F.A.Q Section Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both. Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos? A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :) Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators? A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.
I'd very much like to see a video about the gypsy moth, I've loved it since building a model of one in the '70s, just never learned anything about it's history or development.
This has always been one of my interwar favourites since playing WoWP, where it features prominently. Would love to build a model kit of it and maybe do a What-If? Scheme for it. I can see these taking the historical place of the Gloster Gladiator in places like Finland, the Middle East or China
I was just saying in another comment above that I wished someone did a model of this aircraft to do what-if markings of it in the service of the SAAF or RAF Colonial markings, Singapore, or what have you. ;)
@@benhooper1956 I know, right?! Lately I've gotten to know a few people that run 3D printing businesses including one stateside, one in Greece & another in Hungary. The Hungarian fellow does do full kits but his prices make my wallet weep. lol I only have one of his kits & I got it at 1/10th retail price on eBay. If I could afford to run an injection modeling company I think I'd first want to make a high quality B-32 injection molded model kit though. It's the only US Strategic/Heavy Bomber that saw combat service that has never appeared as an injection molded kit. It also holds the ignominious record as having been the last US aircraft shot down by the Japanese.
@@米空軍パイロット That design has a great pair of advantages for naval designs. Short robust landing gear combined with room for a larger propeller. I am honestly surprised that more people did not use it. With single engine naval fighters/interceptors at least. I get that the main disadvantage is visibility during landing. Still the advantages are so big for machines of the time, I am surprised by how few designs even attempted it.
@@米空軍パイロット It is always going to push the nose up compared to having no anhedral there. How much of a downside that is (pun very much intended) , that is dependent on other aspects of the design. The long nose of the Corsair simply exacerbated it. At least when talking taildraggers.
It was a very beautiful aircraft at a time when biplanes were the norm. A very lost chance due to only one air frame being made. You should always have a back up. The air frame is very reminiscent of a Corsair with its gull wings, but it fuselage shows hints of Seversky /Republic models
The similarity was there because of all of the same thinking that was going on at that time, raindrop format to lessen drag resulting in the familiar fuselage format with a radial engine and also with the wings where it was recognised that a right angle join to the fuselage gave the least drag. Both of these were challenged with the development of effective and efficient wing filleting at the fuselage intersection and the use of inline engines which naturally encouraged the arrow type of fuselage.
Beautiful? What ? It is one of the most ugly aeroplanes the British designed (they had a knack for designing ugly aircraft yet produced some of the nicest, like the Spitfire and the Lancaster, and some others of note).
@@garyhooper1820 They were actually trying very hard to find alternatives capable of supplying similar power:weight ratios in order to diversify supply & in case serious faults became known (some of the early Merlins had issues with cylinder blocks cracking & porous head castings). The Merlin was just so bloody good it was hard to beat
I really love your videos on the (mostly unknown) aircraft of the Interwar period! 👍👏 You are a real strong (subsonic?!) wind of fresh air to the Aviation video scholarship. I am a little bored on the interminable rehashing on the more famous WW2 airplanes ... 😴
Rex, check the specs again at 9:05, the metric equivalent of the length and wingspan are mixed up with the imperial measurements. Very interesting story.
Inverted gull wing aircraft look so attractive to me even if this planform is not particularly aerodynamically advantageous. If for no other reason, thank you for this discourse on a poorly known, potential Battle of Britain fighter. From your detailed coverage of the plane and its teething problems, I rather think that the crash of the single prototype due to a really pretty basic pilot error was a blessing. Had there been competition from the Bristol plane there might have been less Hurricanes produced. The Spitfire might well have still been developed and ordered in numbers, but IMO the Bristol would have been even less competent than the Hurricane against the ME109. As we know, the Hurricane bore the brunt of the battle in the early part of the Battle of Britain.
Another aircraft I never heard of! Great video! Have you covered the Swedish stop gap fighter J22 of WW2? There's a restoration project ongoing in Sweden right now, where they are trying to get one back flying. The aircraft was a real hotrod, down low. They claimed it was the fastest aircraft with a 1000 hp engine in the world. Unfortunately, not everyone else was restricted to a 1000 hp engine in October 1943 when it entered service... Still, a very impressive stop gap fighter.
Understandable forgetting the undercart was down at that time period. Many pilots trained on the Tutor and Gladiator forgot to 'Lower' their wheels while flying their new Hurris and Spits.
The one that really intrigues me is the Blackburn B.20, which seemed to be a really good solution to lots of problems with flying boats or floatplanes. Imagine a 300mph flying boat bomber. It was scuppered (word fully intended) by using Vulture engines.
