Have you seen the Boulton-Paul P.141 (or other unbuilt 141s)?

Tophe

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In the Putnam book dedicated to Boulton-Paul aircraft, the project P.141 is mentioned. Has someone ever seen a picture of this VTOL 1960? Is it connected to the Hawker-Siddeley HS-141 of 1970 seen at http://www.aiaa.org/tc/vstol/unbuilt/h-s/ ?
hs_141b.jpg


I would also be glad to enrich my collection of unbuilt projects coded 141 by OTHER Project 141… (after the Payen Pa.141 & this HS-141), see my what-if jokes (requiring asymmetry because of some Ha/Bv 141 patent/trademark…) at http://www.whatifmodelers.com/forum//index.php?showtopic=10863 ... ;D
 
Blackburn had a P.141 project for a fixed wing alternative to the MRCA that looked a lot like a more attractive Phantom.
 
Interesting. according to Project Cancelled, BP ceased its own airframe design in the late 1950's before joining the Dowty group in 1961, ill have to have a peek at the Putnams book next time im at the libary
 
Dear Tophe,

The Boulton Paul BP 141 was a January 1960 project.It was an air-driven fan-lift VTOL airliner.
Passengers :40
Engines :4 RollRoyce RB 108 engines.
Project superseded by the BP143.

It will be on jour desk this week.
 
* Overscan: I am surprised as I have not found this Blackburn project in Tony Buttler's Fighter/Bomber books, is it an attack aircraft in a category of its own? Thanks anyway, I hope Mr Buttler's next book will provide all...
* Martin: you made me go back to my Putnam book, to tell you "no need to check if this is the version published in year X", but... Shame on me: in this very book was the 3-view drawing, page 353 after the P.141 text finished on the previous page! I thought this was related to the P.142 paragraph but it is written P.141!!! Thanks for your help, correcting my blindness...
Am I allowed to scan and post it here, mentionning the source? (I owe no Copyright, but I am willing to advertise this wonderful book, showing this tiny part of it... Webmaster?)
 
Thanks to the Putnam book "Boulton-Paul aircraft since 1915" by Alec Brew, here is my P.141Z asymmetric-twin version of the Boulton-Paul P.141:
P141z.jpg

For the serious source, I am waiting for the Webmaster decision...
 
*Besides in the Putnam book , the P141 is also discribed and illustrated
in - Stuck on the Drawing Board by Richard Payne ,Tempus -

* Bristol 141 : 3-seat fighter with nose turret to spec.F.22/33 (1934)
 
As to the P.141 project, its in Roy Boot's "From Spitfire to Eurofighter", along with lots of other Blackburn projects. Its a very worthwhile book to buy, quite interesting.

I don't have a problem with scanning so long as it is fair use. Hopefully we can guide people to buy books and articles if they want to find out the whole story.
 
* Lark: thanks for this new one ;D. In "The Turret Fighters" book, by Alec Brew again, this is mentioned as a twin-engine, with no picture alas for this one, while a lot of other unbuilt projects are illustrated. I will check also in the pages you sent me for Lockheed (a L-141 before the twin-boom L-153?) and Saunders-Roe (a P.141 before the P.142 Catamaran fighter?), thanks again, dear…
* Overscan: I have tried to buy this book "from Spitfire to Eurofighter", reading your words, and finding 2 copies at $7 on Amazon US, but the sending to France is refused for that book… As the same is sold 41 Euro ($52), second-hand, on Amazon-France, I may... check with my American brother in law if he can receive the book from Amazon-US than send it back to me…
Here is the Boulton-Paul P.141, from the wonderful book "Boulton-Paul aircraft since 1915" by Alec Brew, Putanm Pub. 1993, 374 pages including 50 great pages of complete review with unbuilt projects illustrated…
 

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Lark:
- In the AAHS Journal about "the Lockheed that never were", Part II, the L-141 is described as the manufacturer code for what became the XP-80A Shooting Star, rather different from the XP-80. :)
- In "From Sea to Air, the Heritage of Sam Saunders" a P.141 of 1950 may be described on page 240 and illustrated pages 250-251… Do you still have this book? ??? It is an actual goldmine for very sure :-*, but the price ($90 at Amazon, $31 at AbeBooks) is too much for myself alas (now that I am married and have a family in law to help). :-\
 
Tophe,

The P.141 is not in the book you mentioned.
Not in the projects list nor in the illustrations.
(Series jumps from 140 to 142...strange.. )

The Bristol 141 is also not in the Putnam about Bristol A.C...
 
