Anglo-french Spey Engined F-11f-1f Tigers!

[Lawman]

In the late '50s, the UK and France are at a bit of a loose end fighter-wise for their carriers. Following the disastrous SR-177 project, the UK wants a semi off the shelf design, and the French are too focussed on their Etendard strike platform to do a new fighter. With no prospect of making any of their existing fighter designs carrier capable, e.g. Lightning and Mirage III, they look elsewhere. The US Navy have just rejected the J-79 engined F-11F-1F project, and Grumman see the opportunity for some new sales!

The UK is the first to bite, making the decision to have the newly formed Grumman UK redesign the aircraft to use the RR Spey engine. The aircraft proves to be an excellent performer, with Mach 2 performance, and the ability to take off from the British or French carriers. The aircraft is modified to carry four air to air missiles on the fuselage sides, a la Crusader, along with the existing four wing hardpoints. The new fighter is capable of carrying up to three 500lb bombs on each outboard wing hardpoint, and drop tanks on the inner pair, or two more missiles outboard. For the fighter role, a typical loadout could see a pair of Sparrows, and up to four Sidewinders. For the strike role, they can carry bombs, rockets, or Maverick type missiles.

The UK decides to buy a slightly enlarged Clemenceau class to replace the existing fleet carriers, and to operate a mix of the new Tigers and the Buccaneer. The French, rather than buying the Crusader, opt for the new Spey engined Tiger as well. The Canadians similarly need a new fighter, to replace their existing Canadair Sabres, and are very interested in the 'new' Tiger. Even the Aussies get in on the deal, getting a small number to operate off their new British built Clemenceau type carrier.

All in all, the purchases are as follows:

UK (RAF) - 400 (to supplement the Lightning and Hunter fleets)
UK (RN) - 160
France (MN) - 80
Australia (RAN) - 40
Canada (RCAF) - 400 (instead of the CF-116/F-5 and CF-104)
Canada (RCN) - 40 (to operate off their new Clemenceau type carrier)


The agreement sees a joint production run in Canada and the UK, for all the customers. Also, as a result of having a modern fighter available, capable of operating off the new cheap Clemenceau type carriers that the UK is building, both Canada and Australia agree to buy them as well. The UK thus is able to get economies of scale, particularly by being able to simply Anglicise the existing Clemenceau design, avoiding a lot of the problems of the CVA-01 project. The Aussies and Canadians each buy one carrier, and the UK is able to buy four in total. The UK positions one carrier in the Pacific, based out of Australia, so there are two carriers there (one Aussie, one Brit), and positions one in Canada, for two in total there as well. This gives a true global presence for the UK and the Commonwealth, and allows replacement of the old WW2 carriers (without a massive increase in manning etc...).

The UK ends up operating a mixed airwing, with a mix of 16 Buccaneers and 16 Tigers, along with four AEW aircraft, and a pair of Sea Kings for SAR and plane guard. This airwing allows for sufficient defensive air cover, and yet packs more than enough punch with the Buccaneers. It becomes standard practice to launch a mix of Tigers and Buccaneers for air intercepts, with the Buccs acting as tankers and ECM aircraft (the idea being to jam any enemy's radars, helping the weaker radar on the Tiger cope with better enemies).

The French end up operating ten to twelve Tigers, and twenty Etendards, with the ability to reinforce their Tiger detachment as needed. This reflects the French interest in their own Etendard project, and in particular, their desire to focus more heavily on strike, since they primarily operate in relatively peaceful areas.

The UK decides to adopt the 500lb bomb more widely, rather than the larger 1000lb bombs that had been normal up until then. The result is that the Buccaneer, rather than carrying just four 1000lb bombs (two wide, two long), can carry nine 500lb bombs (three wide, three long) internally. Additionally, the Buccs carry 500lb bombs in triples externally on the four wing hardpoints, meaning a total of either 21 x 500lb bombs, or 15 x 500lb bombs and two drop tanks. The switch to 500lb bombs helps the Tigers carry out the strike role when needed, since they would struggle a bit with the larger bombs.