As usual, Air Ministry involvement proved damaging. Those companies that managed to privately develop projects without government involvement fared better.
OK, you're right, I hadn't heard of it, but that's why I watch your (excellent) channel. A serious leap forward in design and concept which could have changed the whole RAF paradigm, but had to sit back and watch Hawker's Hurricane do that instead. Bristol just didn't get the breaks, did they?
"Extended the rudder after initial trials showed a lack of directional control" seems to be a recurring theme with these interwar aircraft. Was this due to some basic principle that wasn't yet understood or was it just an attempt to make a drag-inducing element as small as possible and incrementally expand it to what was determined to be the minimum viable size?
Hard to say, my guess is the increased weight in the front end with heavier engines, more guns, and metal is what required more surface area to push the tail left or right.
It would be amusing if there is one aircraft somewhere in the period that looked at how everyone had to make the tails bigger every time, and decided to go with a tail that ended up being too big.
If you want massive range, one way to do it is through the use of a 'wet' fin, or building internal conforming fuel tanks between the cockpit and rudder if possible.
Both used the same Bristol Mercury engine which does give some similarity in appearance. The Jastrzab had a significantly shorter wingspan and length than the F5/34 but very similar weight. With higher wing loading, half the armament, lower maximum speed, and substantially lower maximum ceiling the Jastrzab clearly needed more development. PZL had, by 1939, already started design work on the PZL53 Jasztrzab II with an engine with 30% greater power and adding 2x20mm cannons.
This prototype was 18mph than the prototype that became the gladiator with the same engine. I can imagine with the uprated mercury that was used in the production version of the gladiator it could have topped 280mph with a supieror climb and dive rate. Thus of 150-200 of these were ordered instead of the gladiator the early stages of the desert campaign and the defence of malta would have been rather more successful/less costly. It would also have got the RAF ground crew familiar with repair and maintenance of stressed metal airframes a good three years before the arrival of the spitfire.
It does look a lot like the American Seversky P-35, and that spawned a whole series of successful radial engine fighters, so that is interesting to think about what could have been if the 133 had survived.
i really appreciate your content. i was wondering if you might do a review of the Northrop model 3A? ive always been fascinated with this aircraft in that there's no longer any example in existent. typical stubby fighter of the time in development during WW2. thak you regards Brian
Great job! I am surprised again ;-) This is not easy considering that I am flying since 1986, and started to be interested in aviation at least 10 yeas earlier . Your way of presenting , speech , fun and comments are exceptional. Please keep up your great work. All the beast! W.R.
The XB-70 was already cancelled by the time it had its crash. The concept had been undermined by the emergence of surface-to-air missiles. The two prototypes were relegated to experiment duty for several years
@@pavarottiaardvark3431 Yeah, the only reason it was flying at all at the time of the crash was that NASA got its grounding postponed so they could use it as a high-speed test aircraft for the SST and other projects. If not for that, it would have already been grounded for a couple of years.
@@MM22966 Used as a testbed for high-flight-speed experiments, run jointly with NASA. Even if a plane isn't going into production it'd be silly to waste a Mach 3 airframe. On the day of the crash it was actually doing some publicity filming for General Electric, who wanted footage of it flying beside their other planes.
This aircraft would have most certainly been obsolete once the Hurricane started flying. Any fighter saddled with a British radial engine would be, given how under-powered British radials were at the time. Perhaps with an inline engine it might have amounted to something, similar to the evolution of the unspectacular Hawk 75 into the ubiquitous Warhawk series.
Who knows, a radial-engined monoplane fighter in service may have pushed for earlier introduction of a Hercules or even the Centaurus. Or perhaps not, considering the relative difficulties with sleeve-valve designs at the time, a more traditional poppet valve variant.
@@whtalt92 What's really interesting to me is that, even after the Hercules engine became successful, Britain didn't build a radial-engine monoplane fighter until the Tempest II in late 1944. The Hercules was powerful enough to be used as a fighter engine (going from 1,290 HP in the Mk. I to 1,650 HP in the Mk.VI) but, it was mostly used in multi-engine aircraft. An earlier introduction of the Hercules wouldn't have changed anything; the Air Ministry had already made up their minds about radial-engine fighters and wouldn't be dissuaded of their view until the arrival of the truly outstanding Centaurus much later.
Retractable undercarriage was a new thing. The pilots of the time just weren’t used to it. The pilot who wrote the plane off was not the guy who’d done most of the flight testing.
Mr. Rex's Hangar, have you treated what could have been the WW2 Italian "Stuka" made by Piaggio ? I believe it's the Piaggio P119. Let us know. Thanks !
