Why is the P1121 so popular?

uk 75

uk 75

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I could equally have asked this question about TSR2 or the Avro Arrow, but they at least were built and flew as real planes.
The 1121 seems to appear with regularity in alternate history threads here and is of course the subject of an excellent monograph. Its shortcomings are well documented. Yet it keeps appearing as the British F4 or Mirage we should have had.
 
And why not to quote Barry Norman?

What it has, beyond the usual mythos of cancellation, is a design that not only looks good. But has enough of the right things in reasonable quantities to sit annoyingly, tantalisingly close to a UK solution. To have nearly been a success.

Nothing else in the UK that nearly flew has to room in the nose to expand AI.23 functionality. To add in illumination capability.

Nothing else in the UK that nearly flew, has the ability in variants to meet the MRI requirements bar VTOL.
Nothing else in the UK that nearly flew, could be adapted for navalisation.
The only other nearly flew that does this is the P1154, which as you can appreciate would not be so easy to achieve in reality.

So sitting somewhere between an F4 and a F104, close to a fighter-like F105, this is the only design that might have sold abroad. Bar the various light fighter attack trainers, doomed by anglo-french cooperation.

So it teases, sitting there, in pieces in a museum. What might have been.
 
Good summary;- But

Nothing else of apart from maybe a sensible sized FD2 follow on. (And no the French didn’t copy it;- an excellent example of independent co-invention followed by a master class in matching what it could do with what your market wants)

The FD3 mega interceptor was a trick pony as far as sales were concerned..... RAF and nobody else.
 
(And no the French didn’t copy it;- an excellent example of independent co-invention followed by matching what it could do with what your market wants)
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Hell, yes. Thank you VERY MUCH for saying that. It always pissed me off, that silly urban legend. Dassault had delta-wing in sight since 1952 at least - hint, *Mystère Delta* early sketches with nose intake in the MD-450 / 550 series - and also XF-92 and XF-102 to show the way.

Armée de l'Air RFP for the LWF that led to the Mirage I and Mirage II dates 1952-53. And the Mirage I flew in June 1955 (and it was complete shit of a machine,a true black sheep to start the prolific Mirage development line).

Admittedly, the FD-2 wet to Cazaux air base circa 1956. And Cazaux is relatively close from Dassault Mérignac home place - both are close enough from Bordeaux, in the departement of Gironde.

But it stops right there.
 
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zen said:
And why not to quote Barry Norman?

What it has, beyond the usual mythos of cancellation, is a design that not only looks good. But has enough of the right things in reasonable quantities to sit annoyingly, tantalisingly close to a UK solution. To have nearly been a success.

Nothing else in the UK that nearly flew has to room in the nose to expand AI.23 functionality. To add in illumination capability.

Nothing else in the UK that nearly flew, has the ability in variants to meet the MRI requirements bar VTOL.
Nothing else in the UK that nearly flew, could be adapted for navalisation.
The only other nearly flew that does this is the P1154, which as you can appreciate would not be so easy to achieve in reality.

So sitting somewhere between an F4 and a F104, close to a fighter-like F105, this is the only design that might have sold abroad. Bar the various light fighter attack trainers, doomed by anglo-french cooperation.

So it teases, sitting there, in pieces in a museum. What might have been.
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You nailed it perfectly. You say AI-23, and as I said in another thread - there was plenty of massively powerful, excellent turbojets and pre-turbofans in development and production in GB circa 1956-60.

Except there was no airframe for them, courtesy of Sandys !

Now, guess what ? The P.1121 was the perfect airframe for both AI radars and those excellent turbojets.

Give it an Olympus, and it goes in a collision course with both future TSR-2 and Concorde.

Give it a Medway, and it is now in a collision course with France Mirage IVB and... Sweden Viggen (they wanted it, both). Plus the original Trident (727 slainer) and all the Spey projects derived from it.

Gyron, I don't know: it was much less sophisticated and thirstiest. Plus the Junior proved to be a huge pile of dog shit in the Buccaneer S.1

A Medway AI-23 P.1121 would sneak "above" F-104 and Mirage III and "below" Phantom
And it wouldn't be a F-105 either
a) because this one was a big strike machine / light bomber with internal bomb bay
b) Republic didn't sold a single one to foreign customers.

It could very much carves itself a nice place in foreign exports in the 60's, as an interesting alternative to (expensive) Phantoms for countries not interested in F-104G or Mirage IIIE - too small.
 
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Let's look at OTL Phantom customers, for a start...


Phantom Service with Royal Australian Air Force
Phantom Service with Egypt
Phantom Service with Germany's Luftwaffe
Phantom Service with Iran
Phantom Service with Greece
Phantom Service with Turkey
Phantom Service with Japan
Phantom Service with South Korea
Phantom Service with Spain
Phantom Service with Israel

Phantom Service with United Kingdom (d'oh !)
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Israel is an interesting case. OTL before De Gaulle screwed the pooch in 1967,IDF/AF had little love for the USA (yes, it sounds completely mind-blowing writting that nowadays)

Circa 1966 they already knew the writting was on the wall with the French, and were looking for alternate source of combat aircraft.
Note that they had bought Meteors a long time before, and in the mid-50's were desperate to get supersonic anti-MiG-15 aircraft and even asked the Swedes for J-29 Tunans, and Canada for Canadair F-86s).