For the RAF, the new fighter simply represents a way of making up numbers, allowing the UK to maintain a Tactical Air Force in Germany, consisting of two wings of upgraded (to Swiss specs) Hunters, one wing of Lightnings, and one wing of Tigers. The RAF are delighted with the performance of their new fighter, even if it did start off as a Navy project!


As an aside, the RAF also make arrangements to get some of the American B-57 mods done on their Canberra fleet. The entire Canberra fleet are given RR Olympus engines, and modified with better systems, allowing them to serve well into the '70s as strike bombers. The most significant modification is to build a UK-version of the RB-57F, the big winged U-2 equivalent. When combined with the Olympus engine, the big wing gives the UK an amazing aircraft, capable of flying at unheard of altitudes, for great ranges. With long range oblique photography gear, they are able to fly into the airspace over the Baltic, and get recon imagery for most of Eastern Europe, and well into Russia itself, without entering Soviet airspace. Similarly, the UK flies them out of Cyprus, Diego Garcia, Singapore and Australia, to monitor other trouble spots. This rejuvinated fleet of Canberras operate alongside the RAF's refurbished Hunters, their new Buccaneers, and other new aircraft.

[elmayerle]

I suspect it'd be more a developed "Advanced Avon" or "Advanced ATAR", perhaps a combination of the best of both in a joint RR/SNECMA effort, rather than a Spey, the Spey was a bit later in time and rather heavier and deeper breathing than the J79 and you really need an engine with a similar, or not too much higher, airflow requirement to the J79.  Given just how tight the Tiger's fuselage is, the extra inch in diameter of the Spey relative to the J79 would likely mean considerable redesign of the airframe.

[Archibald]

Agree!
Super Tiger or Skylancer would have been interesting aircrafts for the french navy.
Orders were usually around 70 strike aircrafts, and circa 40 interceptors, giving 110 combats aircrafts to the Aeronavale. This was before Rafale orders, which are only for 60 machines.. not enough for a second carrier, if it is ever built...    

But you can scrap the Etendard IV you know, first because the french navy was more "independant" from Dassault than the AdA, second because the service really wanted a single aircraft for both strike and fleet defense.
The Etendard was suposed to do both, but its transonic performances made it unuseful for fleet defense.
Later, circa 1957, a mach 2 naval fighter program was setup, featuring a naval Durandal, a naval Mirage III with bigger engine and a tail, and a Mirage-F1-like Breguet, the Br.1120 Sirocco.
But this was too expensive for a 50-machine market, hence the Crusader order in 1965.

Like your idea Elmayerle. Dassault always complained about SNECMA engines lacking power, so having J-79s,would be a good move.  

Maybe something similar to the TF-30 cooperative program of the 1963-1968 era ?  

[Zen]

Avon is bigger in diameter I seem to reccal, but is a working known quantity for the time, and in service in various forms.

Radar is a iffy question, and it depends on the dish size for one.

[elmayerle]

Archibald, perhaps GE ends up buying a share of SNECMA instead of United Technologies (P&W's parent company)?  Certainly the J79 was quite an advanced engine for it's time (and for the record, the chief engineer on that engine was German, but with quite a history on how he got from Germany to the US, the long way around by way of Hong Kong and China).  Either a joint effort with GE on J79 development or a joint RR/SNECMA effort on engine development - be nice to get Volvo Flygmotor involved, too, as I've noticed that their afterburning Avons got better performance than RR's of comparable marks did.

[jcf]

Aside from nationalist pride, what would be the point of re-engining the aircraft?
The money spent to re-engine the Phantom with the Spey was basically wasted.
Putting the Super Tiger into service with the J-79 and using the money saved for follow on developments, say an English/Euro engined XF12F based aircraft or similar,

would be more logical.

Then you could follow it later with something like the 607:


Cheers, Jon

[elmayerle]

Well, Spey for J79 would be quite an expensive proposition, one reason I suggested something a bit more restrained.  For what it's worth, that JTF22A-30B is a derivative of the F100/F401 engine family, so the main nozzle is easy enough to come by.