One look at this lovely design & the air service clearly would have had the potential of a great carrier based airframe ahead of time. Sheesh… Oh to be able to go back in a Time Machine to the 1930’s and have a few quiet words in the right ears to: 1: Build several test airframes. 2: Make sure test pilots remember to retract undercarriage after takeoff 3: develop an automated system for said undercarriage!!! This aircraft clearly was by implication a decade ahead of its time.
I have noticed that many aircraft that failed not because of the basic design or concept of the aircraft but the failure of the power plants. I would be interested in the reason or reasons for so many power plants not reaching their expected specs. Was it the metallurgy, engineering knowledge or capability or other factors that were involved.
The most important advantage is, it keeps the undercarriage short, lightweight and sturdy. It improves the vision from the cockpit, forward down over the wing leading edge. It gets the wing guns further down, making access to them a bit easier. It gets the center of gravity lower than a straight wing, which improves roll stability. It increases the vertical distance between the wing and the elevator, improving elevator efficiency (if the fuselage doesn't disturb the airflow back there anyway). When the undercarriage fails, the wings act as skids, reducing the change of the engine to hit the ground in a belly landing and slightly reducing the change of the aircraft from flipping over in a belly landung. The major downside is the way more complex, more expensive, heavier, harder to repair, wing spar design. Other downsides are more complex aileron and flap actuator mechanisms. A possible downside is, there can be aerodynamic interferences on the top side of the wing kink, messing up handling characteristics or even performance. If that happens, it's hard to get it right without starting from scratch. The aerodynamic stability of an aircraft with inverted gull wing is a bit harder to calculate, especially when you have to do it with pencil and paper.
@@Itsjustme-Justme "It gets the center of gravity lower than a straight wing, which improves roll stability. " I'm trying to understand why that would be true but I'm having trouble. First of all, lowers the CG with reference to what? Maybe with reference to the fuselage waterline, but with reference to the wing is raises the CG. Either way it more importantly changes the location of the wing with reference to the fuselage, placing it further below the CG. This has the effect of adding negative dihedral angle to the wing, reducing lateral stability. One can see a noticeably large positive dihedral angle in the outer wing panels of the F4U corsair to compensate for this effect.
I reckon the gull wing design would have soon disappeared from successive models (with stronger undercarriage strut design) and essentially became sea fury like in the same manner the P-35 became the Thunderbolt. The F4U never really needed its fancy wing after 1940, it was just Chance Voughts own stubborn fetish. Willy Messerschmitt with his gawdy undercarriage et all.
Had a crap, more to the point. It was ugly and yes, I know, it was to be a warplane and didn't have to be beautiful but this thing didn't come close to anything much above "ugly". Surely the British could have done better.
Seems stupid not to equip the plane with some kind of reminder of the position of the undercarriage. This incident seems so familiar . Losing your only prototype over such a silly mistake is so disappointing.
The semi-flush landing gear is similar to the p-35's. Also, lesson learned: if there's any promising British designs that never made it passed eyes of RAF *and* RAE, *BLAME THE RAF AND RAE FOR THEIR CHILD-LIKE SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS*
As a 'What could have been' aircraft, it is interesting to note the similarities it has with the Seversky P 35, & then consider how this aircraft evolved through the P 43 Lancer and into the P 47 Thunderbolt! Imagine a similar genesis occuring with the Bristol 133! A bubble canopy, cranked wings, and Centaurus 18cylinder engine! Model scratchbuilders. Your challenge awaits!
Enlarge the rudder to get the spin characteristics right, put in a 800+ hp version of the Mercury engine and it will be at least on par with the first generation of Italian low wing fighters and superior to the very last generation of Polish high wing fighters and to the whole last generation of biplane fighters. Even if the RAF didn't want it, it could have been a successful export aircraft.
Wow, that Type 129 looks like something out of a "Smilin' Jack" comic strip. I wish we'd stop getting more kits of stupid Luft '46 stuff and weird, never happened German tanks and get some kits of stuff like this!
Air Ministry told all the AC manufacturers, "you can use any engine you please, as long as it's made by Rolls-Royce". Another clever British design sandbagged by dependence on the Government darling, RR.
Its a myth that they specified only the Goshawk. Quite the reverse, Dowding, who was in charge of the committee to draw up F7/30, wanted a radial engine specified, to boost the developments of Bristol and Armstrong Siddeley. But it was decided that they couldn't be partisan so the specification just says "A British engine of the latest type" - But because Rolls-Royce was so successful they could afford to loan Goshawk engines at virtually no cost to anyone who wanted them to build their prototypes. That's why most companies used it.
