[Guest]

and on these aircraft, someone already thought about adding them in the game?

Hawker Tornado







Arsenal VG-33

[norm]

slobering

[Paulo Hirth]

Ola! Mais avi

[Guest]

I'd like to see an MB.5, personally.

[Pirate]

Some interesting aircraft which never saw active service. If someone makes then it would be great, But I imagine with the amount of work involved it is far more likely modders would chose to model more prominent aircraft.

[Kristorf]

Hmmm, the Tornado.

Originally concieved as Britains premier fighter with the Spitfire being used as a stop gap (after production delays and problems with Supermarines sub-contracting and lack of orginalisation skill in the Southampton factory)

Never got past the prototype stage due mainly to engine problems.
Concieved at the same time as the Whirlwind it took to long, by which time the Spitfire had proved itself and Loord Beaverbrook had 'sorted' the production out.

[caldrail]

Hawker might have seen it that way, but the Spitfire was never viewed as a stopgap by the Air Ministry. Neither did the Tornado, developed in parallel with the Typhoon, have any serious chance of seeing production status.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Tornado

[Kristorf]

Hawker might have seen it that way, but the Spitfire was never viewed as a stopgap by the Air Ministry. Neither did the Tornado, developed in parallel with the Typhoon, have any serious chance of seeing production status.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Tornado

As far as I can find the Air Ministry and those in power at the time were impressed with the Spitfire (original Ministry requirement F7/30 and changed to F37/34 to suite Mitchells design) after its initial air tests with the prototype and placed an order for approx 300, unheard of in that era especially with lack of further tests.

The problems emerged later, when after over 2 years since the initial order was placed not one Spitfire had been produced with Supermarine constantly blaming sub-contractors for delays and poor quality work.

The Air Ministry and the heads of the RAF placed great faith in Sidney Camms track record (Hart, Hind etc) and hoped that the Tornado would come out of the blocks running, however problems with the Rolls Royce engine kept setting the programme back.
Also many at the top of the RAF believed that a front line fighter should be twin engined and be able to carry cannon (something the Spitfire could not do successfully until 1941) so placed hope in both the Bristol Beaufighter and Westland Whirlwind, both of which suffered 'abnominal teething problems', the Spitfire was pushed forward.
Prior to this the Government had considered selling the Spitfire as an export only aircraft in an attempt to recoop the ever increasing costs (origanally approx

[caldrail]

Interesting, but you don't seem to understand the difficulties of building Spitfires. They were not as easy to manufacture as Hurricanes and the nature of production line manufacture is that the main assembly plant relies on a network of parts suppliers, rather like car manufacture is today although on a smaller scale. Further, Supermarine was building all metal monocoque fighters for the first time, and this was also the first time (as you point out) that they received such a large order, so part of the delay was actually getting the production lines underway. We shouldn't be too suprised at that and this sort of thing afflicted other aircraft types as well in other countries. The P51 for instance, built to British order as a fighter for the European conflict, suffered from labour difficulties that the Americans had to bring troops in to quell before production resxumed, and this at a time when Britain was a desperate customer.

Syndney Camm was of course beloved of the Air Ministry. He had supplied aircraft for the RAF for some time and had a proven record, so any design of his was going to be looked at seriously once it was a viable project.

[Kristorf]

Lo mate,
I understand the difficulties involved in the process.
Being the first British fighter with an all stressed metal skin, the structure of the wings with decreasing sized ribs and the one piece rounded leading edge etc.

The problems came with the (lack of) Supermarine orginisation (some of which was of Mitchell's own making, he had a great distrust of authority).

The drawing office was to small with no recognised filing system, with drawing being pilled up and not cronologically stored, the factory had no (or very little) stores system with parts coming into the factory and being 'dumped' in parts bins. As one of the engineers said, there are over 10.000 parts to a Spitfire and we have to go hunting for every one.

Also Supermarine, at one point, were blaming the subcontractor who built the wings of poor workmanship and of not following the drawing specs. It was found that Supermarine had built the assembly shop on reclaimed land next to the quay side, and when the tide came either in or out the workshop floor rose or fell by a couple of millimeters, thus making the wing fixing points slightly out of allignment.

Vickers bought out Supermarine and attempted to rectify the problems prior to WWII, but it took Lord Beaverbrook in the end to push/bully/cajole the bosses into action.

It was a very complicated situation regarding the Spitfire and its near 'not' status, coming close to cancelation on several occasions, and without the backing and support of some very senior and powerful MP's and industrialists WWII might have had a very differant outcome (not saying in any way that the Spitfire won the war, but the Battle of Britain would have more than likely have been won by the Luftwaffe, the Air Battle for Malta would have been lost etc)

[Radoye]

Hawker Tornado is essentially not much more than a re-engined Typhoon (early Tiffy that is, with 12 MG's in the wings and a cardoor cockpit). But with a difference of an extremely unreliable engine. We would be better off with a proper 1941 Typhoon Mk.IA (with tail falling off and all) than with Tornado.

On the other hand, the VG.33 series.... [Homer Simpson voice]mmmmmmmmm[/Homer Simpson voice]

[caldrail]

No, it was a parallel project. And on the same subject, never let it be said I don't correct my own mistakes when I find them.

It seems that the Air Ministry was more keen to see the Tornado in production than I thought, and an order for 500 planes (subject to successful flight tests and service acceptance trials) was on the books. However, with the situation worsening in May 1940 the order was cancelled to make way for continued Hurricane production, the very aircraft the Tornado was supposed to replace. By October the same year, the production line at Woodford (Avro's factory) was reinstated, and one production example was delivered, subsequently used for engine testing. However, since official support for the Rolls Royce Vulture engine had ceased, the Tornado project was dead, especially since its Naper Sabre powered sister the Typhoon was showing more promise.

[Radoye]

No, it was a parallel project.

:roll: yes it was a parallel project but it utilized the same basic airframe. There were two prototypes, one with the RR Vulture (Tornado) and one with Napier Sabre (Typhoon). Essentially the same, but with subtle differences to allow the most efficient fitting of the engines. Basically from behind the engine mount to the back they were the same, just the radiators moved around for a while until they finally placed them on the chin for both planes.

If you take the engine off you wouldn't really be able to tell the difference between the two prototypes.

Also, the Napier prototype (Typhoon) gave us later the Napier Tempest (Mk.V) while the Tornado, re-engined once again with the Bristol Centaurus, gave us the Centaurus Tempest (Mk.II).

So yes, it is a parallel project but at the same time it is the same plane with just a different engine.