Allison-powered Brewster Buffalo

[GTX]

MEW
Mounting the radiator on the extreme nose will exacerbate balance problems.

You are probably right. I see two options:

1. Do as you have suggested and have some form of rear mounted or wing mounted radiators/oil coolers
2. Possibly go for a tricycle undercarriage

 

[riggerrob]

MEW
Mounting the radiator on the extreme nose will exacerbate balance problems.

You are probably right. I see two options:

1. Do as you have suggested and have some form of rear mounted or wing mounted radiators/oil coolers
2. Possibly go for a tricycle undercarriage

Moving radiators aft will help with balance.
BUT installing a nose wheel will improve balance on the ground, it will worsen balance in the air because you are substituting a heavy nose-wheel a short distance forward of the C. of G. to replace a light-weight tail wheel a long way aft of the C. of G.

 

[GTX]

Not a lot of room in the rear fuselage unless one somehow does a fuselage stretch (which might be needed anyway). An alternate arrangement might be to do the radiator(s) on the side of the rear fuselage somewhat similar to the Ki-78:

or potentially submerged aka the P-39:



I don't see much room to go for something akin to a P-51 set up.

Another more radical solution would be to go for an evaporative cooling arrangement.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

You'd have to do some serious rearranging of things...

 

[riggerrob]

Dear T.A. Gardner,
That cutaway drawing can be deceiving.
The aft fuselage is essentially hollow. All those radios are mounted to the walls of the aft fuselage, still leaving enough room in the middle for a technician to sit and work on them. If the radios are mounted above the upper longeron, they would free plenty for space for a radiator and ducting. Yes, that would require more access hatches, but mechanics love access hatches.

 

[jcf]

Yep, and that's the "long nose" F2A-3. Lining up the firewall of a P-40 type installation to the firewall
of the Buffalo turns up all kinds of issues. If the engine could be set further aft by removing the cowl
guns and ammo tanks some of W&B issues could be adressed - but the landing gear design makes
that a non-starter.

 

[iverson]

Or you could just order a new design, preferably from a different contractor.

I cannot see any reason why an Allison would be attractive in the Brewster airframe. With the radial, the F2A had a broadly similar performance to a conteporary P-40. Both had the same core problem: too much weight for the power provided by the available engines, exacerbated by inefficient manufacturing processes and mismanagement, in the case of Brester. When stripped of armor and carrier fittings, Brewster fighters did well in Finland. But with the equipment they needed for fighting more modern opponents, they suffered.

 

[southwestforests]

(spoiled drawings from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brewster_F2A-1_Buffalo_fighter.svg
and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Curtiss_P-40_3-view.svg)

T

... Has anyone ever seen drawings of this proposal?

No ! Perhaps an installation similar to the P-40 may have been used ? But the R-1820 radial
was wider, than the Allison, adapting the fuselage to the inline engine probably would have
been no mean task. And the considerable bigger length ahead of the wing quite probably
would have demanded a longer tail.
(spoiled drawings from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brewster_F2A-1_Buffalo_fighter.svg
and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Curtiss_P-40_3-view.svg)

That bird in the attached GIF drawing is one REALLY odd duck ...

 

[riggerrob]

Yep, and that's the "long nose" F2A-3. Lining up the firewall of a P-40 type installation to the firewall
of the Buffalo turns up all kinds of issues. If the engine could be set further aft by removing the cowl
guns and ammo tanks some of W&B issues could be adressed - but the landing gear design makes
that a non-starter.

Tghe other problem is that Buffalo firewalls are in line with the leading edge.
OTOH, the majority of World War 2 fighters had their firewalls much farther aft, almost to the wings' main spar (Hawker Fury, Me-109, P-51, Spitfire, etc.).
A LONG inline engine (e.g. Allison) would probably need its firewall near the main spar to balance properly.
Moving a Buffalo firewall aft would require a major re-design of the center fuselage. By then, you are talking about such a major re-design - with so many new components - that it ceases to be a Buffalo.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Yep, and that's the "long nose" F2A-3. Lining up the firewall of a P-40 type installation to the firewall
of the Buffalo turns up all kinds of issues. If the engine could be set further aft by removing the cowl
guns and ammo tanks some of W&B issues could be adressed - but the landing gear design makes
that a non-starter.

Tghe other problem is that Buffalo firewalls are in line with the leading edge.
OTOH, the majority of World War 2 fighters had their firewalls much farther aft, almost to the wings' main spar (Hawker Fury, Me-109, P-51, Spitfire, etc.).
A LONG inline engine (e.g. Allison) would probably need its firewall near the main spar to balance properly.
Moving a Buffalo firewall aft would require a major re-design of the center fuselage. By then, you are talking about such a major re-design - with so many new components - that it ceases to be a Buffalo.

Part of the reason for that was the USN at the time had a requirement for a window in the bottom of the fuselage the pilot could look down through.