If Great Britain strongly hangs to the P.1121 in the 60's and beyond (instead of the OTL insanity between Sandys and Tornado: 15 years in hell, 1958-1973) I can see it as a strong alternative for IDF/AF long range strike Vautour replacement, 1965.

IDF/AF considered
- Super Vautour (Tsykklon / Cyclone: a huge upgrade with... Spey turbofans )
- Mirage F2
- Mirage IV
They finally went for Mirage V and then, once embargoed, for Nesher / Skyhawk / Phantoms.

I can really see P.1121 sneaking in there - provided the British government accept to help Israel, obviously. Note that they would screw both French and Americans, in the process.

Greece and Turkey got shitloads of US combat aircraft, all the way from F-84 to Phantoms, including F-5s, F-102s (!!) F-104s... and they thought very symmetrically. "Greece has bought second hand F-102s ! I want them, too." If GB manages to drop some P.1121s to one, the other one is a done deal.

By contrast - Spain, Franco and Gibraltar... FORGET IT !!!

Australia is a strong contender. Frack, on paper at least P.1121 could sneak into the shoes of (altogether !) Mirage interceptor 1961 and the Phantom / F-111 OTL mix, 1965-1975.

IF the Australian domino fells, chance are strong Canada might bought some P.1121 too. The irony would be insanely strong there - replacing the Arrow (facepalm), and OTL CF-101s and CF-104s. The P.1121 smashes the last two, performance-wise. For strike, and interception.
And then the fantastically dumb CF-5 procurement siliness could get through the window, too. More P.1121 there.

Japan and South Korea unfortunately are Uncle Sam jealously guarded playground, so no chance in hell.

And then there is Iran in the days of the Shah. OTL his first huge buyout spree related to F-5 - and he got a colossal number of them, quickly followed by Phantoms. All this after 1965 and before the 70's pornfest.

Would the Shah buy P.1121s ? Maybe. He was extremely ambitious right from his first F-5 order in the mid-60's. If GB manages to sell P.1121 instead, once again it brings together IRIAF OTL F-5 and F-4 orders. Which quickly mushroomed into giganormous numbers - from memory, some hundreds... Quick Google search brings 308 and 225 aircraft: 533 combat aircraft, for fuck sake.
 
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The majority of F-104, F-5, F-4 sales were massively subsidised by US military aid.
So almost none of them are open to ready flipping to an underwhelming alternative like the P.1121.
For most customers the F-4 was both much better and cheaper than the P.1121 would have been.
The Mirage III family was a smaller, cheaper and more efficient cost/ capacity design when compared with the P.1121.
The P.1121 is most like a Voodoo or a F-105, a not especially especially good “1-nuke” fighter bomber unsuited to “flexible response” and the move away from “trip-wire” (though in this regard only fair to point out that the F-105 was both better and more flexible than the P.1121 would likely to have been, and as noted no export F-105s).
And really to much aircraft for too little capacity for most non-NATO potential customers.
Perhaps the handful of real world Lightening overseas sales would instead gone to a real world P.1121 but hard to see to many others opting for it, likely comparable to contemporary UK civil aviation projects that failed to find sufficient customers. Or the contemporary military projects that failed to find sufficient customers....
 
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As a single seat, single engine type for which no final avionics fit was chosen and for which multiple engine choices were available it offers an airframe that could have satisfied multiple roles in the same way that the Mirage III airframe did (C/E/R). As such, there is no reason why it could not have fulfilled at least one RAF requirement, and potentially more, whilst being competitive in some export markets with the likes of the Mirage III//5/50, F-104 and Saab Draken. @Archibald covered a lot of this in post #6 and I would add Denmark (Draken), South Africa (Mirage III) and Jordan (F-104) to his list, there are probably others. We also covered a lot of this in the How could the RAF have used the Hawker P.1121? thread.

In short: it was a sensibly sized airframe, between a Mirage III and a Phantom, with multiple engine options and the ability to perform multiple roles depending on the mission systems fit, and there were options for that fit.
 
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Zoo Tycoon said:
Good summary;- But

Nothing else of apart from maybe a sensible sized FD2 follow on. (And no the French didn’t copy it;- an excellent example of independent co-invention followed by a master class in matching what it could do with what your market wants)

The FD3 mega interceptor was a trick pony as far as sales were concerned..... RAF and nobody else.
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What about the XF108 Rapier and a substitute for the Avro Arrow?

What about a turbofan only SR177 as a counterpart to the Mirage III, dare I say with a Spey?
 