Just think though: Had the RAF went for all these "early" aircraft then it could well have ended up where the Regia Aeronautica was by 1941. *But* it must be said, the RAF in 1945 was not the RAF of 1938-9 e.g. just look at the Tempest.
@@Mishn0 no gull has a wing that leaves its body and goes downwards before going upwards. They have wings that go up wards from the body before going downwards. Hence this aircraft has an inverted gull wing. If you want a gull wing aircraft then I'd recommend the PZL P.11 fighter of the Polish Air Force that served valiantly against the German aggression of September 1939.
@@WALTERBROADDUS not so. All aircraft wing designs are named so that people can compare then. You would samd that an aircraft with anhedral wing is one with dihedral would you? There are many examples of gull wing aircraft out there, such as the PZL P.11 and the Martin PBM Mariner, but this isn't one of them.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 Taking an object and turning it upside down does not make it a different object. Just an object that is upside down. An inverted gull wing is a gull wing still, just inverted. Your saying that calling it a gull wing is wrong, is an incorrect statement. It is still a gull wing.
I see this aircraft as a lost opportunity for Britain. 133 with Mercury VIII could reach 450 km/h, with its advanced design it would be enough to be considered a very modern aircraft in 1938, during the Munich crisis! This way the RAF would not be considered inferior and history could be much better for Britain, without appeasement policy.
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F.A.Q Section
Q: Do you take aircraft requests?
A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:)
Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others?
A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both.
Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos?
A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :)
Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators?
A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.
When i see anything with "Rex's hangar " really
Could you do a video on the mug 15?
My friend you are the best........Thanks 👍
Shoe🇺🇸
I'd very much like to see a video about the gypsy moth, I've loved it since building a model of one in the '70s, just never learned anything about it's history or development.
@Aqua Fyre Its on the list :)
Bristol really was the master of missed opportunities, wild designs and incredible 'what-ifs'!
The Beaufighter was the Axis' multiple-missed-opportunities to score.
Well done Rex - another almost completely unrecognised or covered aircraft.
This was definatelly a lost opportunity that makes you wonder about what the RAF would have looked like in 1939.
plus the RN would have been made to adopt it too
@@Knight6831 Hmmm .... That is a reach.
@@WALTERBROADDUS Jesus you get everywhere dont you😮
@@hughgordon6435 It's a Small World after all...🌎🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶
@@WALTERBROADDUS why
This has always been one of my interwar favourites since playing WoWP, where it features prominently. Would love to build a model kit of it and maybe do a What-If? Scheme for it. I can see these taking the historical place of the Gloster Gladiator in places like Finland, the Middle East or China
Ah, one of the other five people who played WoWP! I loved flying this little thing.
@@OnboardG1 Once I realised it featured the Vickers Venom I went crazy
I was just saying in another comment above that I wished someone did a model of this aircraft to do what-if markings of it in the service of the SAAF or RAF Colonial markings, Singapore, or what have you. ;)
@@athelwulfgalland If I had the money to run a kit manufacturer, it would so be happening
@@benhooper1956 I know, right?! Lately I've gotten to know a few people that run 3D printing businesses including one stateside, one in Greece & another in Hungary. The Hungarian fellow does do full kits but his prices make my wallet weep. lol I only have one of his kits & I got it at 1/10th retail price on eBay.
If I could afford to run an injection modeling company I think I'd first want to make a high quality B-32 injection molded model kit though. It's the only US Strategic/Heavy Bomber that saw combat service that has never appeared as an injection molded kit. It also holds the ignominious record as having been the last US aircraft shot down by the Japanese.
I have to give that aircraft my highest award..."The I want to fly it" rating... it just look like it would be an awesome plane to fly.
Looks like a cross between a Zero and Corsair ! :D
I'd say more like a cross between a P-36 and a Corsair.
Reminds me of the interwar designs of Jiro Horikoshi (designer of the Zero). He also liked inverted gull wings.
@@米空軍パイロット That design has a great pair of advantages for naval designs. Short robust landing gear combined with room for a larger propeller. I am honestly surprised that more people did not use it. With single engine naval fighters/interceptors at least. I get that the main disadvantage is visibility during landing. Still the advantages are so big for machines of the time, I am surprised by how few designs even attempted it.
@@whyjnot420 Vis is only a result of the Corsairs long nose. Has nothing to do with the wing and gear arrangement.
