Despite first flying over sixty years, the pugnacious MiG-21 remains in frontline service in the Indian Air Force. Fast, agile and brutally simple – the elderly Cold War fighter jet is still capable of biting complacent opponents, and even has some tricks up its sleeve that more sophisticated enemies cannot match. We spoke to Group Captain MJA Vinod (formerly of the Indian Air Force) about flying and fighting this lightweight Soviet ‘rocketship’. 

Which three words best describe the MiG-21?

When did Indian procure the MiG-21 and where were you trained?
“It was in 1961 when India went in for MiG 21s, I was trained here in India.”

What were your first impressions of the MiG-21?

“I did my training in the Kiran (an Indian version of the British Jet Provost) Mk I and Mk II, by the time I came to fly the MiG-21 at the MiG Operational Flying Training Unit (MOFTU) I had about 250 hours of jet flying experience. Even then, the first thing that hits you is its speed. The speed at which things happen. I remember an incident very vividly, one of my course-mates reached the top of a climb even before he had raised his undercarriage. Yeah! I was extremely lucky to fly MiG-21, especially a Type-77.”

What is the best thing about it?
“It’s a completely a manual aeroplane, with very simple systems. If one masters it, this aircraft can manoeuvre better than most modern aircraft, provided it is flown by someone who has mastered the aircraft.”

“I once flew a DACT mission against two MiG-29s, I didn’t engage them in a turning fight. I kept my fight vertical and got two kills.”

 And the worst thing?
Being a manual aircraft, safety needs to be observed as it is not ensured by inherent safety features and design features that of a modern aircraft. In a MiG-21, being an older generation aircraft, sometimes this thin line has been transgressed by a few good men inadvertently and I lost some of my friends. This is something that was corrected in the Midlife upgrade. MiG 21 Bison has good safety features.

How you rate the MiG-21 in the following categories?
A. Instantaneous turn
“The MiG-21’s instantaneous turn has very little meaning in combat. Being a swept-back delta, the lift/per deg of angle of attack that she produces is not nothing to write home about.”

B. Sustained turn
“Being a delta planform, the drag that she generates as the angle of attack increases is high, so its sustained turn rate (compared to any modern-day fighter) is not very high either. Despite this, she is able out manoeuvre modern fighters, how? That is an interesting question.”

C. High alpha
“Oh! The MiG-21 can reach very high alpha, much higher than any modern fighter. This is because modern-day fighters have systems that prevent the pilot from reaching vey high alpha — as they reach very high alpha a protection measures kicks in and limits them. I used this feature later in life to take the MiG-21 to a very low speeds and watched a Eurofighter typhoon shoot past me.”

D. Acceleration
“Indian MiG-21 has something called an emergency power reserve (EPR) aka second reheat. With EPR she accelerates much faster. I remember doing a DACT (dissimilar air combat training) with one other fighter (wouldn’t like to name it) and being a superior fighter, he was supposed to demonstrate his acceleration to me, little did he know that at the end of the acceleration run I matched him. Thanks to second reheat.”

E. Climb rate
“The MiG-21 is like a rocket with small wings to keep it in the air. It was designed to shoot down aeroplanes like the U-2 spy planes. Its dynamic thrust goes up to 9900 kgf, it can practically accelerate in a vertical climb. In matter of seconds it reaches its ‘business ‘altitude of business’.”

What was your most memorable mission? 
“This was 1995 and we were being inspected by an agency from headquarters, a potentially prestigious moment for any squadron to perform well and get good scores. I was still a Pilot Officer (A rank now retired by the IAF) and I was ground standby for one of the four aircraft strike plus two aircraft for the escort mission. Visibility was very poor, barely 2-3 kilometres. Being the most junior member I made the map for the entire formation, therefore I knew the route by heart. This was a mission to be flown at low level over the Thar Desert. The Commanding Officer was leading the mission with the Flight Commander being the deputy leader (the two senior-most Squadron leaders being the other two members). The escorts were MiG-29 from the adjacent base, but owing to the bad visibility they never turned up. The interceptors were pilots of the inspection agency. On the day of reckoning my CO took off and one of his undercarriages didn’t go up, however he still gathered the formation and put them on the first course. He then peeled off and asked me to slot in as number four. I got airborne and by then the formation was fifty kilometres from me. Since I made the map I exactly knew where the formation would be in terms of time. Remember that over desert, ground features are sparse and sometimes there are none. Be that as it may, I cut corners and managed to join up with the formation, navigating purely on time and direction. In 1995, there was no GPS or other navigation system to assist you, navigation was purely carried out using direction, speed, time and of course your Eye Ball Mk II (a jokey pilot term for human eyeballs).

