1933 proposal for a twin engined Battle

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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/paul1/TwinenginedBattle.jpg

The engines were supposed to be either Merlin I's or Fairey's own P.12's, any suggestion as to the performance of such an aircraft.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/paul1/Faireycannonfighter.jpg

There was also apparently a cannon fighter proposal but no information on the dimensions.

Original post

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16 years 7 months

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How very British to design it with two hoods :D

The cannonfighter looks fine, although cannons were unfortunatly absent from the actual Battle. The twin might have been something in the early 30's, but during the war, there was only one use for a twin Merlin configuration - Mosquito!

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How very British to design it with two hoods :D

Twin hoods were use don the Vickers Wellesley and later on, on around 100 two seat dual control Battles.

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18 years 3 months

Posts: 705

How very British to design it with two hoods :D

The cannonfighter looks fine, although cannons were unfortunatly absent from the actual Battle. The twin might have been something in the early 30's, but during the war, there was only one use for a twin Merlin configuration - Mosquito!

Beaufighter Mk II and Wellington Mk II had two Merlins as did the Westland Welkin.

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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/paul1/TwinenginedBattle.jpg

The engines were supposed to be either Merlin I's or Fairey's own P.12's, any suggestion as to the performance of such an aircraft.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/paul1/Faireycannonfighter.jpg

There was also apparently a cannon fighter proposal but no information on the dimensions.

Hi
Many thanks for posting, A great start to 2010 for me..

The twin cannon fighter I had heard of before, but never found any references, so I assumed the guy was 'just winding me up' or 'spoofing me'....dooh...:o

I must be more trusting...:o

Not stealing the thread but ...:confused:

Was there a mosquito ? on floats ( maybe just a mock up ) in the USA about '43-44, at a USN base.:confused:

cheers
Jerry

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Beaufighter Mk II and Wellington Mk II had two Merlins as did the Westland Welkin.

I should have added: in my opinion.

Was meant to be funny, not a rundown of British twin aircraft :p

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The thick wing would have damned it from the start IMO.

John

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I should have added: in my opinion.

Was meant to be funny, not a rundown of British twin aircraft :p


Oh curses, I was just about to add the Whitley....:diablo:

Roger Smith.

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19 years 9 months

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.
It has some layout similarities to the CAC CA-4/CA-11 Woomera designed and built in Australia in the early 1940s.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/CAC_Woomera.svg/800px-CAC_Woomera.svg.png

Regards

Mark Pilkington

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17 years 7 months

Posts: 338

Had this back in an e-mail discussion from the person who first sent me the piccies.

'A twin engined Battle might have made an ideal night-fighter - Room in the nose for both radar and guns.

Interestingly "The Battle File" indicates that the AM realised the Battle was obsolescent in 1939 but kept production going at Fairey's Stockport factory and at Austin through most of 1940 just to give the workforce something to do pending the switch-over to the Avro Manchester at Stockport and Short Stirling at Austin. So throughout the crucial Battle of Britain period both factories were producing aircraft that were of little or no value to the war effort - In 1940 Stockport produced 218 battles and Austin produced 480 - now cut that in half to use the same number of engines - that’s still about 350 twin-engined Battles that might have been produced in 1940 alone.

Same engine combinations as the original battle - choice of either Fairey's own Prince P12 in the 700-900 hp range or Merlin - with the Air Ministry refusing to consider the Prince, leaving only the Merlin. - Like the normal battle the early Merlins would be the generally unsatisfactory Mk I followed by the Mk II and III for the majority of production up until 1940. - Wonder what the performance would have like for a 1941 twin-engined Battle with two Merlin XX with 1,390 hp each?

The "Battle File" book says that after the original twin-engined proposal in late 1933 interest in the twin-engine version disappeared until 1937 when Fairey revived the idea, this time with the bigger P-16 engine or Merlin. The Air Ministry became interested again in 1938 but then for a year or so they were keener on the P-24 engined version of the Battle, (authorising the building of the prototype) before loosing interest altogether - by which time the Beaufighter was on the verge of entering service (with the Gloster 9/37 expected to follow).

If production of a twin-engined Battle had gone ahead then replacing the single-engined Battle in production at Austin's Longbridge plant would have presented a problem - assembled Battles there were hoisted up a steep ramp from the flight-shed assembly factory to the tiny hill-top testing aerodrome by a sort of ski-lift assembly. I doubt if it could have accommodated a twin-engined aircraft. So they would have had to adopt early the scheme they used when Battle production was switched to Short Stirlings - Shipping the major assemblies to the near-by Elmdon aerodrome (now Birmingham airport) for final assembly there before flight-testing.'