@@米空軍パイロット It is always going to push the nose up compared to having no anhedral there. How much of a downside that is (pun very much intended) , that is dependent on other aspects of the design. The long nose of the Corsair simply exacerbated it. At least when talking taildraggers.
Huh, i did know ABOUT this plane, but i hadn't realised how ridiculously unfortunate it was in being written off.
Some of my favourite subjects all together.
It was a very beautiful aircraft at a time when biplanes were the norm. A very lost chance due to only one air frame being made. You should always have a back up. The air frame is very reminiscent of a Corsair with its gull wings, but it fuselage shows hints of Seversky /Republic models
The similarity was there because of all of the same thinking that was going on at that time, raindrop format to lessen drag resulting in the familiar fuselage format with a radial engine and also with the wings where it was recognised that a right angle join to the fuselage gave the least drag. Both of these were challenged with the development of effective and efficient wing filleting at the fuselage intersection and the use of inline engines which naturally encouraged the arrow type of fuselage.
Beautiful? What ? It is one of the most ugly aeroplanes the British designed (they had a knack for designing ugly aircraft yet produced some of the nicest, like the Spitfire and the Lancaster, and some others of note).
Another cracking video,Mr Rexy👍👍👍
Never heard of it. Thanks
The RR Goshawk killed off more fighter designs in the early '30s than pretty much anything else.
Did air ministry people have stock in Rolls Royce ? They wanted Rolls to power nearly everything .
@@garyhooper1820 They were actually trying very hard to find alternatives capable of supplying similar power:weight ratios in order to diversify supply & in case serious faults became known (some of the early Merlins had issues with cylinder blocks cracking & porous head castings).
The Merlin was just so bloody good it was hard to beat
That smiley face on the Bristol 123!
I think a deep dive into the Hawker Hurricane is in order.
She doesn't get enough love.
Welcome back. Thank you for the great video and hope you enjoyed your break.
I really love your videos on the (mostly unknown) aircraft of the Interwar period!
👍👏
You are a real strong (subsonic?!) wind of fresh air to the Aviation video scholarship.
I am a little bored on the interminable rehashing on the more famous WW2 airplanes ... 😴
Awesome presentation Sir. Thank you Rex
Love these interwar planes, Golden Age. Anything was on the table.
Really fascinating, as are all
Your videos, thanks for all the hard work
What I’m learning is that you should just start with a large rudder.
They always try to skimp on the rudder. 🤷♂️
Look at those Bristols!
Thanks, Rex.
Rex, check the specs again at 9:05, the metric equivalent of the length and wingspan are mixed up with the imperial measurements.
Very interesting story.
Inverted gull wing aircraft look so attractive to me even if this planform is not particularly aerodynamically advantageous. If for no other reason, thank you for this discourse on a poorly known, potential Battle of Britain fighter. From your detailed coverage of the plane and its teething problems, I rather think that the crash of the single prototype due to a really pretty basic pilot error was a blessing. Had there been competition from the Bristol plane there might have been less Hurricanes produced. The Spitfire might well have still been developed and ordered in numbers, but IMO the Bristol would have been even less competent than the Hurricane against the ME109. As we know, the Hurricane bore the brunt of the battle in the early part of the Battle of Britain.
Great video!
Neato. Thanks for posting this.
Thank you for another very informative plane that I did not know about. Well done! Looking forward to your video on the Fiat CR 42.
Another aircraft I never heard of! Great video!
Have you covered the Swedish stop gap fighter J22 of WW2? There's a restoration project ongoing in Sweden right now, where they are trying to get one back flying. The aircraft was a real hotrod, down low. They claimed it was the fastest aircraft with a 1000 hp engine in the world. Unfortunately, not everyone else was restricted to a 1000 hp engine in October 1943 when it entered service... Still, a very impressive stop gap fighter.
Fascinating! You give ed nash a run for his money!!
Understandable forgetting the undercart was down at that time period. Many pilots trained on the Tutor and Gladiator forgot to 'Lower' their wheels while flying their new Hurris and Spits.
Love your work
That 129 was fantastic.
The one that really intrigues me is the Blackburn B.20, which seemed to be a really good solution to lots of problems with flying boats or floatplanes. Imagine a 300mph flying boat bomber. It was scuppered (word fully intended) by using Vulture engines.
The Vulture was aptly named. It picked the bones clean of aircraft that got saddled with it.
The lovechild of a Seversky P-35 and an F4U Corsair!
As usual, Air Ministry involvement proved damaging. Those companies that managed to privately develop projects without government involvement fared better.