[Zen]

Not wasted actualy, it was to give the extra poke needed for operations from the Audacious class carriers Eagle and Ark Royal, previous experience with cross decking J79 powered F4's showed it was just not operationaly useful.

Remember the 151ft and 199ft catapults where rather shorter and produced a lower acceleration that the USN's 250ft catapults.

[Lawman]

Since the carriers would be CTOL, I wouldn't bother with anything VTOL or VSTOL in nature at all - needlessly complex and expensive. Something like that Design 607A, but enlarged, and with no VTOL gear - that engine, with 27,500lb of thrust, would make for a great conventional fighter. If the fighter has an empty weight of around 15,000lbs, and an MTOW of 35,000, then it would have an excellent thrust to weight ratio, somewhere around 1:1 or better in fighter configurations. These would be possible with a fighter in the Gripen class, which should be big enough.

Basically, what was needed was a fighter in the same size class as the F-8 Crusader, but minus the wing mechanism (which limited wing ordnance a lot). In the real world, only the French were really in the market for a fighter in this size class, since Britain was basically out of the market, and buying Phantoms anyway, and the US was focussed on bigger fighters. If the UK, and ideally Australia and Canada, had bought carriers in roughly the same size class as the French carriers, then we might have seen a suitable fighter developed. As Archibald says, the MN really wanted a single type, for both fighter and attack, so the orders would have been there.

In my scenario, there is a genuine need for a new fighter, in this size class, and I suspect that even the US would have been interested, especially if it allowed the Essex class to stay operationally valuable. A Crusader given the Corsair treatment, i.e. stronger, fixed wing, and just generally cleaned up, would have been sufficient, if not ideal. I would ideally like to see something in the same size class as the Mirage F-1, like Archibald's F-1EM.

So basically, for the late '60s or '70s, the target would be a high bypass engine, in the 25-30,000lb class, in a relatively lightweight fighter, probably roughly F-16 sized. I would avoid swing-wing, and any thrust vectoring, as these add massively to complexity and cost. If everyone has CTOL carriers, then as long as the fighter isn't too big, then it should work fine.

The alternative would be to go for a baby TSR-2, as had been looked at - switch to a much nicer cockpit, with full visibility, and ideally give it lots of hardpoints, and it could be a winner.

I have to say, I still like the idea of a third step in the Vought series, i.e. Crusader is simplified from supersonic fighter to reliable subsonic striker, and then gets modified back into a fighter. Switch to side mounted intakes, and an internally carried M61 cannon (or Aden 30mm), and have a nice big radar in the nose! Same size as a Crusader, but designed from the start to use a bigger turbofan engine, or even the J75 as planned for the F8-U3. All in all, I am thinking of a two seater F8U-3 Crusader III, but without the raising and lowering wing. This would have reduced weight a fair bit, and allowed a stronger wing, perhaps allowing it to carry almost similar loads to its sibling, the A-7 Corsair.

[Zen]

The French seem on the right track, starting with the Mirage F2 which is I think around 1964 in orrigin?
That is perhaps better suited to a Spey or similar tubofan.
Great potential for both Airforce and Naval types of this, competing with later model Starfighters and early Mig23's.
A large potential production run for this type is possible.
In a sense I see the F.2 as the obvious successor to the earlier Hawker P1121.

The F.1 does look very nice, with that approach speed of below 145kts making it very attractive for navalisation. What that needs is a lighter and smaller SARH AAM than the SuperR530 and a modern turbofan in place of the Atar.
Of the options the F.1 looks the most promising for other Navies to purchase for operation from light fleet carriers.
Thinking on this one, it might be necessary to strip the DEFA cannon out to cut weight, compensating for the increases due to navalisation.

Mirage G we've spoken of often, virtualy ideal in every way bar the single engine.

Indeed the odd thing is Dassault never seems to have proposed a twin engined fighter in the same class as the BAC Type583, the AFVG is rather too large and heavy for comparison.

