Getting a British Phantom

I remember reading Tony Butler "secret projects: fighters" and being utterfly baffled by the Sea Vixen much delayed IOC. Silliest part is the DH.116 "modified Sea Venom " which was actually a brand new aircraft.
As you say: Sea Vixen could have and should have been in service by 1954. Instead it was 1959. At a time when Crusaders and Phantoms were more than supersonic.
 
Appropriate reference link on F4 evolution from F3 Demon.

Note the Model 98 F3H-G
Using twin J65 (licensed Sapphires).

Timing is notable 1953 to 1955 when J79 was focused on and work on J65 version stopped.

One might note the prime time to license with say Avon and AI.23 or AI.18 is this period from '54 to '55. But US-UK relations were reaching a nadir.
But this is also the period of RB.106 development and such could have massively benefited a UK license and become influential on the US.

Note also how nearly Scimitar-like this early F4 is.
 
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So what even looks like a Phantom in the Canon of designs at even remotely the right time.....?

Well outside of the Scimitar the closest seems to be the DH.117 to F.155.....and which notably did partially win further development until a choice had to be made and Fairey's Delta III became the sole focus.

Now DH's design seems a bit clunky and uninspiring at first. But as you investigate the details......
and details matter.....
It starts to dawn that this was an eminently pragmatic design.
It's the only one I'm aware of that even mentioned potential navalisation for instance, and as JFC Fuller speculated elsewhere and I'm in agreement, might potentially be reduced in length for NA.47 to meet that requirement in full. Not compromise on lower performance as the RN did with the F.177.

Now yes this thing has a rocket motor, but that is sensibly right out at the tail and the large HTP tanks along the spine could 'P.177-like' be altered to jet fuel. Trading high altitude and climb for endurance, which could be substantial.

And yes it has the modest pair of Gyron Juniors, but the installation doesn't preclude alternative engines. Since the wing structure carries above the engines.
Though for the RN Gyron Junior was already on F.177 and N/A.39.

There is a certain degree of commonality with Saro's effort on P.177. To the point that the engine, inlet, reheat chamber, wing position seem like they come from the same design team.....

You could almost apply Saro's wing to DH's design if say you wanted to switch from Starfighter-esque straight thin wings to the thicker delta.

And like developed F4, this DH design has the nose and space for substantial radar and avionics systems.

So this might...just....fit the bill in an AH were DH pivots the DH.117 design focus to CAP fighter (ditching rocket and maybe an engine change) and somehow the RAF and RN persuade Sandys to let the revised effort continue.

Bit of an ask though.
 
It is worth noting that the USAF like the RAF chased the chimera of big high speed interceptors with the F108 and YF12 while the USN had the Missileer saga and tried to repeat the Phantom formula with the F111B.
The early Lightnings with Firestreak are comparable with the F104A and its two Sidewinders.
The F4 also evolved from B/C to the much more capable E/F. The RAF never got the latter unlike the W Germans (who wanted single seater Tornados but bought Phantoms instead).
The RAF got Phantoms because the RN had already ordered them. Lightning F6 was in fact fine for the threats the RAF faced until Backfire and Fencer arrived in the Soviet inventory. Buccaneer S2/P1127 RAF could have filled the P1154 requirement without the Phantoms/Jaguars.
So in 1975 RAF Germany would have had Bucs instead of Jaguars as would the three UK based squadrons supporting the UKMF. Lightnings with Red Tops would have been the sole air defence type.
Ironically buying Buccaneer from Hawker S could have saved TSR2 to replace the Vulcans.
The new British Aerospace in the 70s would have formed round the UKVG Tornado to replace Lightnings and Bucs from 1982 while P1127RAF would have evolved into big wing Harrier.
 
uk 75 said:
The F4 also evolved from B/C to the much more capable E/F. The RAF never got the latter unlike the W Germans (who wanted single seater Tornados but bought Phantoms instead).
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I don't know that the F-4E was materially more capable than the F-4C, unless you put a lot of value on an internal gun and not a lot on a big radar. The F-4F was intentionally less capable than the F-4E, largely at the request of Germany - which wanted a single-seat Phantom, too, and was told that it would be more expensive to remove the back seat than to keep it in.

The UK's Phantoms were based on the F-4J, which was an upgrade on the USN's F-4B, and an entirely parallel line of evolution to the USAF's F-4C/D/E lineage.
 
P1121 was ahead of its time. Maybe for dayfighter, but didn't really aim at the space the Phantom occupied.

Another alternative would have been to expand off of the earlier Javelin work. If you took the time and fixed that horrible wing layout and added SARH missiles.
 
Well - P.356 Thin wing Javelin. Unfortunately the one to be build in prototype form was P.356 that is: barely supersonic. A pity because additional studies up to P.376 were supersonic with Olympus turbojets.
 
uk 75 said:
It is worth noting that the USAF like the RAF chased the chimera of big high speed interceptors with the F108 and YF12 while the USN had the Missileer saga and tried to repeat the Phantom formula with the F111B.
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Point of order, that wasn't the USN that was trying to repeat the Phantom formula. That was 100% SecDef McNamara.

