The fighter pilot flies alone, often at speeds approaching 300 miles an hour to attack an enemy in the air. This chapter describes the machines that have been built for use by R.A.F. fighter pilots
TAKING THE STRAIN. Although one cannot catch the shrill whine of the wind forced past the bracing-wires, this photograph yet affords a vivid illustration of a Fairey “Firefly” fighter as it dives at full throttle in the hands of the Fairey Aviation Co.’s test-pilot. Note the trough for the synchronized Vickers gun on the side of the fuselage, the streamlined wheel “spats”, and the radiator between the undercarriage legs.
STRONG controversy and intense and even dramatic struggles have marked and continue to accompany the development of aircraft. There is rivalry in design, and manufacturers from time to time are compelled to commit heavy expenditure, knowing that costly steps once taken cannot be recalled, and that if a mistake is made the penalty will be heavy and long-continuing.
The air-cooled engine was in high favour before the arrival of the new Rolls-Royce water-cooled series, called the Kestrels and the Buzzards. These are light for their power. But before they came on the scene, one British manufacturer, Mr. Charles Fairey, convinced that for fighters speed, and ever more speed, must be the guiding principle, went so far as to decide to employ an American water-cooled engine, a Curtiss, and to acquire manufacturing rights therein. It was an engine of greater power than the then available British water-cooled engines.
For his plans he needed the extra power, and he also appreciated the reduced air resistance of engines the cylinders of which are arranged in banks instead of in a chrysanthemum-like whorl as in the big-power radial air-cooled division. Seldom has right thinking been more strikingly vindicated. What Mr. Fairey had been urging for years, against much opposition, became the settled policy of the British air staff, for, when the Kestrels and the Buzzards were introduced, the need for the increased speed they ensured outweighed any objections to water-cooling, and, although Fairey fighters and day bombers were not extensively adopted for the Royal Air Force at that juncture, Mr. Fairey enjoyed a conspicuous triumph in another direction. He had been for years supplying our and other air forces with the Fairey III.F types, land machines and seaplanes, general purpose and reconnaissance craft, and he also had had time to develop a fighter and day bomber.
A Fairey fighter, the Fairey Firefly, fitted with the Kestrel engine, was entered for a Belgian War Office competition in which the designers of other countries also were engaged, and very soon after the adoption of the Hawker Fury fighter and Hawker Hart day bomber for the British service, the Firefly carried all before it against foreign competition in Belgium. It had a performance practically identical with that of the Fury, but actually, as equipped for the specific requirements laid down for the Belgian service, it was a little faster on the straight, but a trifle slower on the climb.
It has a somewhat more rakish body than the Fury, and its appearance irresistibly suggested great speed. Like the Fury it is a metal machine, but the method employed is different from that of the Hawker Engineering Company, which built the Fury and the Hart. Both methods, however, are designed for rapid production and ease of repair.
At the flying tests, watched by the Belgian experts and officials, the Firefly was unmistakably superior to all its rivals. To the amazement of the observers, the British test-pilot included in the demonstration programme high-speed diving under full power — what is called terminal velocity diving — in which this class of fighter attains a speed exceeding 400 miles per hour and stands up to the strain. When Mr. Fairey suggested that the foreign machines should be put to the same ordeal the challenge was not taken up!
In the sequel Great Britain got the order, and not only so, but arrangements were made for the setting up of a Fairey aeroplane factory in Belgium, in addition to the securing of the then record foreign order for British aeroplanes to be made in England. Orders from other countries followed.
The Firefly is a single-bay biplane of unequal span, all metal framework, the body in oval section, altogether a beautifully streamlined craft carrying two machine-guns. It is a machine of tremendous climbing power and of considerably more than 200 miles per hour speed on the straight. It is adapted also as a Fleet fighter. A bombing type, the Fairey Fox, of the same design family, was produced at about the same time.
A FIGHTER FLIGHT GOES FORTH. In a sky crowded with drifting clouds a flight of Bristol “Bulldogs” from No. 32 Squadron makes its ordered way above the R.A.F. aerodrome at Biggin Hill, Kent. The “Bulldog” is a day-and-night single-seater fighter, and is the product of one of Britain’s oldest aircraft manufacturing concerns. It shares with its renowned predecessor of the Great War, the Bristol “Fighter”, a great reputation as a fine service aeroplane.
In 1935 the Belgian Government held another competition for single-seater fighters, for which the following specification was issued: a speed of at least 400 km. (248 m.p.h.) at 5,000 metres (16,400 ft.); a duration of two hours at 8/10ths full throttle; a climb of 5,000 metres (16,400 ft.) in six minutes; a landing speed of 120 km. (74·5 m.p.h.) or less; an armament consisting of one 20 mm. “canon” and two machine-guns, or four machine-guns, and, in addition, four 10 kg. (22-lb.) Bombs.
The British entrant was the Fairey Fantome, undoubtedly the world’s fastest multi-gun fighter at that time. It was fitted with the four machine-guns of the specification, and the “canon”. It had a speed considerably in excess of the Belgian specification. The engine, in accordance with official requirements, was a Hispano-Suiza, carrying the “canon” between the two banks of six cylinders and arranged to fire through the hub of the airscrew. Its magazine contained 60 shells.
The test-pilot was demonstrating this machine at St. Evere, on July 18, when he crashed, as a result, it is supposed, of what is known as a “black-out”, a temporary loss of consciousness. It was established that there was no structural failure in the machine.