You may also enjoy this interview with a HF.24 marut pilot. 

As soon as I joined up, two of the interceptors showed up — one behind my sub section leader and the other one trailing him. I shot both down (meaning took pictures of them through my gun camera) — and lo and behold lost sight of my other formation members who by then were reaching their waypoint from where they were getting into formation for weapon release. I went at very high speed and caught up with them, and dropped my weapon — which was on the pin. All this when I had very little experience on type. I was adjudged exceptional for that mission. Air Commodore of the inspection agency (later retired as an Air Marshal) came up on the podium and lauded my flying, situational awareness and mission accomplishment. There was a big party after that. Once of my colleague (whom I lost later in a crash, may his soul rest in peace) started calling me Douglas Bader after that. This was one of the most memorable missions that I flew. In time, later in life there were many. Yeah ! This really stand out as most exciting peacetime mission.”
Which aircraft have you flown DACT against and which was the most challenging?

“I have flown DACT against most aircraft of IAF’s inventory and against the Eurofighter Typhoon. I would say fighting a Typhoon was very challenging. It was October 2010, when Eurofigher Typhoons visited Kalaikunda Air Base as part of Exercise Indradhanush.

I was commanding a MiG-21 unit there, when Group Captain John Hitchcock Station Commander of RAF Coningsby, the team leader of the Indradhanush exercise was detailed to fly with me in MiG-21 trainer. My wingman was a young British pilot flying a Typhoon. It was a mission where the Typhoon was to going demonstrate its capability and we were supposed to observe.

Typhoon did everything it should – extremely well – like picking us up on its air-to-air radar and locking onto us and joining up with us using onboard avionics etc. All these were perfect until it came to low-speed manoeuvring. That is when, modern aircraft with all its safety systems onboard do not let you do things which only a manually flown fighter can do. In the low-speed regime Typhoon whizzed past in front of us like an arrow… and I wasn’t even manoeuvring.

That’s when he probably realised the true meaning of man-machine combo. We repeated this in straight and level flight — and in a turning fight where below a certain speed a modern fighter just slides ahead of a MiG-21… unless he turns away and comes back around to finish you off. For him to execute this he needs to have sufficient information and situational awareness. After landing, Group Captain John Hitchcock presented me with his first ever Typhoon badge and called me ‘A hell of a pilot’.”

How good were the sensors?
“The MiG-21 has many versions in the IAF, Type 74 (which I haven’t seen, as it went back to Russia when Type 77s were inducted) to MiG-21 Bison. The Type-77, when it was inducted, had a very potent air-to-air radar which for its time was very advanced. It had a Radar Warning Receiver (RWR), a datalink system (called Lazur), radio altimeter, a non-toppling Artificial Horizon called the ‘Agada’ etc. For its time, the older version of MiG-21 was state of the art — and an enigma for the Western world. That was until Operation Diamond happened and Munir Redfa defected with an Iraqi MiG-21 to Israel.
The same is the case with the modern MiG-21 Bison, it has a state-of-the-art radar, beyond visual range missiles and a great navigation system etc. This was the very type of aircraft that Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman flew and brought a Pakistan’s F-16 down.”
How easy is to fly? What is the hardest thing about flying it?
“I wouldn’t say it is easy to fly a MiG-21, it takes a while to master this aircraft. Most pilots will tell you this, the hardest thing is landing a MiG-21. It has the highest landing speed in the world, at high altitude airfields she can clock a landing ground speed of 450km/h. For some of the training aircraft it is beyond the Velocity Never Exceed (VNE). The MiG-21’s airspeed indicator starts at 200km/h, Russians didn’t find the need to show you speeds less than 200km/h. Imagine that.”