What parts of flight do a low level penetrating bomber and a BARCAP fighter have in common? Pretty much just takeoff and landing!
 
The main obstacle to the development of a British Phantom is the nature of the postwar British carrier fleet.
The US had built its three Midways but the UK did not get to build its Malta class.
Then there is the evolution of the Forrestal class after the cancellation of the United States. These carriers are big not to cope with fighters but to carry atom bombers to strike at the Soviet Union.
To some extent the British carrier becomes mired in the process of disengaging from Empire rather than tackling the Soviet Union. The three carriers sent to Suez in 1956 were already hopelessly obsolete compared with even the Essex class airgroups of the Sixth Fleet with their Seahawks and Wyverns.
CVA01 and the Buccaneer are valiant attempts to catch up and even (in the case of Buccaneer) overtake the USN.
But it is too late as the whole carrier fleet is only fit for scrap compared with the new Forrestals not to mention Enterprise and the Nimitzes.
The sorry history of QE/PoW in service gives a clue as to what CVA01 might have experienced if she had been completed and entered service in the troubled Britain of the early 70s. Her complicated lifts and steam boilers amongst a litany of things that might go wrong.
1966 was a necessary re-set. The ASW cruisers with their Seakings a valuable asset in the struggle to control the North Atlantic rather than prop up a fading global role .
 
Archibald said:
Well - P.356 Thin wing Javelin. Unfortunately the one to be build in prototype form was P.356 that is: barely supersonic. A pity because additional studies up to P.376 were supersonic with Olympus turbojets.
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TW Javelin P.376 seems like the best and closest option to a British Phantom (Big aircraft, powerful engines, big radar and in theory plenty missile capacity) although even by the early 60's the design already looked quite dated and would become even more so. Most of the British designs of the time for that matter just seem closer to WW2 era aerodynamic cues than their US counterparts. I guess the MoD and Air Staff just didn't really know what they wanted mixed in with an unhealty amount of competition in the industry at the time...
 
Once uppon a time were five fighters
-Hunter
-Swift
-Javelin
-Scimitar
-Sea Vixen

Sea Vixen was so late no "improved prototype" was ordered. I checked Tony Butler BSP book and the Sea Vixen twin-booms / high tail might have been destroyed by either reheats or rocket engines accoustic vibrations. So Sea Vixen was kinda "evolutionary dead end" harcking back to the Vampire / Venom family.

The other four however each got an order for an improved airframe or a supersonic derivative
-Hunter:---- P.1083
-Swift:------ Type 545
-Javelin:---- P.356 Thin wing Javelin
-Scimitar:---Type 556

End result: none of these prototypes was really convincing nor satisfying, and they all ended cancelled.

And it was English Electric, starting from the P.1 clean sheet of paper, who got the right Mach 2 plane: the Lightning.

A very tortured and complicated story, with lot of waste.
 
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I've checked Tony Butler BSP- fighters. And I'm now convinced (see the old thread I bumped up) that the clearest path toward a british Phantom relates to the Scimitar. Type 556 first, then upgrade to Type 576. Just by changing the Avons through their natural evolution: from RA.24 to RB.146 "series 300".
Scimitar is a better basis for a british Phantom than
a) the Javelin and its massive drag problem
b) the Sea Vixen obsolete twin boom layout. A relic from the Vampire days, plus it could not withstand reheat nor rockets for the Sea Vixen to go supersonic.

Of course the basic Scimitar was pretty hopeless (draggy and subsonic and no radar and vicious flight characteristics) , but then again: so was the F3H Demon. From which the Phantom sprung...
 
We should not AH promote Supermarine beyond their span. (See threads/supermarine-scimitar-and-related-projects.23320/Wyvern,#35; Make SM Great Again; Alternative Swift Scenario).

Sandys became UK military Procurer 31/10/51, when Korea was seen as Sovs' rehearsal for WW3. US had funded Mutual Support Prog Off-Shore Procurement to equip new NATO with Standard Types. Sandys' 'job was to bathe in $ and that he did, causing Swift to be one. Orders by 8/7/52 included 500 Swifts,140 paid by UK, 360 US,for RAF and licensed in Belg/Neths. Oscar plaudits 3/53 attended (Breaking) The Sound Barrier (V-S T.535); Swift F.4 won World Absolute Air Speed Record, 28/9/53: Sandys...Golden Boy...until Swift F.1 was grounded 8/54, then F.2; later Day Fighter Mks abandoned, 15/3/55, in hope the Fleet might receive Scimitar F.1 (100 then on order) soon.

