Vickers Viscount or Vanguard for P-3 Orion Role

ChuckAnderson

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Hi Everyone!

Were ever any plans for either the Vickers Viscount or the Vickers Vanguard to be converted into a maritime patrol aircraft in the way that the Lockheed Orion became the P-3?


Chuck
 
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,300.msg16644.html#msg16644
Vanguard raised but nothing reported so far, I think.
 
ChuckAnderson said:
Hi Everyone!

Were ever any plans for either the Vickers Viscount or the Vickers Vanguard to be converted into a maritime patrol aircraft in the way that the Lockheed Orion became the P-3?


Chuck

Yes, a Vanguard derivative was proposed for the same requirement that lead to the Nimrod. The Vanguard was an interesting candidate because the large lower fuselage lobe was an unpressurized baggage hold - quite suitable for a bomb bay.
 
Many many moons ago as a young apprentice at Hurn (Then still a part of the old Weybridge division of British Aerospace) i recall having a conversation on the Vanguard with an old hand who's name is lost in the distance of time. it covered the a lot of ground, he did go into quite some detail of an MPA variant that was put into a design proposal as the BAC offering that lost out to HS. Although broadly similar to the P-3 Orion, the Vanguard was a far superior aircraft in many respects and certainly better suited as an airframe for low level patrol work than the Comet4 which of course was a high level cruising airframe. I believe it is correct to say it went through initial design and went to model mock up for presentation before being rejected in favour of the Nimrod.
 
Also as an aside, it should be noted that the Vanguard and VC10 shared a common fuselage that shared a lot of jigging and tooling. This would have reduced the cost of restarting the Vanguard line at Weybridge at a time that the 10 had already occupied the main hall. One possibility being fuselage manufacture at Weybridge and assembly at Hurn or Filton with unused capacity within the industry building sub assemblies. Much in the fashion of today's Airbus operation.
 
In 1958 UK paid lip service to inter-operation/collaboration, but neither Ministers nor Directors nor Marshals wanted anything to do with Franco/German bids to NBMR.2 (to be Atlantique). Coastal had enjoyed its Neptunes, but "free" (to be)P-3A was not on offer, so a Requirement was invented for 4 engines for UK's blue water role, distinct long range, unlike France's Mediterranean backyard {?Noumea? La Reunion?}. Low-risk derivative was also specified, to further justify inability to "wait" for an all-new NATO camel. So, prop (obvious solution: a Britannia/Argus variant) or turbofan? Spey offered loiter economy with rapid transit, base-patrol, which was presented as fewer airframes to yield 24/7 cover of the 2 lines blocking Sov egress from Murmansk. RR and HSAL then had the sense to offer wider-scope fixed prices for HS801 than did BAC on VC10MR, or themselves on a DH.121 variant. So, Nimrod. Much the same process later to avoid E-3A for the AEW job.
 
Shackleton had four engines, so a replacement Requirement for four engines is not an 'invention' to preclude a collaborative effort, nor necessarily to exclude foreign competition. Rather inertia and bias for the benefits of four engines as opposed to two.

NMBR process was deeply suspect by such political decisions as the 'joint' winner to NMBR.3 had shown.
By the time of the decision process for ASR.381 and MR.254 in 1964, there strikes me as no cost savings buying Nimrod (HS.801), yet costs where becoming paramount.
By '66 costs where THE issue for all projects throughout government civil and military. Thus the death of CVA-01 as surely as in '65 TSR.2 had been scrapped. Yet that year the contract is signed for the Nimrod.
By 68 F111K order is canceled. Yet Nimrod carries on.

So quite how they where expecting to buy it and then drop it later for a NATO solution is beyond me. There was no money for both nor the expectation of more money.
 
stuanliz said:
Also as an aside, it should be noted that the Vanguard and VC10 shared a common fuselage that shared a lot of jigging and tooling. This would have reduced the cost of restarting the Vanguard line at Weybridge at a time that the 10 had already occupied the main hall. One possibility being fuselage manufacture at Weybridge and assembly at Hurn or Filton with unused capacity within the industry building sub assemblies. Much in the fashion of today's Airbus operation.

Dear Stuanliz, I read somewhere that the VC10 fuselage design was altered at BOAC's insistence and the upper lobe was increased in diameter (3 inches?) to match that of the Boeing 707. This was to allow BOAC to use the same cabin furnishings, seats and galleys already in use on their fleet of Boeing 707-436s; BOAC accepted a £80,000.00 surcharge on each of the 45 originally ordered VC10s. Prior to this change, the VC10 fusleage had been intended to be built on Vanguard production jigs......

Terry (Caravellarella)
 
Quite correct, The upper lobe was slightly larger. The wing box and all the lower lobe was however compatible. This leaves 2 possible routes in the design and production of a MPA variant. The RAF gets a Vanguard with a larger upper lobe or they get one with an original Vanguard sized one. The aerodynamic penalties of the larger upper area would have been very small. In fact if you take into the equation that the tail cone had an inverse camber area rule to reduce the original drag then it would have cancelled out the induced drag. Also the shorter fuselage length in comparison to the VC10 would have also had a considerable drag reducing effect. I feel the major change though, would have been the redesign of the outer wing. This would have certainly lead to a decrease in high end cruise speed in favour of the loiter optimum. a performance envelope more akin to the Atlantic would have been more likely and that is what would have figured heavily in any appraisal of competing designs.
 
You may want to browse Chris Gibson's book Nimrod's Genesis: RAF Maritime Patrol Projects and Weapons Since 1945 for any info about Viscount and Vanguard MPA variants.
 
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