Geez, that unfortunate P.1121 seems to be polarizing people like freakkin' US politics ROTFL :D :D
 
The right subject for lockdown. I am enjoying both sides of the argument.
The 1121 always seemed too 1950s to me, with no weapons/radar system and only a single seater/engine. Sir S Camm designed a beautiful Farnborough show pony. In a suitable colour scheme it would have looked gorgeous.
But the Hunter was the cheap single seater ground attack aircraft for the RAF. It took a combination of Harrier/Jaguar/Hawk to replace them.
Lightning was the single seat fighter and again stayed around for a long time.
A launch customer for 1121 was not going to be the RAF but perhaps Sweden or Switzerland or Israel could have been. Or India? The Hindustan Marut looked a bit like 1121.
 
The majority of F-104, F-5, F-4 sales were massively subsidised by US military aid.
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You have a point. And yet France build 2700 (1400+700+600) Mirages and exported at least half of that (the AdA absorbed 350 - 450, average, thrice) Which proves it is possible to resist the US juggernaut. I was thinking of GB / Hawker having a similar "touch". They did well with the Hunter...
 
Gloster’s did well with the Meteor.
English Electric did very well with the Canberra
DH did well with the Vampire and Venom
Saab did pretty well with the Draken
And as pointed out the the Hawker chaps did very well with the Hunter.

Of course that was all the 50’s and, yes the 60’s were a lot tougher. However U.K. didn’t bring a credible offering to the market.

Then in the 70’s & 80’s
Those hawker chaps did well with the Harrier
And they also did really well with the Hawk.

It’s that gap that’s annoying particularly as there was a very credible offering in the prototype shop in the late 50’s.
 
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Assuming an RAF order is not a complete flight of fancy. Nor is the design a 'one trick pony', as a number of Cold War designs were. If anything as a limited war system, it's the very lack of such complete focus that formed a serious critic of the concept at the time.

Certainly there is scope for some exports. Maybe not as large as the US successes, but competitive with others. France showed what is possible. As did the UK earlier on.
A number of first world states could well have opted for this, and India would not be impossible to persuade to purchase both UK built and domestic licence built options.

Statements about the lack of a second seat seem somewhat delusional, since such options existed. Especially for the more advanced strike-attack-fighter versions. As would a conversion trainer.

Had the FAW version gone ahead, this offers something only the Superpowers offered. Mirage III being a bit less and Lightning being much more the 'one trick pony'.

Had the limited war version gone ahead, this offers something again that is competitive with Mirage III versions, F104 versions etc.
Such is, free of US strings attached, 'cheaper' than the mighty but conditional F4.

Had the MRI version gone ahead, this not only kills the Harrier and Jaguar, but offers the only high end Strike Attack system outside the Superpowers.

Added in Edit as an afterthought.
A number of Mirage III purchases were by ex-Hunter users, who had no practical UK option.
 
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I will toss in my thoughts.
I always get sceptical because the track record of the industry is not good - so many of the aircraft (military and civil) actually built failed to meet their own sales targets.

Estimating markets is hard. Track record varied. I discount the Meteor and Vampire because they were first generation jets and beyond the US 80-series fighters there were no other choices. Hunter did well in Europe and the traditional UK markets with the Middle Eastern nations already in the pocket in terms of political influence (and who still are today). Canberra was one of a kind, nothing else really matched it except Vautour and that was a bit later.

But the RCAF and RAAF quickly went to the US for aircraft from 1942 onwards and the lure of the US arsenal post-Lend Lease never waned, especially as both tried to build home-grown designs but ultimately had to give those dreams up.

India tried to go it alone with Marut during the heady days of the 1960s when anything seemed possible, they ended up with MiGs and Gnat knock-offs. Britain tried to sell some Lightnings but politics made that impossible. Its hard to imagine the P.1121 would have proved easier in that regard.

Israel is a non-starter given the CENTO commitments under the Treaty of Baghdad then in force. Egypt and Syria were no longer politically possible for exports.
Iran is impossible, the UK and US-backed coup made sales more than problematic, the UK was enemy number one and we were pissed at losing lucrative oil monies that kept military R&D programmes going...

The MDAP funding really kicked off with F-5 and later F-4 deals with more advanced nations, the US had more capital, as I have said elsewhere, the F-5 was practically given away with cereal boxes to anyone who wanted them and who was pro-Western.

The Lightning bombed on the export market. Fine performance but could never convincingly shake off its point-defence interceptor origins like the F-104 could despite trying to hang more and more weapons on it. Even modular ventral packs couldn't raise sales. Here the P.1121 has an advantage, but its hard to claim it has a superior weapons system. And few nations actually brought the AI.23/Firestreak combo...

The SR.177 gets bandied about - that mythical German order... Well we brought Skeeters for the AAC just to please the Germans, they got a few then promptly ditched them to Portugal and even they hated them. Sea Hawks lasted longer, could the P.1121 offer a viable anti-shipping platform? Maybe. The Buccaneer was the best, but nobody brought that either, except for South Africa who pretty much couldn't buy from anywhere else at that time.
And as the Germans stalled over SR.177 just before Christmas 1957, they were studying the Heinkel He 31 and Messerschmitt P.1211 with dreams of rebuilding the Luftwaffe instead of buying F-104s, but already many preferred the F-104 and others had been paid to say the same.
The Luftwaffe could have brought any one of three British aircraft (Lightning, SR.177, Buccaneer) and declined all of them. Would offering a fourth choice really have swung the deal? I doubt it.