Oversan/webmaster: I have just ordered "from Spitfire to Eurofighter", second-hand affordable (7 Euros at AbeBooks), so... you will be able to show that as a proof if a bad lawyer ever attacks: "look, sir, we make people buy books, through showing tiny details, it is the very absolute opposite of piracy, this is free advertisement"... :)
 
lark said:
Tophe,
The P.141 is not in the book you mentioned.
Not in the projects list nor in the illustrations.
(Series jumps from 140 to 142...strange.. )
The Bristol 141 is also not in the Putnam about Bristol A.C...
Dear lark,
I am here as enjoying History a little, but most of all I am a what-ifer... A missing code is perfect for me: if the 140 and 142 have existed, both at Saunders-Roe and Bristol, I will invent the missing link: 141="probably" asymmetric "secret" 140... So I will be interested by these 140s... ;)
 
Still more 141...

Vega V-141 : 1942 Proposal for a twin-engined torpedo
scout bomber to the US.Navy.Cancelled.Similar proposals
from rumman and Douglas.
No further info.
 
Hi ,there also the Payen Pa-141 twin boom transport aircraft project.
 
Yes, the Pa-141 has been mentioned and illustrated in the link I gave first: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/forum//index.php?showtopic=10863
 
I have received the book "From Spitfire to Eurofighter" by Roy Boot, Airlife Publishing, and it is a VERY nice book, even enriching Tony Buttler's books on the Blackburn projects subject: I am a happy purchaser. Of course, the best point for me was the Blackburn P.141 of 1965, that had to be slightly turned asymmetric, of course, because of its code 141… Thanks Overscan to have directed me to this book!
r_BlackP141Z.jpg
 
Hello Tophe!!
Your picture remind me that some weeks ago I wanted to change your Mitsubishi T-2 into a P-141. Plenties of things to do, but now the project has come back in my mind... one day you'll see again you former T-2 in the "show us picture in your workbench" part of the Whatif Modeler MForum... unrecognizable to yourself ;)
 
Glad you liked it, Tophe.

Its always interesting to read books by designers, rather than authors, I think.

If you are interested in engines, "Not Much of an Engineer" by Sir Stanley Hooker is a fascinating autobiography.
 
Tophe said:
I have received the book "From Spitfire to Eurofighter" by Roy Boot, Airlife Publishing, and it is a VERY nice book, even enriching Tony Buttler's books on the Blackburn projects subject: I am a happy purchaser. Of course, the best point for me was the Blackburn P.141 of 1965, that had to be slightly turned asymmetric, of course, because of its code 141… Thanks Overscan to have directed me to this book!
r_BlackP141Z.jpg

I have "From Spitfire to Eurofighter," and my copy does not have that illustration?
 
It is page 71 that is featured the real P.141, mine is a personal crazy transformation, what-ifed ("Blohm-und-Vossed") following the rule "141 means asymmetric and twin-body".
Sorry I come from the universe of what-if modellers, I am not a Historian...
 
Tophe, is there more infos on the Blackburn P-141 in the book you have?
 
overscan said:
Glad you liked it, Tophe.

Its always interesting to read books by designers, rather than authors, I think.

If you are interested in engines, "Not Much of an Engineer" by Sir Stanley Hooker is a fascinating autobiography.

I'll second that review of "Not Much of an Engineer". It's an absolutely fascinating autobiography. I don't remember the title, but Gerhard Neumann, for a long while the chief engineer of GE Aero Engines, wrote an autobiography that's equally interesting. *chuckle* Consider how a german citizen could end up as one of the chief mechanics of the Flying Tigers and then get brought into the US.
 