OK, you're right, I hadn't heard of it, but that's why I watch your (excellent) channel. A serious leap forward in design and concept which could have changed the whole RAF paradigm, but had to sit back and watch Hawker's Hurricane do that instead. Bristol just didn't get the breaks, did they?
Good luck with the house hunting! 👍
Looking forward to your hawker history part 2, and hoping it covered the Hart and its variation.
"Extended the rudder after initial trials showed a lack of directional control" seems to be a recurring theme with these interwar aircraft. Was this due to some basic principle that wasn't yet understood or was it just an attempt to make a drag-inducing element as small as possible and incrementally expand it to what was determined to be the minimum viable size?
Hard to say, my guess is the increased weight in the front end with heavier engines, more guns, and metal is what required more surface area to push the tail left or right.
It would be amusing if there is one aircraft somewhere in the period that looked at how everyone had to make the tails bigger every time, and decided to go with a tail that ended up being too big.
"A British Corsair"? A closer comparison might be as "a British Seversky P-35".
Thanks
Interesting video
The side view at 8:42 conjured up the early P-47 Thunderbolt for a brief moment.
If you want massive range, one way to do it is through the use of a 'wet' fin, or building internal conforming fuel tanks between the cockpit and rudder if possible.
0:45 This Gloster G.38 F.5/34 metal monoplane looks very similar to the PZL P.50 "Jastrząb" (pol. Hawk). She has also similar armament and performance
Both used the same Bristol Mercury engine which does give some similarity in appearance. The Jastrzab had a significantly shorter wingspan and length than the F5/34 but very similar weight. With higher wing loading, half the armament, lower maximum speed, and substantially lower maximum ceiling the Jastrzab clearly needed more development. PZL had, by 1939, already started design work on the PZL53 Jasztrzab II with an engine with 30% greater power and adding 2x20mm cannons.
Dora Wings. Your next idea for a kit.
Ah that was absolutely fantastic. 1934...
This prototype was 18mph than the prototype that became the gladiator with the same engine. I can imagine with the uprated mercury that was used in the production version of the gladiator it could have topped 280mph with a supieror climb and dive rate. Thus of 150-200 of these were ordered instead of the gladiator the early stages of the desert campaign and the defence of malta would have been rather more successful/less costly. It would also have got the RAF ground crew familiar with repair and maintenance of stressed metal airframes a good three years before the arrival of the spitfire.
Neat!🐿
The _Type 129_ might not have performed well as a fighter, but IMO it looked _COOL._
My favourite ride in World of Warplanes
It does look a lot like the American Seversky P-35, and that spawned a whole series of successful radial engine fighters, so that is interesting to think about what could have been if the 133 had survived.
i really appreciate your content. i was wondering if you might do a review of the Northrop model 3A? ive always been fascinated with this aircraft in that there's no longer any example in existent. typical stubby fighter of the time in development during WW2. thak you
regards Brian
The follow up, the Type 146, was much sleeker, with an 'almost bubble canopy'. It too had no chance to enter production.
Great job! I am surprised again ;-) This is not easy considering that I am flying since 1986, and started to be interested in aviation at least 10 yeas earlier . Your way of presenting , speech , fun and comments are exceptional. Please keep up your great work. All the beast! W.R.
I wonder if anybody's got a list of all the aircraft programs that went t$ts up because of a prototype crash. XB-70, this thing, etc.
The XB-70 was already cancelled by the time it had its crash. The concept had been undermined by the emergence of surface-to-air missiles. The two prototypes were relegated to experiment duty for several years
@@pavarottiaardvark3431 Yeah, the only reason it was flying at all at the time of the crash was that NASA got its grounding postponed so they could use it as a high-speed test aircraft for the SST and other projects. If not for that, it would have already been grounded for a couple of years.
@@pavarottiaardvark3431 Ah? Didn't know. Thanks! (But why was it flying, then?)
@@MM22966 Used as a testbed for high-flight-speed experiments, run jointly with NASA. Even if a plane isn't going into production it'd be silly to waste a Mach 3 airframe.
On the day of the crash it was actually doing some publicity filming for General Electric, who wanted footage of it flying beside their other planes.
@@pavarottiaardvark3431 Neat! Thanks!
It reminds me of the P-47A
That Gloster aeroplane looks a bit like the Gloster Whittle.
This aircraft would have most certainly been obsolete once the Hurricane started flying. Any fighter saddled with a British radial engine would be, given how under-powered British radials were at the time. Perhaps with an inline engine it might have amounted to something, similar to the evolution of the unspectacular Hawk 75 into the ubiquitous Warhawk series.
Who knows, a radial-engined monoplane fighter in service may have pushed for earlier introduction of a Hercules or even the Centaurus.