I do think that Belgium and the Netherlands might have been very tempted, especially with a licence-build deal. But again the Deal of Century was seen more as a pan-NATO plan and had multi-national licence-building plans for the F-104. It would have been difficult to have had two main fighters within NATO, not impossible but it would mean a change of heart of the NATO members who at this time were striving for commonality of equipment (with dubious results in some areas).

Many point and say the P.1121 was flexible, yes it was - to a point. It could accommodate AI.23 or cameras or strike equipment, but that meant different noses just like the Hunter had. It wasn't swing role, you still had to buy n-number of airframes with AI.23 or n-number with photo-recon noses. The F-4 and Mirage were the same, you had to buy different variants, so there was no marketing advantage. It was not a swing-role weapons system (few aircraft were then).
The advanced AI.23 options and radar-guided Firestreak/Red Top sound good, trouble is someone needed to pay the R&D costs and they didn't exist as hardware.

Was three engines overkill? Buyers in those days tended to tinker more with engines (Avon Sabre) but if Hawker couldn't decide which engine to optimise on then it can't be a good message for buyers. Gyron was problematic, Hawker would have been wise to walk away from that engine fast.

Navalisation is a maybe, it didn't fly so we can't tell. Look what happened to Jaguar M. Even then if it can't operate off a Majestic-class deck then its useless for 100% of Western export navies who have them.

The big if is the RAF. So much has been said about point-defence fighters, TSR.2 etc. over time. No need to rehash here. Without a real desire to replace the Hunter with a direct supersonic replacement (no VTOL faff) then its hard to see why they would choose it over the Lightning given it had the same weapons system.

The final nail in the coffin is, if the P.1121 was such a Mirage shattering, Phantom chasing phenomenon, why didn't Hawker Siddeley pool some more resources to get it flying at least and begin proving the design instead of walking away? If they didn't see the likely return from hundreds of potential sales to balance the risks of pressing on then its hard for us to see them.
 
That may be somewhat pessimistic. The SR.177 and Lightning were both single role in the purest sense, designed to intercept high altitude bombers at relatively short distance from the interceptor's home base, and not very much else. Multirole modifications to the Lightning, a proposed reconnaissance pack and the implemented bomb racks, came rather too late, were awkward, and didn't help the type's lack of endurance. Similarly, the Buccaneer was wonderful if one wanted to undertake very low-level strike missions, but not much else. The P.1121, to a certain extent because it is a blank canvas, could have been much more flexible given the right engine and avionics choices (e.g. Olympus and AIRPASS Mk.II).

Had the RAF ordered the type the engine choice would have been resolved one way or another though I suspect the Olympus would have become the obvious choice anyway. Hawker cancelling it makes perfect sense, it had no UK government support or funding and would have needed considerable further spending to produce a production representative example that probably would have been required to have any chance of export success. I think that is the key issue, had the RAF procured the type, perhaps instead of the Hunter FGA.9/FR.10 as discussed previously, it would have been a very viable export prospect.

As for customers, Iran became a major destination for UK defence exports and Israel was apparently offered Bloodhound SAMs in the early 1960s so combat aircraft don't seem like an unreasonable stretch. Given the sales strategy adopted by Lockheed in Europe I doubt that the German order could be swayed even if it is fun to imagine Luftwaffe P.1121s alongside Bundesmarine Buccaneers. That still leaves plenty of Mirage buyers, a Draken operator (Denmark) and a few others as potential candidates. Australia looked closely at TSR-2 and took a non-US aircraft in the form of the Mirage III, I am sure they could have been induced to look at the P.1121 had it had UK government support.

To give my view on @uk 75 's opening question: the combination of it looking modern, it not being tuned to a very specific role before Hawker abandoned it makes it something of a blank canvas and its basic design incorporating a single large engine in a single seat airframe gives it an air of simplistic practicality that is perhaps missing from its British contemporaries (SR.177, Lightning and Buccaneer).
 
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JFC Fuller said:
That may be somewhat pessimistic. The SR.177 and Lightning were both single role in the purest sense, designed to intercept high altitude bombers at relatively short distance from the interceptor's home base, and not very much else.
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That is true. But the Mirage III was an interceptor too; Dassault stuck on an SEPR 841 rocket pod to make sure it had enough rapid climb capability and the Nord 5103 were anti-bomber AAMs. Dassault had the sense to put Sidewinders on the export Mirages. Ground attack was very much secondary at first - as with most fighters of this era.

There were a lot of British sales to Iran in during the late 60s/throughout the 70s, but P.1121 is a little before that.

I am pessimistic-realist. I forgot to add the Jaguar to my list of under-achievers; everything the P.1121 was and more and yet except for India and Nigeria, hardly made a dent on the world market beyond the usual buyers of British kit.
Given Denmark's long and historic use of Hawker aircraft its possible they might have gone for the P.1121.