Though evidently promoted by his father-in-law (WSC) to Cabinet 18/10/54, his new job, Housing, was Fool's Gold, his stature eroded by Swift scandal. He was brought back to Aero, at Defence, 13/1/57 by a former Min.of Defence, PM Mac, who had endured the ordure of littering S.Marston with junk Swifts while hoping Hunter would not be equally disastrous: “fighters were in a sad state of confusion” A.Horne, Macmillan/I, 1988, P390. After a logical plod from Jet Fury and Jet Spiteful we had arrived in 1954 at dependence on F-86s (Canadian-Aid, airframe, US Aid, engine) for any credibility on the Central Front.

My point in reciting ancient history is to explain rejection of T.545, T.556: if V-S could not make the step-by-step one work, do not divert them onto a harder job. In 1957 Supermarine's odd autonomy (Vickers had owned them since 11/28, co-ordinated with Weybridge 10/38, yet permitted overlap in R&D resources) ended with relocation of the Hursley Park Design team, to report to V-A/GR.Edwards: that, only that, caused Sandys to admit a nominal V-S bid to TSR.2.​
 
Archibald said:
I've checked Tony Butler BSP- fighters. And I'm now convinced (see the old thread I bumped up) that the clearest path toward a british Phantom relates to the Scimitar. Type 556 first, then upgrade to Type 576. Just by changing the Avons through their natural evolution: from RA.24 to RB.146 "series 300".
Scimitar is a better basis for a british Phantom than
a) the Javelin and its massive drag problem
b) the Sea Vixen obsolete twin boom layout. A relic from the Vampire days, plus it could not withstand reheat nor rockets for the Sea Vixen to go supersonic.

Of course the basic Scimitar was pretty hopeless (draggy and subsonic and no radar and vicious flight characteristics) , but then again: so was the F3H Demon. From which the Phantom sprung...
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My concern with SM Type 576 is the long tail and the re-heats from those Avons. Blackburn's supersonic Buccaneer proposals were halted due to concerns over airframe fatigue failure and damage from the Spey afterburner shockwaves. Type 576 will either discover this as an issue causing delays most projects of the time cannot afford, or have a rear fuselage that has to be way over strengthened.

I agree that Sea Vixen is a dead end. Far to a dated design and layout concept by the start of the 60's.

I will however disagree that TW Javelin, or rather specifically the P.376 concept, is not a good starting point. They did a huge amount of work (even if admittedly there was plenty scope for more) to refine the aircraft from a drag point of view. The intakes would need further refinement I suspect to a VG type ala CF-105 or F-106 for better supersonic performance and from comments in the Javelin thread the airframe might have been quite heavy due to the chosen construction style, but other than that I see it as a less risky option compared to SM Scimitar derivatives. Not a bad starting point for a pure delta design too which is more akin to what the rest of the world were persuing at the time. Also being quite a large airframe means a big radar and lots of space to get fuel into the design as it matures.

Scott Kenny said:
I wonder how much of that was too many "two guys in a shed" small companies and not enough development focus?
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This is probably the core of the whole debacle. Between a government/DoD/Air Staff that did not really know what they wanted and a rapidly improving technological industry especially around missile technology we had too many aerospace companies operating with departments and operations structured like in the 30s and 40s with single person chief designers etc. Plus even within groups there is countless stories of in-fighting and resource splitting competion they could have done without.

Change all the above and you had a higher chance of all British type succeeding.
 
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How we write history to suit our prejudices.
Granted Supermarine ought to have been rolled up into Vickers earlier.

But Ministers be not blameless and buying their justifications is more risky than Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler's pies (genuine meat honest guv).
Eat with caution!

Teams don't magically instance out of the ether as perfect. They take time to build and time to learn. Mistakes are inevitable and necessary.

SM blame is in honest appraisal, a child of many fathers. Vickers, Supermarine, Ministers, RAE etc.....

Did Ministery allow things? Don't pretend they didn't have say in how companies organise.

What is clear is Scimitar prototype ought to have gained reheated Avons. As originally planned.
Savings, delays, get something going now.

The ONLY aircraft that actually fits a process that leads to a British Phantom II, is Type 556 in the right time frame. Ordering was the best option available at the time.

Your next option is DH. Actually your first is DH.116 and get them the staff to draw it up !
 
It unfortunately remains AH and in the UK especially there is a myriad of paths that could have drastically changed the UK aerospace industry had some decisions not been made, or made differently.

My gripe with Type 556 is the side-by-side seating as opposed to a tandem configuration. Same as for DH-116. It is a WW2 era multi-engine bomber or Mosquito night-figter configuration... The Brits however really believed and stuck to the (outdated) configuration for a long time. That will likely limit it in the fighter role due to the inherent lower visibility. Will they move to a tandem one? Or will Type 576 still somehow emerge? Can one pilot really effectively manage the task with early 60's systems to be as effective as the two crew Phantom? I am doubtful. And if they don't move to tandem but stick with two crew (almost a necessity for an all weather type at the time), will it enjoy the success of the Phantom? Part of its success I believe is that the basic design stood the test of time. A British competitor should show similar technical charateristics to compete.
 
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