UK Aircraft, Spacecraft and Missiles: Aesthetics

[James Kerman]

The TSR2 would have been a great addition to the RAF:

[Nibb31]

Not ugly enough.

[Jonfliesgoats]

Agreed.  Entirely too airplane-looking.

[magnemoe]

5 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

What do you mean strange aesthetics ?

French aviation tycoon Marcel Dassault once said "a beautiful plane is a plane that flies well" (and french planes do usually look pretty).

On the other hand, the british did give us the Spitfire and (half of) Concorde, which are probably the two most elegant aircraft ever, so that pretty much excuses them of everything else.

Top plane looks like one who is rebuild as an radar plane. the bottom looks like carrying some sort of pod. a pretty weird looking plane anyway, mig 21 type intake nose but weird engine. 
The middle one is weird, also some other with extra cockpits but that wins, why? My guess is that its some sort of command and communication plane used on carriers. 

[Nibb31]

The first one is a Nimrod, which was a maritime surveillance plane based on the old DeHavilland Comet airliner. 

The other one is an English Electric Lightning, which was actually one of the best interceptors of the 60's. It was just very ugly.

 

 

Edited December 22, 2016 by Nibb31

[Jonfliesgoats]

Top is a Nimrod ASW plane.  It is a highly modified DeHavilland Comet, and they just recently left service.  The bubbles and blisters all over the plane cover radars, magnetic anomaly detectors and other sensor suites for communication with sonabuoys.  Middle is a Fairey Gannet which was used as an AEW platform and bomber.  The bottom is an English Electric Lightning.  The Lightning was an interceptor capable of flight above 70000 feet, but not a very good AEW platform due to endurance and loiter capability.  Considering the British fondness of shooting things from overwing hard-points (Jaguar), those overwing stores could have been fuel tanks or anything else.

11 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Top plane looks like one who is rebuild as an radar plane. the bottom looks like carrying some sort of pod. a pretty weird looking plane anyway, mig 21 type intake nose but weird engine. 
The middle one is weird, also some other with extra cockpits but that wins, why? My guess is that its some sort of command and communication plane used on carriers. 

 

The Ganet had bi-fold wings which was unique.  Two sets of hinges and actuators were required in order for it to fit in the British carriers of the day.

Handles Page 0-400 was pretty ugly.  Britain made up for it with the more attractive Vickers Vimy.

[benzman]

post-war British fighters were designed almost purely for defense against high flying bombers, which is why the often had great climb to altitude ability but little fuel endurance.  Some British aircraft were quite pretty.  The original Comet, Supermarine Swift, Hawker Hunter and ,of course, the De Havilland Mosquito, one of the best looking piston engined aircraft ever.

 

[Shania_L]

4 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Top is a Nimrod ASW plane

Yes, although it was used for all kinds of maritime patrol roles, including during the Falklands campaign it could actually engage enemy patrol aircraft (Boeing 707s) with sidewinder missiles (although no kills were recorded). This one in the image is a more specialised AEW aircraft concept which was never used before we purchased Sentry.

4 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Middle is a Fairey Gannet which was used as an AEW platform and bomber

Yes again, this time carrier based.

4 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

The bottom is an English Electric Lightning.  The Lightning was an interceptor capable of flight above 70000 feet, but not a very good AEW platform due to endurance and loiter capability.  Considering the British fondness of shooting things from overwing hard-points (Jaguar), those overwing stores could have been fuel tanks or anything else.

It was never intended as an AEW, it had limited forward looking radar for guidance of its missiles. The lightning was designed almost as a point defence interceptor, even today its climb rate to altitude will put current fighters to shame.

The over wing hardpoints in this photo are indeed drop tanks (the pilot has to roll inverted to drop them) this is a later modification, along with the bulge in the belly, to increase the flight duration.

4 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Handles Page 0-400 was pretty ugly.  Britain made up for it with the more attractive Vickers Vimy.

Are you sure you meant Vimy? If you are after the 1950s nuclear bomber, Vickers made the Valient, although as everyone knows the pretty one is the Avro Vulcan.