Or perhaps not, considering the relative difficulties with sleeve-valve designs at the time, a more traditional poppet valve variant.
@@whtalt92 What's really interesting to me is that, even after the Hercules engine became successful, Britain didn't build a radial-engine monoplane fighter until the Tempest II in late 1944. The Hercules was powerful enough to be used as a fighter engine (going from 1,290 HP in the Mk. I to 1,650 HP in the Mk.VI) but, it was mostly used in multi-engine aircraft. An earlier introduction of the Hercules wouldn't have changed anything; the Air Ministry had already made up their minds about radial-engine fighters and wouldn't be dissuaded of their view until the arrival of the truly outstanding Centaurus much later.
I get shit happens, but as a test pilot how do you just "forget" your landing gear is down, or forget to raise it on the first place.
Retractable undercarriage was a new thing. The pilots of the time just weren’t used to it. The pilot who wrote the plane off was not the guy who’d done most of the flight testing.
Mr. Rex's Hangar,
have you treated what could have been the WW2 Italian "Stuka" made by Piaggio ?
I believe it's the Piaggio P119.
Let us know. Thanks !
Please do one on the he 100, bf 109, f4f
One look at this lovely design & the air service clearly would have had the potential of a great carrier based airframe ahead of time.
Sheesh…
Oh to be able to go back in a Time Machine to the 1930’s and have a few quiet words in the right ears to:
1: Build several test airframes.
2: Make sure test pilots remember to retract undercarriage after takeoff
3: develop an automated system for said undercarriage!!!
This aircraft clearly was by implication a decade ahead of its time.
I have noticed that many aircraft that failed not because of the basic design or concept of the aircraft but the failure of the power plants. I would be interested in the reason or reasons for so many power plants not reaching their expected specs. Was it the metallurgy, engineering knowledge or capability or other factors that were involved.
Okay then Now I know where the Pitts came from, the Bristol 123 actually looks like a what if the Pitts was made back in the 30s.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of the inverted gull-wings?
The most important advantage is, it keeps the undercarriage short, lightweight and sturdy. It improves the vision from the cockpit, forward down over the wing leading edge. It gets the wing guns further down, making access to them a bit easier. It gets the center of gravity lower than a straight wing, which improves roll stability. It increases the vertical distance between the wing and the elevator, improving elevator efficiency (if the fuselage doesn't disturb the airflow back there anyway). When the undercarriage fails, the wings act as skids, reducing the change of the engine to hit the ground in a belly landing and slightly reducing the change of the aircraft from flipping over in a belly landung.
The major downside is the way more complex, more expensive, heavier, harder to repair, wing spar design. Other downsides are more complex aileron and flap actuator mechanisms. A possible downside is, there can be aerodynamic interferences on the top side of the wing kink, messing up handling characteristics or even performance. If that happens, it's hard to get it right without starting from scratch. The aerodynamic stability of an aircraft with inverted gull wing is a bit harder to calculate, especially when you have to do it with pencil and paper.
@@Itsjustme-Justme
Wow.
Thank you.
You know your stuff.
INTERFERENCE DRAG REDUCTION. SEE GREGS AIRPLANES.
@@donaldbowen5423
Thanks.
@@Itsjustme-Justme "It gets the center of gravity lower than a straight wing, which improves roll stability. "
I'm trying to understand why that would be true but I'm having trouble.
First of all, lowers the CG with reference to what? Maybe with reference to the fuselage waterline, but with reference to the wing is raises the CG. Either way it more importantly changes the location of the wing with reference to the fuselage, placing it further below the CG. This has the effect of adding negative dihedral angle to the wing, reducing lateral stability. One can see a noticeably large positive dihedral angle in the outer wing panels of the F4U corsair to compensate for this effect.
And that were the days of I-16 production. How can GB be so down?
Underfunding.
Just imagine if they had built two airframes for the testing program.
A big "what if" is what a more powerful engine could have done for this plane.
Oh Britain...
Stability problems apparently from an undersized rudder, really. That is not a rudder, that is a bump in the rear fuselage.
I reckon the gull wing design would have soon disappeared from successive models (with stronger undercarriage strut design) and essentially became sea fury like in the same manner the P-35 became the Thunderbolt. The F4U never really needed its fancy wing after 1940, it was just Chance Voughts own stubborn fetish. Willy Messerschmitt with his gawdy undercarriage et all.
ERROR: at 9:20, the length and wingspan of the wings is wrong, either in Imperial units or in metric units
True, He's got the metric units the wrong way around - The Span should be 11.89 metres and the length 8.53 metres.