Despite the great speed and climb of the fighters fitted with Kestrel engines, the Bristol Bulldog, with its air-cooled radial engine, was ranked among the best fighters in the world. It was followed and excelled by the Gloster Gauntlet and the Gloster Gladiator. The Bulldog, which was the equipment of numerous R.A.F. squadrons for several years, had the normal fighter’s equipment of two machine-guns. It was the standard day and night fighter, the modern “ace’s” mount. This class, by the way, may eventually, at any rate to a large extent, go out of use, for fighting tactics and policy are undergoing changes, and the two-seater fighter and fighters equipped with shell-firing guns will almost certainly be more widely used than was at one time considered likely.
The Bulldog, like all the types from the same source, the Bristol Aeroplane Company, looked, and was, a splendid flying machine. Its performance was not equal to that of the Fury, but its speed exceeded 200 m.p.h. at 20,000 feet, and it was suitable for night operations. This performance is considerably exceeded by the Bulldog Mark IV.
Few matters relating to fighter design are so interesting to watch as the battle between air-cooled and water-cooled engines. When the high-power, geared, and supercharged water-cooled engines, with cylinders in parallel banks, were developed, making it possible, on account of their smaller cross-section, to reduce air resistance, it seemed that, despite its many advantages, including the absence of radiator, the air-cooled engine was for many purposes bound to be limited, except in small powers, to light aeroplanes, and to air line operation.
The air-cooled division, however, promptly replied with the introduction of the Townend ring, a circular cowling formed in such a way that it smooths the flow of air and at the same time improves the cooling. In the United States a somewhat similar ring was employed for the same purpose.
DAY AND NIGHT IN THE COCKPIT. This photo shows a Flight of Bristol “Bulldogs” in formation, bearing the Squadron markings of No. 32 (Fighter) Squadron, stationed at Biggin Hill, Kent. The “Bulldog” is a strongly built biplane fitted with the Bristol “Jupiter” radial engine, and has been a standard single-seater day and night fighter of the R.A.F. for some years. These particular “Bulldogs” have various modern refinements dictated by Service experience — for example, a tail-wheel and wheel-brakes.
The effect of this accessory is very greatly to reduce the air resistance handicap. But it did not quite remove it, and the aeroplane with a pointed nose to its body has the best of it by some small percentage. Against that it has the disadvantage of radiator, and thus it again became a matter for the nice weighing up of the pros and cons.
The fittings and equipment of a single-seater fighter demand some roominess in the cockpit. Pilots are by no means all small men, some of them are big fellows, and, in any case, they must have room for their bodies, for parachute, for oxygen outfit, for instruments, and all the rest of the indispensable paraphernalia. So it became a question of building bodies of fighter aeroplanes of the right proportions, and of adapting engine and aeroplane round them. And it so happens that the radial air-cooled engine’s diameter does not really exceed the necessary maximum diameter of the aeroplane’s body, and it became merely a matter of reducing the air resistance at the front, for which purpose the Townend ring was the key to the situation.
The radial engine has another point in its favour. It is to some extent a shield for the pilot; enemy bullets may hit it several times without stopping the engine, and it may fend a bullet off the pilot. On the other hand, a bullet or two in the radiator of a water-cooled engine is certain to bring about almost immediate failure.
MORE POWER IN LESS SPACE. The Napier Co., in collaboration with Major Frank Halford — who also designed the famous D.H. “Gipsy” series —produced, in the very successful “Dagger” (here installed in the nose of a “Hart” bomber), a 24-cylinder air-cooled unit of 700 h.p. arranged in four banks in the form of an “H” — a novel departure in engine design. A new Hawker army co-operation machine, known as the “Hector”, and basically similar to the “Hart”, is fitted with this engine as standard.
Yet the radials were hard pressed and engineers sought another solution, that of combining air-cooling and high power with small cross-section. In this development the series of air-cooled engines designed by Major Frank B. Halford, and culminating in the Dagger of 24 cylinders in four banks arranged (seen from the front) as a capital letter H, in which each of the four arms is the end of a line of six cylinders, is important. What had been supposed to be the insuperable difficulty of cooling such an engine was overcome, and the Air Ministry thought so much of it that a squadron of day bombers was fitted with this new type.
A very interesting contribution to fighter design is the Westland F7/30, an all-metal biplane, fitted with the Rolls-Royce Goshawk engine, an advance on the Kestrel in which evaporative cooling is substituted for ordinary water-cooling. In this machine the engine, instead of being in the nose, is in the body about amidship, and it drives the airscrew in front through a long shaft and gears. This enables the pilot to be placed in front of the wings immediately behind the propeller, so that he has an excellent outview for fighting purposes. The design also affords him a good view behind. The F7/30, which must still be regarded as an experiment, carries four fixed machine-guns firing forward, a load of bombs, and all the usual equipment necessary to the fighter.
UNORTHODOXY IN FIGHTERS. One of the problems usually met with in designing lighting aeroplanes is to fit a powerful engine—often a radial—in the nose of the machine, and yet to provide an unobstructed view for the pilot. In the new Westland F7/30 there is a complete break-away from tradition, for the Rolls-Royce “Goshawk” engine is placed far back towards the centre of the fuselage, with a long shaft driving the airscrew in the nose, thus allowing a remarkably clear all-round view from the pilot’s cockpit.