A lot of British post war aircraft were deigned around a single purpose, many competing designs even. This is why you end up with so many odd aircraft, the late 50s early 60s saw a great deal of "try it and see" in regards to aircraft design.

To add to the British aircraft glamour parade I will present the Miles M52

This was was designed in 1943 in response to a mis-translation of the german design documents for the Me163 and/or Me262. The actual document read capable of 1,000kmph (subsonic) the translation read 1,000mph very much supersonic.

And here is a Sea Vixen, last of the three twin boom de-Haviland aircraft, Vampire Venom and Vixen.

[magnemoe]

5 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Top is a Nimrod ASW plane.  It is a highly modified DeHavilland Comet, and they just recently left service.  The bubbles and blisters all over the plane cover radars, magnetic anomaly detectors and other sensor suites for communication with sonabuoys.  Middle is a Fairey Gannet which was used as an AEW platform and bomber.  The bottom is an English Electric Lightning.  The Lightning was an interceptor capable of flight above 70000 feet, but not a very good AEW platform due to endurance and loiter capability.  Considering the British fondness of shooting things from overwing hard-points (Jaguar), those overwing stores could have been fuel tanks or anything else.

 

The Ganet had bi-fold wings which was unique.  Two sets of hinges and actuators were required in order for it to fit in the British carriers of the day.

Handles Page 0-400 was pretty ugly.  Britain made up for it with the more attractive Vickers Vimy.

Was the Ganet designed to have three cockpits or was it an modification? It looks weird with 3 cockpits, why not one single longer. And why 3 crew, 
An modification to an plane will often make it ugly like the radar plane. 

Over wing hardpoints is also rare for good reasons. Think my idea that it was an sensor pod caused some confusion. 
Note that rail launched missiles should work well from overhead hardpoints. 

[Jonfliesgoats]

Compared the HP 0/400, the Vimy was fine art.

The British did make some beautiful planes.  The Buccaneer, Tempest, Typhoon, Dragon Rapide and Empire Flying Boats were all gorgeous.

The Gamnet has multiple canopies to facilitate rapid ingress and egress of the crew.  This also allows people to be more comfortable and have more headroom without the mass and bulk of a generally larger fuselage.

The Tiger Moth and Chipmunk are two of. The best looking trainers out there.

[YNM]

British design eccentricity

[benzman]

3 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

The Tiger Moth and Chipmunk are two of. The best looking trainers out there.

Before any annoyed Canadians burst into print I had better point out that the DH Chipmunk was a Canadian design.  Very pretty, though.

 

[CSE]

14 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Over wing hardpoints is also rare for good reasons.

I think it's actually not a bad location for fuel or air-to-air weapons, because the wing is already quite strong here and the additional weight of the external hardware is directly over the undercarriage when on the ground. I assume it makes the ground crew's work a bit harder, but other than that it's a good choice for a fighter/interceptor.

Obviously, you really do want your air-to-ground weapons mounted on the ground-facing side of the aircraft, so modern fighters, which have the fighter-bomber/strike role as a significant part of their capabilities, will indeed have their hardpoints under the wings or fuselage.

[Jonfliesgoats]

There are some implicit problems with overwing hardpoints which make them sort of a design feature of last resort.  The ability to jettison stores in an emergency becomes a little more difficult.  That said, the Brits did make them work.  The overwing hardpoints kept their existing platforms competitive rather than forcing them to invest in smaller numbers of newer fighters.

Odd designs features are frequently borne out of necessity or bamdaids to deficiencies found in the field.

Yes, the Tigermoth was a Canadian design.  

[YNM]

I suppose overwing hardpoints would have inherent problem thanks to the airflow ? I mean, airflow is deflected "down" over the wing area (yes less pressure or pure deflection or anything but it appears so), wouldn't releasing anything over it cause bad problems ?

Suppose those that exists are thanks to some sort of deficiency or such.

