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  1. Blackburn Firebird for FAA

    The British purchasing commission bought a licence to produce Brewster Buffalo, and bought a Vought V-143 outright. They brought their booty home and presented their goods to Blackburn Aircraft to make something happen. Blackburn engineers waved a magic stick (pencil) over a drafting table, and...

  2. MACLiner

    Everyone knows that Britain was poor, and needed aircraft carriers in the build-up to WWII. Ocean liners made a profit, moreso if wealthy passengers could pop off a few 20mm rounds from the Oerlikons for a few quid during a voyage. They were fast enough to launch just about any aircraft, and...

  3. WI Marcel Bloch never left Buchenwald.

    Famed Frenchman Marcel Bloch became more famous under another name, and became the cornerstone of the French aviation industry, amongst other things. However, he left Buchenwald paralyzed, with diphtheria, weighing 70 pounds. What does French post-war aviation look like without Marcel Dassault?

  4. Republic Thunderbolt, non-turbo

    WI: Republic builds both turbo and non-turbo Thunderbolts. What does it look like? What is it good for? Can it enter series production?

  5. WI: Stanley Hooker gets a job, at Bristol

    Stanley Hooker applies for a job at Bristol. As luck would have it, they're looking for a man who's good with math. He's hired first of January, 1938. Do the Cousins get him to help cook the books, or help with the engines?

  6. Grumman F5F-3 Skyrocket

    Long story short, the Corps wants a good fighter and Grumman wants to build it. Continental has an engine that's so hot it's cool. They come together and make a deal. BuAer authorizes 200, which enter service beginning Sept 1941. VMF 211 embarks for Wake Island in November 1941 with 12 Skyrockets.

  7. WI: Successful Rolls Royce Vulture

    The Vulture engine was cancelled because the crankshaft bearings cooked. What if better bearing material and increased cooling oil volume solved the issues and the engine worked?

  8. Rationalize the British Aircraft Industry

    Well, how and when is it done, and what's left when the smoke clears?

  9. Specification F.7/30

    I've been reading about the British aircraft industry, including a couple PhD theses, lately. They argue that widely held beliefs are rubbish, and their beliefs are documented fact. Kelly argued that someone stated that a German designed the Lockheed Vega blah blah, and added, "while this is...

  10. Handley Page Fighter

    I am quite enamored of a forgotten prototype made by Handley Page for a US Navy contract, a cantilever monoplane naval fighter, from 1922. Two examples were built. The first had no dihedral and a poor, ineffective tail. The second model added the dihedral, and had a more effective, but very ugly...

  11. Greatest aircraft designer of all time?

    There has been threads about the greatest aircraft, usually fighters, ad infinitum. But aircraft don't make themselves. Like soylent green, it's people. Aircraft are designed by more than one person mostly, but not always. But there is usually one man who is the designer of note. Who is most...

  12. Favorite WW I Aircraft

    Many have many favorite WWII aircraft. I know I do. But what about the preceding conflict, when new designs could be built and tested in 8 weeks, and obsolete in 6 months? Picking one seems undoable, so pick two. SE5a, and Fokker DVII.

  13. Favorite WWII Aircraft

    Owing to the fact that "Best" is difficult to quantify, what is your "Favorite" aircraft of WWII? Just pick one' and only one. For me, the Mossie. Its specification was not formulated by a dithering ministry, but was a statement of technology, engineering, craftsmanship and art. It was good...

  14. Thin wings?...again?

    While upgraded and early British fighters are very popular, popping up like weeds, the concept of a capable, fast light/medium attack type bomber only awaits the production of the superlative private venture Mossie, made against all odds with only Wilfred Freeman backing it. The Whitley bomber...

  15. Hawker Hurricane thin wing

    When Sir Sydney Camm was told that the wind tunnel data on which he based his Hurricane and Tornado/Typhoon wing was faulty, he replied, "Conned by the aerodynamists!" Harsh words indeed, mis-spelling aeronynamicists and all. What if HM Government had established a real wind tunnel, which...

  16. Adam Tooze doesn't know airplanes.

    Adam Tooze doesn't know anything about airplanes. "Over the winter of 1940-41, the difficulties getting the Bf-109E, or 'Emil', into production accounted for the sharp dip in aircraft production..." "The He-177 was a disaster.....its peculiar back-to-back engine configuration resulted in...

  17. Is early Griffon engine too boring and tedious?

    In 1932, a Rolls Royce racing engine based on a Buzzard bomber engine powered a seaplane that won a trophy for the RAF, sponsored by a lady who later starved to death because a king succumbed to hormones. In 1933, an uninspired attempt to unrace the "R" engine ended in failure, possibly because...

  18. Best, and worst RAF leader

    Just to maintain a balance, everyone knows that Goring and Udet brought the Luftwaffe to its knees, but who made the RAF what it was and what it wasn't? And, while we're in the neighborhood, who led the FAA?

  19. A floatplane off Tone

    In an article from the Canadian Militery Journal, entitled "Leonard Birchall and the Japanese Raid on Colombo", by Rob Stuart, it states that a floatplane from Tone sighted the RN cruisers Dorsetshire and Cornwall at 1200 hrs. 88 Vals were dispatched and an attack ensued beginning at 1338 hrs...

  20. ABC Dragonfly remains paper, Cosmos Jupiter rules

    Just a thought. The ABC Dragonfly was a three-valve 9 cylinder radial engine that appeared as a proposal during the wind-down of WWI. The Ministry fell in love with the promise and ordered it into production in a large number of factories, and also took over development. There was only one big...
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