So I would say best case: Belgium, Chile, Denmark, Iraq (depends on timing), Jordan, Kuwait, Netherlands, Oman, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Venezuela - I might toss in India, swapping out the Ajeet for licence-building as part of a deal with HAL and HSA with Avro 748s and P.1121s.
So maybe 300-450 airframes with probably half of those being licence-built outside the UK.

I can think of several other second-hand users, much the same as the Hunter 9/10 users. I think though for those nations that lacked an aerial threat from supersonic fighters and strike aircraft (especially South America and the smaller Gulf states), the Hunter provided all they needed with good firepower for ground attack allied with good performance and no fuel-bowser busting fuel consumption. Hunters were well sought after into the 70s for smaller air arms for these reasons. A P.1121 with Airpass and Olympus means big fuel bills, more technicians and higher training costs (especially when jet trainers were still relatively new on the market).

This was Hawker's genius with the Hawk, by the late 1960s they saw that most smaller nations just wanted an economic COIN type which was fast (but no barrier breaker) and economical which could handily double up for advanced training for bigger air forces. The Hawk was far more the Hunter successor in spirit.

I think the fascination of the P.1121 comes from the fact it was the end of the traditional British fighter lineage, not the technical pinnacle, but the last of the fighters and one that didn't get a chance. There is no doubt it would have flown well, it was just sadly at the wrong time and place (or maybe the Air Staff's OR team were the ones out of synch?).
Petter got his chance, his PV Midge was cheap enough to be built. As a concept it proved less than ideal but did at least provide an advanced trainer for the RAF. Camm was offering a classic fighter and sadly the Air Staff were gazing towards leapfrogging the next generation entirely.
FD.3 was too big, Gnat was too small, P.1121 was just right. P.1154 was too complex, Gnat was too basic, P.1121 was just right. But only one of those ever made it off the drawing board, so its always going to be speculation which one Air Marshal Goldilocks should have chosen.
 
This thread does show how popular the 1121 is. Certainly takes my mind off Covid stuff.
The plane itself is a looker. Sir S Camm's touch gives it a classic appearance. Shipbucket alone has some great looking artwork of various colour schemes.
Just like BOAC wanted 707s rather than the beautiful VC10, the RAF wanted the most complicated fighter or striker it could get. The RN were similarly dazzled by this.
Ironically Jaguar is sneaked in by the 1966 Anglo French deal, killing off the snazzy but too complicated BAC P45.
When Jaguar turns out to be P1154 without VTOL, the trainer requirement pops up again and we get Hawk, perhaps the plane we should have designed back in 1964.
Good job the French were around, or the RAF might have ended up with more F4s and T38 trainers, and possibly Canadair CF5s to replace the Hunters.
 
It is entirely possible with enough volume and weight margin to give AI.23 mkII the ability to switch from Fighter modes to Attack modes. Permitting an aircraft to switch between fighter and attack operations in flight.
 
Hood said:
That is true. But the Mirage III was an interceptor too; Dassault stuck on an SEPR 841 rocket pod to make sure it had enough rapid climb capability and the Nord 5103 were anti-bomber AAMs. Dassault had the sense to put Sidewinders on the export Mirages. Ground attack was very much secondary at first - as with most fighters of this era.

I am pessimistic-realist. I forgot to add the Jaguar to my list of under-achievers; everything the P.1121 was and more and yet except for India and Nigeria, hardly made a dent on the world market beyond the usual buyers of British kit.
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The Mirage IIIE, the multirole version that was the foundation of the aircraft's export success, incorporated a dual-mode version of the Cyrano radar and a Marconi Doppler system to enable the ground attack mission. This is why the P.1121 is so interesting, the combination of the Ferranti AIRPASS II and the Marconi Doppler system (or Yellow Lemon) would have given a very comparable nav-attack system but mounted in a larger and more powerful aircraft with all the performance benefits that would have brought. It certainly would have been a strong contender for the Australian requirement that resulted in their Mirage III order. That sort of equipment fit would make for a good stage 1 configuration whilst a longer term stage 2 could incorporate a radar with CW illumination functionality for SARH air-to-air missiles. With all due respect to the Jaguar, it was never going to be a useful interceptor and was a decade later.

As we discussed in another thread, its a fascinating alternative history scenario as the P.1121's adoption in place of the Hunter FGA.9/FR.10 would likely have negated the RAF requirement for the P.1154, which opens up a host of other interesting avenues.
 
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Lets add in that projected ROA distances with Olympus got beyond the 600nm figure in OR.339 Though with the original Gyron it was more like 500nm.

This makes it possible to become an 'interim' solution pending the AFVG.......
 
JFC Fuller said:
Hood said:
That is true. But the Mirage III was an interceptor too; Dassault stuck on an SEPR 841 rocket pod to make sure it had enough rapid climb capability and the Nord 5103 were anti-bomber AAMs. Dassault had the sense to put Sidewinders on the export Mirages. Ground attack was very much secondary at first - as with most fighters of this era.

