Supermarine Sea Scorpion - the sting is in the tail!

[steelpillow]

Not /that/ much weight to compensate for. The Merlins and props soon started to get heavier, and moving the lump ever further forward to make room for superchargers didn't help. Bars of lead in the tail became the norm. Replacing them with a tail-end Charlie would not make much difference. Looks as if his .303 was balanced out by moving the cockpit forwards a foot. You could chop the bottom of the rudder off, late-Seafire/Seafang style, to give it a field of fire - the tip has already been extended for you, too!

Fore those who don't know but might care, the nose pipework of the Type 305 was for the awful, steam-cooled Goshawk engine that the Spit was originally planned to have: the leading-edge D-box was designed to be the steam condenser. Now there's a Whiff to tantalise!

[Glenn Gilbertson]

1940 - Supermarine's Works Manager was not happy. A new sub-contractor, Revell Ltd., had delivered their first batch of Spitfire fuselages, and on inspection it proved that, although well-constructed, they were all a foot too long. Enquiries revealed that someone had supplied Revell with inaccurate drawings, so the security services were called to find the traitor or traitors responsible.
Joe Smith, Supermarine's chief designer, decided that rather than scrap the fuselages they should be used as the basis of an updated Type 305 project; the Royal Navy were still keen on the turret fighter concept for defence against enemy patrol bombers despite their disappointment with the Blackburn Roc. Boulton Paul had offered a Bristol Hercules - powered 'Sea Defiant' but had no more production capacity, so this was Supermarine's chance. Parent company Vickers were sure that the future of aircraft turrets was in remote control so that gunners could be accommodated in the pressurised cabins of the next generation of pressurised bombers, so design work had already been done; the 'Sea Scorpion' was born. Cynics commented that the real Sea Scorpion might have flourished in the Silurian period millions of years ago, but it was long extinct.
The new design incorporated the fuel-filled, unarmed wing of the PR Spitfire and the uprated RR Merlin with enlarged oil cooler of the forthcoming Spitfire Mk.V, the pilot was moved forward into the Spitfire's fuel tank position and the gunner and turret housed in a widened top fuselage. A turret with twin 0.5" machine guns was chosen to give sufficient penetrating power against bombers. Although the fuselage and undercarriage were strengthenedd and a hook for carrier operation incorporated no provision was made for catapault launching as weight was already problematic.
The prototypes flew reasonably well, and were certainly faster than the awful Roc, but technical problems with turret control and worry about the airframe's robustness for carrier operation meant that they spent their lives in research facilities for turret development.
With hindsight the whole project was a thoroughly bad idea that rapidly faded from the collective memory - the concept was obsolete, and the engines and wings could have been better used by PR Spitfires.
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[Wardukw]

Looks brilliant Glenn mate...bloody nice work 😁😁 :  

[PR19_Kit]

Bloomin' wonderful!       

Love the original idea and the execution. 

[buzzbomb]

Really like that design. Nice work

[zenrat]

 

[NARSES2]

I was wondering how this would come out and.................  

[The Rat]

Surprise Jerry!   

[Old Wombat]

 

[Rick Lowe]

Nicely done. 

[Joe C-P]

A-yup.   

[DogfighterZen]