[Steel]

There's also a more fundamental aerodynamic reason for putting tanks below rather than on top of wings. The top surface creates around 3/4 of the lift for the whole wing (depending on wing design) so putting obstructions there reduces the wing's efficiency much more than putting them on the bottom (this is why most airliners have engines, sensor tubes e.t.c on the bottom of the wing and leave the top as clear as possible)

Edited December 23, 2016 by Steel

[magnemoe]

8 minutes ago, Steel said:

There's also a more fundamental aerodynamic reason for putting tanks below rather than on top of wings. The top surface creates around 3/4 of the lift for the whole wing (depending on wing design) so putting obstructions there reduces the wing's efficiency much more than putting them on the bottom (this is why most airliners have engines, sensor tubes e.t.c on the bottom of the wing and leave the top as clear as possible)

Yes, top hardpoints was an workaround as they needed more of them. its not much room under the wings on the plane. 

[Jonfliesgoats]

Great question, YNM!! 

The airflow in the area immediately behind a wing is deflected downward, usually (there are some important exceptions to this.).  This is important for tailplane efficacy.  As angle of attack increases prior to stall, downwash aft of the wing increases a little more.  This means AOA changes a little more for the wing than it does for a horizontal stabilizer.  With Mach tuck, stalls due to aoa or contamination of the wing, you can see upward motion of air aft of the wing and associated nose down pitching.  One of the advantages of T-tail design is they experience less (but still some) of these downwash effects.  Aerodynamics  is pretty cool like that.  

In the space immediately above a wing, there are a number of variables that affect the precise direction and velocity of air.  It also depends exactly where you measure these things.  The shape of the wing and nearby structure, angle of attack, airspeed and altitude all play roles.  In either case, while an airplane is flying most of the time, most of the air above a wing is seeing laminar, non-turbulent airflow.  This means overwing hard points can be designed to be aerodynamically "happy" in most but not all flight regimes.

Mounting things on wings does cause some aerodynamic interference which has penalties, however.  Usually this leads to losses in performance.  There are a lot of factors that determine airplane and wing efficiency, but this is one of the manifold reasons four engine jets are slowly going away as larger engines can be mounted on Twin jets certified for ETOPS.  Even in this case, however, there are significant exceptions.  Sometimes things on wings help.  Stall fences, vortex generators, etc. all help with high AOA, maneuvers at altitude (low speed Mach buffet) or transsonic effects near and above Mmo.

 This is why I reserve my comments to jettison concerns.  I don't know enough about that airframe with that load.  There are some very interesting considerations to ponder, however.

 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2016 by Jonfliesgoats

[Jonfliesgoats]

https://warisboring.com/the-supermarine-nighthawk-was-a-bizarre-zeppelin-hunting-flop-1753500089e1#.9lhe8u33w

[YNM]

@Jonfliesgoats and anyone else : I was talking about once the payload is dropped, not when they're carried... Yes I know ejections, rockets and alike, but it all sounds much, much more dangerous to me ?

[Vanamonde]

I always thought these things were half dorky/half cool. 

[Steel]

18 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

I always thought these things were half dorky/half cool. 

Aw man the Buccaneer is awesome!

[mrfox]

On 12/22/2016 at 10:09 AM, benzman said:

.  Some British aircraft were quite pretty.  ... Supermarine Swift,

 

While the supermarine swift might've look alright - it was one of the worst flying production airplanes in history. The design was rushed into production without proper testing. Unfortuantely, the aerodynamic center was miscalculated. Which meant the airplane had a tendency to flip end over end when turning - a situation surely familiar to KSP players.

It was most definiatly an exception to the rule that "if it looks right - it will fly right".

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Yes, top hardpoints was an workaround as they needed more of them. its not much room under the wings on the plane. 

To elaborate - its because the whole underside of the wing was taken up by the retracted landing gear.

Edited December 23, 2016 by mrfox

[benzman]

55 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

I always thought these things were half dorky/half cool. 

The Buccaneer was designed to the Area Rule, which could give anti-instinctive shapes.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/aerodynamics/q0104.shtml

 

[Jonfliesgoats]

The Buccanneer is sort of beautiful in its own way.