I am pessimistic-realist. I forgot to add the Jaguar to my list of under-achievers; everything the P.1121 was and more and yet except for India and Nigeria, hardly made a dent on the world market beyond the usual buyers of British kit.
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The Mirage IIIE, the multirole version that was the foundation of the aircraft's export success, incorporated a dual-mode version of the Cyrano radar and a Marconi Doppler system to enable the ground attack mission. This is why the P.1121 is so interesting, the combination of the Ferranti AIRPASS II and the Marconi Doppler system (or Yellow Lemon) would have given a very comparable nav-attack system but mounted in a larger and more powerful aircraft with all the performance benefits that would have brought. It certainly would have been a strong contender for the Australian requirement that resulted in their Mirage III order. That sort of equipment fit would make for a good stage 1 configuration whilst a longer term stage 2 could incorporate a radar with CW illumination functionality for SARH air-to-air missiles. With all due respect to the Jaguar, it was never going to be a useful interceptor.

As we discussed in another thread, its a fascinating alternative history scenario as the P.1121's adoption in place of the Hunter FGA.9/FR.10 would likely have negated the RAF requirement for the P.1154, which opens up a host of other interesting avenues.
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A major advantage of the P.1121 over the Mirage: far, far easier to make a two-seater variant.
The III-B only was a trainer; the Atar was too weak and there was no room for a radar.
P.1121 had much more internal space and a far larger nose. Plus a hugely powerful turbojet.
 
The main problems that I don't see being addressed are: it's too big/expensive to compete with F-104 or Mirage on the export market, and it's not as capable as the Phantom which set the gold-standard for it's contemporaries among those countries who could afford it.

It's essentially in the same class (size and expense) as the Thud, which gave great performance as a strike fighter, but was too big and expensive for export. I don't think export would be impossible, but it doesn't seem like a direct competitor to Mirage or F-104 exports to me. You need someone who cannot afford or is unable to get Phantoms, but can pay almost as much, and that market probably doesn't come to fruition before the mid or late sixties anyway.

Most of these scenarios fail to reconcile that air forces in the late fifties were still very much looking for aircraft with dedicated roles. RAF is sitting pretty with Canberras, Hunters, and Buccs. It's not better than a Bucc, and it's not cheaper than the Hunters. And it doesn't edge the SR.177 or Lightning in raw performance as an interceptor (though I agree with the broader implication that it may well have ended up as a better choice than the Lightning in the grand scheme of things).

All the fighters in the 60's that became multi-role fighters became multirole fighters after successful production runs. They weren't designed as such. Trying to make it a capable dual-role swing-fighter from the get go in this timeframe would have been even more torturous and expensive.

The best hope is the RAF accepting it as a less capable, but perhaps less expensive, alternative to the Lightning which then eventually gets added capability throughout it's service life. I don't know that the money argument is compelling enough for that decision, even if in hindsight, this may have worked out pretty well for them.
 
You probably have a point here. To me, it relates to the turbojet(s)... Atar, J79 and Avon were in the same class: let's call it "medium size / medium power".
Hunter with Avon: smash hit
Mirage III with Atar: smash hit
F-104 with J79: smash hit.

By contrast, Olympus / Medway / Gyron (and PS.13 Iroquois, for that matter) were more like J75 > "big size, big power". And in turn, that drove the aircraft around the engine to a larger size and cost...

This can be clearly seen in "F-104 versus F-105/F-106" on export markets, although the last two were also heavily specialized in strike and interception, respectively.

At least France had no such issue. It was "medium size / medium power Atar or nothing" since SNECMA M25 / M26 "Super Atar" died by 1959.
Note that in the next three decades, "Mirage with TF306E" - F2, F3, G - were beaten by F1-Atar and 2000-M53: 1000 aircraft build with "medium size, medium power engine", once again.

As Thorvic and Overscan suggested many times - what would be perfect would be a "downscaled P.1121 with RB.146"

Alternatively - a supersonic Hunter (P.1083, from memory) or a Supermarine 545 with a radar nose and AAMs.

A good case could be make that a "British Mirage III" hides somewhere inside
- Hawker project lists
- exactly between "1083 Supersonic Hunter" and "1127 Harrier beginnings"

- It was also found hiding at Fairey, in the FD-3 studies (ER-103C !!)

By this point, another case could be make that F155T, even more than Sandys, screwed a "tentative British Mirage III".
Note that both P.1121 and Fairey "single engine F155T" were rejected because they could not fill F155T requirements. Which were as "pie in the sky" as the Arrow and F-108, with similar results by 1960 - scorched barren earth.

France tried a different way: Mirage III versus Trident versus Griffon and Leduc. By 1958, when a "Sandys / Diefenbaker" shitstorm hit, at least the Mirage IIIC saved his ass. It just needed a rocket pack to get Trident and Griffon performance at high altitude... and so these two were canned.

(Note: France own "Diefenbaker / Sandys moment" was an explosive mix of
- De Gaulle quietly murdering the unstable and agonizing 4th Republic
- An Algeria-related lurking civil war nearly spreading to France itself
- and Force de frappe soon to bleed dry military budgets...)
 