Blackburn's P.141 was a 1965 project, the brainchild of Rod Melling, offered as an alternative to MRCA. The proposal was to avoid airframe complexity of a multirole aircraft by having a modular airframe approach and dedicated variants built on a common core. Powered by two Bristol-Siddeley/SNECMA M45G turbofans (7,460lb dry, 13,000lb reheat) P141 had a wing area of 400 sq ft, span of 35 ft and length of 56 ft. Basic weight was 23,000lb, normal takeoff 38,000lb. Max speed was Mach 2 and combat radius up to 1,000 miles.
 
overscan said:
Blackburn's P.141 was a 1965 project, the brainchild of Rod Melling, offered as an alternative to MRCA. The proposal was to avoid airframe complexity of a multirole aircraft by having a modular airframe approach and dedicated variants built on a common core. Powered by two Bristol-Siddeley/SNECMA M45G turbofans (7,460lb dry, 13,000lb reheat) P141 had a wing area of 400 sq ft, span of 35 ft and length of 56 ft. Basic weight was 23,000lb, normal takeoff 38,000lb. Max speed was Mach 2 and combat radius up to 1,000 miles.

Oddly enough, the P.141 looked a bit like a scaled down F-4 with a shoulder wing. Of course, HS apparently had something to do with the Spey engined VG F-4 proposal, which also had a shoulder wing.

I could diverge onto the topic of the M-45 turbofan family - which I find to be even more interesting - but I'll restrain myself.
 
You are right, the P.141 seems a mix of F-4 Phantom for the tail/engine exhausts (see below) with a Mirage F-1 (wing and air-intakes)...
 

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...and a competitor to the plane you mentionned and also Viggen MiG-23 on export markets (much better than Jaguar).
Maybe we can model this plane starting from a Jaguar ? (the two are quite similar!!!)
 
Tophe said:
You are right, the P.141 seems a mix of F-4 Phantom for the tail/engine exhausts (see below) with a Mirage F-1 (wing and air-intakes)...

You could also say that it shares its general configuration with the Jaguar. Of course, the British partner in SEPECAT was BAC, not Hawker-Siddelley.

Was Hawker-Siddelley in collaboration with Dassault in this period?
 
P.141 drawing from "From Spitfire to Eurofighter"
 

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The only collaborative effort between Dassault and a British firm (can't remember if it was BAC or HSA ???) was the AFVG, sabotaged by Dassault in 1967 :mad: I think it was with BAC, not HSA...
 
Dassault also worked with BAe on the ECA (Pre-Eurofighter) and attempted to sabotage that too ;)
 
there is many of unbuilt 141 aircraft project,
for example: Blohm and Voss P.141 asymmetric passengers aircraft and Martin model-141
flying boat for the USA navy.
Bell,Caproni,Convair,Fokker,Hunting,Piaggio and Ryan also had unbuilt projects number
141.
 
My main source for Martin unbuilt projects is the book "Martin Aircraft 1909-1960" by J. Breihan (Narkiewicz Pub.). The Model 141 is simply mentioned as a cancelled flying boat for US Navy. But without picture alas… Does someone have one?
(As this is between the Martin China-Clipper and the Martin Mariner, I may guess this could have been a military China-Clipper… No?)
 
So… in my dreams, the Martin 130 China-Clipper was turned into the Martin 141 for a different user, and with a second hull to increase room for tanks thus range, with less than a double drag as one fin was enough and lateral floats were discarded, and less than a double power, decreasing weight and drag, to increase fuel and range once more. The result, "surprisingly", is asymmetric…
Chinaclipper2.gif

(thanks to http://www.fortunecity.com/marina/manatee/272/chinaclipper.html )
I would be glad to correct if someone has a better source for the Martin-141 aspect…
 
May I ask , are the following companies had a projects or aircraft in the number 141 ?,
the companies are Dornier P.141,Douglas model-141 and Fairchild model-141.
 
I have tried (and failed :() for the Fairchild 141 (in the book devoted to Fairchild aircraft, Narkiewicz publishing), I will try for the other ones but it is difficult this month, as I am rarely at home, sorry... :-\
 
Dear Hesham, could you tell us if you found actual mention of the missing ones* or just concluded they have existed because there were figures below and figures above? If you have ever seen them, could you send a scan?
*: Dornier, Douglas, Fairchild, Bell, Convair, Fokker, Hunting, Piaggio, Ryan, Caproni

For the Caproni one, I have checked the book "Aeroplani Caproni" by Rosario Abate, Pub. Museo Caproni. The Ca.140 & Ca.142 are mentioned but not the Ca.141… As the Ca.140 is not illustrated, I imagine the Caproni Ca.141Z may have been a Ca.135 bifusoliera with a touch of asymmetry…
R_ca141z2.jpg
 
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