and HS681. Britain didn't need any help with the V bombers, Lightning, Buccaneer or Harrier, all of which were competitive in their niche in their day.

 

[TorpedoJ]

Yes e.g. later Thin-Wing Javelin concepts, some P.1121 concepts as ones that made it a bit towards real hardware.

It took a lot of time (late 60s) and money before the high power Olympus variants got to work acceptably and reliably. By which time it was no longer the engine of choice for "fighter" applications compared to low bypass ratio turbofans like Spey.

Oh yes, I'd forgotten that Olympus only got really powerful with Concorde. Still, having a potentially supercruising fighter would have been great fun and a very interesting capability.

 

[uk 75]

That's directly traceable to a pair of poor political decisions that damaged the British industry, the 57 DWP declaration that manned fighter were obsolescent and this decisions reversal in favour of two aircraft that were not technically feasible and whose unrealistic tech wasn't really required; P1154 and HS681.

None of the aircraft that demised in 1957 were any more realistic than TSR2 P1154 or AW681.
The Sandys White Paper failed to wean the UK industry and RAF/RN of trying to do too much with too little.
France meanwhile chose cheaper simpler solutions like Mirage IV and Etendard. It did succumb to VSTOL and VG mania but went on to develop Mirages that were effective until the present day.
Rather than looking enviously at the US we should look at what France and Sweden did with lower budgets than the UK.

 

[pathology_doc]

It did succumb to VSTOL and VG mania

Some of which it BUILT AND FLEW, rather than strangling them in the womb.