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Engine size is not the be all and end all of things.
Thrust to weight, specific fuel consumption, altitude limits, maintainability etc.
Frankly squeezing everything down to fit around an Avon or Spey decreases the thrust to weight ratio, resulting slower acceleration, climb and ceiling.
This is why the Lightning or even the much vaulted F4 have two engines, even at the sacrifice of greater structural weight.

But two engines increases costs over a single engine.
And definitely burns more fuel.

In regard to an aircraft able to tote an AI set either able to switch in flight to attack modes or one able to see further and illuminate for a SARH missile shot. This is of higher performance and more flexible than the Lightning.
 
It is worth pointing out that Mirage III was not a great hit with NATO air forces. The F104 was the singleseater, single engine fighter for everyone except UK and France.
Belgium did take some Mirage Vs after P1154 died.
After the brief interlude of wanting to replace Hunters and F104s with my favourite loony VSTOL force (I am a 60s child) and later with swingwingers, the F4 takes over.
The P1121 is a lovely machine, like an E Type Jag. It would have been wonderful to see a silver metal gleaming prototype at Farnborough. Harold Wilson was a staunch friend of Israel. I can see him offering the production line to IAI in time to fight in the 1967 Six Day War alongside the Mirages.
 
_Del_ said:
The main problems that I don't see being addressed are: it's too big/expensive to compete with F-104 or Mirage on the export market, and it's not as capable as the Phantom which set the gold-standard for it's contemporaries among those countries who could afford it.
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Could you tell us exactly how expensive the single engine, single seat P.1121 would be compared to the single engine, single seat F-104 or Mirage IIIE?

It's essentially in the same class (size and expense) as the Thud, which gave great performance as a strike fighter, but was too big and expensive for export. I don't think export would be impossible, but it doesn't seem like a direct competitor to Mirage or F-104 exports to me. You need someone who cannot afford or is unable to get Phantoms, but can pay almost as much, and that market probably doesn't come to fruition before the mid or late sixties anyway.
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The F-105 was, essentially, a single role strike aircraft - it was even built around a bomb bay for a free fall nuclear weapon, it was a very long way from the interceptors turned multirole by avionics changes (F-104G and Mirage IIIE) aircraft that the P.1121 could have been similar too.

Most of these scenarios fail to reconcile that air forces in the late fifties were still very much looking for aircraft with dedicated roles
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The Luftwaffe decided they needed a multirole type in 1957 and chose the mutirole F-104G in 1958, followed by the Netherlands in 1959. The French started pursuing the Mirage IIIE around the same time. Procurement of these types, and others, then continued throughout the 1960s onwards.

All the fighters in the 60's that became multi-role fighters became multirole fighters after successful production runs. They weren't designed as such. Trying to make it a capable dual-role swing-fighter from the get go in this timeframe would have been even more torturous and expensive.
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All the pieces required to make the P.1121 multirole from the get go existed, the Olympus 21R engine, the AIRPASS II radar and the Marconi Doppler system. Most already mentioned in this thread. It would have been a matter of inserting them into the P.1121 airframe, in the same way Dassault added similar functionality to the Mirage III airframe and Lockheed to the F-104 in roughly the same time period as being proposed here.

The best hope is the RAF accepting it as a less capable, but perhaps less expensive, alternative to the Lightning which then eventually gets added capability throughout it's service life. I don't know that the money argument is compelling enough for that decision, even if in hindsight, this may have worked out pretty well for them.
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The most obvious requirement the RAF had was the for the replacement of the MEAF Venom FBs, Hunters rebuilt to FGA.9 standard ultimately fulfilled this role but a P.1121 with the previously mentioned systems would have provided a superior and much longer lasting alternative. Some foresight (as a mirror of our hindsight) and a bit of extra cash and it could have been made to happen. The replacement for the RAF Hunter FGA.9/FR.10 fleet became, via the P.1154, the F-4M further suggesting that a late 1950s/early 1960s acquisition of a multirole tactical fighter would have been quite logical in hindsight.
 
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The 1154 gets a lot of bad press compared with the 1121 but it was designed around a clear requirement to have a multi role fighter ground attack recce capable of nuclear strike but able to shoot down Badgers and Beagles. As long as is was used as a STOVL rather than VTOL aircraft it could have been made to work.
The 1154 would have had a much longer life and been able to keep the Hermes relevant even in a modified RAF version.
1154 not 1121 was an aircraft for the 70s and 80s following on Hunters and Javelins.
I like Brit stuff but if I am going to dream, I want to dream big.
 
The PCBs tended to dig big holes on the ground, and wreck the rear fuselage through colossal acoustic energy...

I prefer the P.1216.

Shame they couldn't get the P.1216 idea in 1965 rather than 1985... twin boom was already know, back then.
 
JFC Fuller said:
Could you tell us exactly how expensive the single engine, single seat P.1121 would be compared to the single engine, single seat F-104 or Mirage IIIE?
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No, but I think we can faithfully infer that it would be rather higher from historical trends re: the affects of size and complexity on cost...