[fallenphoenix]

gentlemen, would this fit the bill:

http://homepages.tesco.net/psjtulloch/sealightning.htm

might be a tad early for this but its small(ish), twin engined, mach 2, 2 crew, all Brittish and land based variant already in production  :dum:  :dum:  :dum:

Craig  B)  

[jcf]

Not wasted actualy, it was to give the extra poke needed for operations from the Audacious class carriers Eagle and Ark Royal, previous experience with cross decking J79 powered F4's showed it was just not operationaly useful.

Remember the 151ft and 199ft catapults where rather shorter and produced a lower acceleration that the USN's 250ft catapults.

Seeing as they only made brief trials on Eagle and only operated on the Ark Royal, in small numbers, from 1970 - 1978, I don't see where the expense of conversion was worthwhile. Especially as the RAF, the largest and longest user of the type, would have been happy to buy more J79 Phantoms for the monies spent.

Fitting a rocket might have been just as effective.

Jon

[Zen]

Oh my....here we go again!

F4 was chosen for the RN I think early 1964, from what I can tell it seems a 'interim' solution that was expected to have completed delivery by late 1968, at a cost per plane of 1.2 million pounds. This was expected to be a cheap and quick conversion to use the Spey, and this operable from the two large existing carriers until the new CVA-01 type entered service.

This was following the events of the forced joint aircraft P1154 which killed off first the OR346 machine (1962) and then the AW406 in favour of the joint winner of NMBR.3. The RAF however continued with the P1154 (to have been called the Harrier) until that too was dropped in I think 1965.
This along the TSR.2.
RAF machines could have been using the J79 but rather they poached the RN's later production run, leaving them with just 29 out of (I think) some 120.

Spey F4's began delivery 1969, and at a cost of 3 million pounds.


Then CVA-01 was canceled in 1967, and Ark Royal began her upgrade to extend her useful life, the RN expecting that a future government would spend more money to bring Eagle upto the same standard and order CVA-01.
Instead the RAF was to get the RN's CTOL aircraft as the FAA fixed wing elements where run down.

Rockets would work, for take off, but the Spey gave greater 'blow' for a slower approach speed as well as slower take off speeds. Greater power in reheat gave for a faster acceleration back to flying speed during a 'bolter'.

[Archibald]

Yep, here we go again Zen!    I won't repeat again (3 times ? 5 times ?) all I said before on Mirage prototypes

Only "quoting" this sentence  

Indeed the odd thing is Dassault never seems to have proposed a twin engined fighter in the same class as the BAC Type583, the AFVG is rather too large and heavy for comparison.

The whole series of Dassault "twins" (G8, ACF, 4000 and Rafale) started in the early 70's, that's a fact.
BUT in the late 50's, there had been a whole bunch of "small Mirage IV" designs, before dimensions of the Mirage IVA were frozen.
The small, fighter variant of the Mirage IV A was the Mirage IV C (which, interestingly had dimension and weight close from the Rafale M).

The Mirage IVC was never studied seriously, as fighter variants of the Mirage IV were at the time outclassed by another aircraft, the SO-4060.
This was from a public firm, SNCASO.
The SO-4060 was the successor of the SO-4050 Vautour bomber.
It was very similar to the Mirage IV (D-shaped intakes with souris, fuselage, engines) except it had swept wings and tail, not delta.  This was much better for carrier ops.
Four variants were planned

- First prototype was started in 1956, with Atar-101 engines. This quickly become a problem, when more powerfull atar-9 become available. After budget cuts the lone unfinished prototype was scrapped in 1958    

- production variants with Atar-9. This was a long range fighter for the AdA, and was cancelled in 1958 along Trident, land-based Etendard IVs, Vautours and
SMB-2 orders, Griffon, Leduc 022... budget cuts were rather severe, because of  this damned algerian war    

- naval variant (here we are!)

- nuclear bomber variant, Mirage IVA competitor. It was found that delta wing housed more fuel, so the Mirage won and was build as light bomber.

The SO-4060 would have made an interesting alternative to the Phantom had it been build.

Le Fana de l'aviation magazine plan an article on the SO-4060 next month, with Alanqua profiles    




 

[Zen]

Fascenating stuff Achibald, I always suspect that.
Do you have any pictures or links to pictures of the S0-4060?