The 146?
Corsair and a Zero had a baby.
Had a crap, more to the point. It was ugly and yes, I know, it was to be a warplane and didn't have to be beautiful but this thing didn't come close to anything much above "ugly". Surely the British could have done better.
Some test pilot SKIMPING the Hasell checks 🙄
Interesting sidenote to British Aero development for all that
Seems stupid not to equip the plane with some kind of reminder of the position of the undercarriage. This incident seems so familiar . Losing your only prototype over such a silly mistake is so disappointing.
Pretty sure all the British Corsairs came from Vought. They worked out pretty well, too, aside from the accident rate.
Brewster-built Corsairs too (Mk.III), however due to the relatively poor quality they were not used in frontline service.
The semi-flush landing gear is similar to the p-35's. Also, lesson learned: if there's any promising British designs that never made it passed eyes of RAF *and* RAE, *BLAME THE RAF AND RAE FOR THEIR CHILD-LIKE SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS*
I never understood the British fascination with steam cooling.
Compare that one page requirements sheet to today's fighter requirements volumes.
In ways it kinda looks like the Breda Ba.27 Metallico but with Gull wings
As a 'What could have been' aircraft, it is interesting to note the similarities it has with the Seversky P 35, & then consider how this aircraft evolved through the P 43
Lancer and into the P 47 Thunderbolt!
Imagine a similar genesis occuring with the Bristol 133! A bubble canopy, cranked wings, and Centaurus 18cylinder engine!
Model scratchbuilders. Your challenge awaits!
The only reason why I've heard of this plane before today is World of Warplanes.
looks like a lockheed aircraft
Imagine if they had fitted a Merlin II to it .....
Enlarge the rudder to get the spin characteristics right, put in a 800+ hp version of the Mercury engine and it will be at least on par with the first generation of Italian low wing fighters and superior to the very last generation of Polish high wing fighters and to the whole last generation of biplane fighters.
Even if the RAF didn't want it, it could have been a successful export aircraft.
Wow, that Type 129 looks like something out of a "Smilin' Jack" comic strip. I wish we'd stop getting more kits of stupid Luft '46 stuff and weird, never happened German tanks and get some kits of stuff like this!
Air Ministry told all the AC manufacturers, "you can use any engine you please, as long as it's made by Rolls-Royce". Another clever British design sandbagged by dependence on the Government darling, RR.
Its a myth that they specified only the Goshawk. Quite the reverse, Dowding, who was in charge of the committee to draw up F7/30, wanted a radial engine specified, to boost the developments of Bristol and Armstrong Siddeley. But it was decided that they couldn't be partisan so the specification just says "A British engine of the latest type" - But because Rolls-Royce was so successful they could afford to loan Goshawk engines at virtually no cost to anyone who wanted them to build their prototypes. That's why most companies used it.
And speaking of the Gohawk engine, 20 (twenty) were built. LOL. Fail on the entire idea.
Wekcome back 👍
Just think though: Had the RAF went for all these "early" aircraft then it could well have ended up where the Regia Aeronautica was by 1941.
*But* it must be said, the RAF in 1945 was not the RAF of 1938-9 e.g. just look at the Tempest.
That's not a gull wing but an inverted gull wing.
It's still a gull wing.
Accurate, but borderline nitpicking.
@@Mishn0 no gull has a wing that leaves its body and goes downwards before going upwards. They have wings that go up wards from the body before going downwards. Hence this aircraft has an inverted gull wing. If you want a gull wing aircraft then I'd recommend the PZL P.11 fighter of the Polish Air Force that served valiantly against the German aggression of September 1939.
@@WALTERBROADDUS not so. All aircraft wing designs are named so that people can compare then. You would samd that an aircraft with anhedral wing is one with dihedral would you? There are many examples of gull wing aircraft out there, such as the PZL P.11 and the Martin PBM Mariner, but this isn't one of them.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 Taking an object and turning it upside down does not make it a different object. Just an object that is upside down. An inverted gull wing is a gull wing still, just inverted. Your saying that calling it a gull wing is wrong, is an incorrect statement. It is still a gull wing.
Next war thunder premium
Lol not surprised to see something like this
5:30 I expected “… and after changes in his underwear….
I see this aircraft as a lost opportunity for Britain.
133 with Mercury VIII could reach 450 km/h, with its advanced design it would be enough to be considered a very modern aircraft in 1938, during the Munich crisis!
This way the RAF would not be considered inferior and history could be much better for Britain, without appeasement policy.
Its not a British Cosair it's a British Sea Ruffian
:)