The F-104A was less expensive than the later multirole -G. The nominally single-role Thud was considerably more expensive than the F-104G, the F-4 was more expensive still, the J75-powered F-8U-3 would have been rather more expensive than the slightly smaller Crusader with a J57, the Lightning was more expensive than the Hunter which was more expensive than the Gnat, etc, etc

Operational costs also reflect this metric.

The F-105 was, essentially, a single role strike aircraft - it was even built around a bomb bay for a free fall nuclear weapon, it was a very long way from the interceptors turned multirole by avionics changes (F-104G and Mirage IIIE) aircraft that the P.1121 could have been similar too.
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How much more expensive would the F-105 have been if we gave it a dual mode radar with CW illuminator?

Some foresight (as a mirror of our hindsight) and a bit of extra cash and it could have been made to happen.
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I dare say it would involve a great deal more than "a bit". And I've already granted such a decision may have worked out well in hindsight.
I still don't see it as a direct competitor to the F-104 or Mirage on the export market, in the same way a F-106 was not a competitor to either, nor the F-105 competing for orders with the Skyhawks. The export market would have been thin, imo. Germany is your best bet, but they already have Starfighters by 1960, and can afford the F-4 when they want to upgrade.
 
A chance meeting between Sir S Camm and M Dassault leads to a meeting of minds. Both men realise that they have two excellent planes in the 1121 and the Mirage III. France is looking to replace its Vautours and F100 Super Sabres. Britain needs a fighter to replace Hunters and Javelins.
In one of those rare moments the two men agree that the NATO VSTOL programme is a waste of time and money. They agree to ditch 1154 and Mirage IIIV.
The attractions of a joint buy of 1121s and Mirages come as Britain needs to get into the European Common Market. Hawkers and Dassault will become the largest European combat aircraft manufacturer. Macmillan and De Gaulle sign the deal.
 
Does a P.1121 really need much in the way of A/G specific avionics to qualify as multi-role by the standards of its day? Or phrased another way, does it require the all-weather capability of the Buccaneer or F-105 to provide a useful attack aircraft? Hood has compared its operating cost unfavourably to the Hunter, and that is hard to argue against of course, but maybe a better comparison is to the Hunter + a supersonic all-weather interceptor. The Hunter didn't have much in the way of avionics at all, for its daytime/fair-weather attack mission! Both this role and all-weather intercept would seem to be within the ability of a P.1121 with a Lightning-ish avionics fit, and there are certainly nations which could profit from such rationalization. Thinking of Switzerland here, for one, but if you go through the list of Hunter operators a number of others are in the same boat.
 
_Del_ said:
JFC Fuller said:
Could you tell us exactly how expensive the single engine, single P1121 <cut>
Click to expand...

No, but I think we can faithfully infer that it would be rather higher from historical trends re: the affects of size and complexity on cost...

The F-104A was less expensive than the later multirole -G. The nominally single-role Thud was considerably more expensive than the F-104G, the F-4 was more expensive still, the J75-powered F-8U-3 would have been rather more expensive than the slightly smaller Crusader with a J57, the Lightning was more expensive than the Hunter which was more expensive than the Gnat, etc, etc

Operational costs also reflect this metric.
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Ah no, these are domestic costing considerations, however foreign military equipment sales are rarely based on such a simple metric.

Consider;-

Gloster Meteors were exchanged for Argentina’s Beef

Tornadoes were exchanged for Saudi oil

The Swiss F18’s (and F5 etc) were purchased along with twenty years of spares on day one to ensure independence from the US. This vastly inflated the cost, indeed the spares cost exceeded the aircraft cost.

The Starfighters open market price was irrelevant as the key purchasing officials were bribed.

Countries will buy equipment they can’t operate eg Lightenings in Kuwait.

Countries will often buy equipment almost irrespective of price based on politics. eg Many Middle East countries will not buy US because of the strings attached.

Likewise politics will often see military equipment given away for free. Eg The USSR Cold War military equipment give away’s & Brits gift of Canberra’s and Hunters to Chile after the Falklands
 
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Cost compared to Hunter? Is that fair and reasonable an assessment?
Or would it be more reasonable to compare costs of Hunter and it's supersonic and avionics heavy (compared to any Hunter) successor which was mostly purchased in the 60's?

Would it not be reasonable to compare cost of Hunter and it's successors Jaguar and Harrier?
And in fact the 70 Phantom II F4K that took MRI until Jaguar became available freeing them up for CAP over the GIUK gap.

In that light by 1965 sunk costs on a P1121 scenario make it cheaper than what happened and by 1968 profoundly cheaper.
While exports in place of Hunter, Jaguar and some Mirage III.
 
"The Starfighter's open market price was irrelevant as the key purchasing officials were bribed".

I did wonder when that particular elephant would enter the room.
 
Another random thought.....if P1121 with Olympus Olympus.21R or 22 enters service during the early 60’s. Then this makes Olympus purchase by Sweden for the System 37. Or even the earlier System 36.
In fact P1121 makes an affordable alternative to both such aircraft. Especially something rated for nuclear delivery.
 

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