Is the cockpit tiny?

“Yes, it is a snug fit, therefore there are stringent anthropometric requirement to fly this aircraft. Tall pilots, especially ones with long legs or torsos, cannot fly this aircraft. Long legged pilots would not have the requisite clearance required to eject, lest you hurt your leg in the process. Long torso pilots cannot sit in the aircraft and close the canopy.”
How would you rate the cockpit?
“Ease of access, over the shoulder visibility, feeling of you strapping an aircraft to yourself because of the snug fit of the cockpit; I personally would rate the cockpit very high. The comfort level in the cockpit of a MiG 21 is very high. Some critical switches can be reached without even taking your hands off the throttle and stick, this was designed in a time when HOTAS (hands on throttle and stick) was a concept that was unknown to the world.”

Have you fired live weapons- if so, what was it like?
“I have fired all weapons that a MiG 21 can fire, both air-to-air and air-to-ground. Like I said before, being a manual aircraft the deciding factor of the weapons delivery accuracy was your skill… completely. In the older versions of MiG 21 you fired eye-balling through a gunsight estimating ranges through the sight and your seat-of-the-pants. I can safely say, I was good at it and people who know me will vouch for it. There was a time when my rocket firing score was ‘zero metres’ meaning all were on the pin. Same goes for my bombing scores, they too were exceptional. Air-to-air firing too, I guess I excelled in it.
In a nutshell, I would say, the MiG-21 bolstered our (many other pilots like me ego ) well!”

“In the low-speed regime Typhoon whizzed past in front of us like an arrow… and I wasn’t even manoeuvring. That’s when he probably realised the true meaning of man-machine combo.”

How confident would you feel going against a modern F-16 or MiG-29?
“It is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Modern day fighters have systems assisting you. Superior radar, helmet mounted sighting systems, great RWR, Counter missile systems, electronic warfare systems like the self protection jammers etc. The older version MiG-21 had none of these, so they are clearly out of the fray. The MiG-21 Bison is the most modern MiG 21, and it is formidable in all of these — the only downside being the limited endurance that a MiG-21-class of aircraft has. Eventually it is the man-machine combo that makes or breaks an air combat.”
 What is the greatest myth about the MiG-21?
“The epithet  ‘Flying Coffin’ that was thrust upon it by some people; nothing could be farther from the truth. A couple of things need to be understood by all and sundry. Firstly, the MiG-21 is a fighter designed in the ’50s and inducted in the ’60s. Show me one fighter of that era which has a better safety record than a MiG-21. It is a single-engine fighter and when it loses that engine, it needs to be re-started (called a ‘relight’). More often than not it relights, but it takes a finite amount of time to relight any jet engine, so if you are below the minimum height (so with insufficient time to relight) you have to leave the aircraft. I haven’t heard of a single time when MiG-21 ejection seat quit on someone. I have had engine quitting on me, on take-off, and here I am giving this interview. I think calling the MiG-21 as ‘flying coffin’ is the biggest myth. Our previous Air Chief, ACM BS Dhanoa proved to everyone that indeed it is the safest of aircraft, by flying it as and when he could. In fact, his last flight was with Wing Commander Abhinandan.”

How combat effective is the MiG-21 today?
“MiG-21s have served its time well in the IAF and in couple of years we will see them being retired gracefully in totality. Even today MiG-21 Bison is serving IAF well. In the recent skirmish, remember it was the MiG-21 which got us an air-to-air kill.”

How reliable and easy to maintain is it?
“Like I said before, its safety record — in its class — is the best. You can’t compare it to modern fighters, you need to compare its safety record to Chinese Q-5s, American Phantoms, Starfighters, and English Electric Lightnings. It is a fighter of that time. Comparing with those fighters, it outlasted its peers easily. Why? Because of its performance and its ease of maintenance.”

Tell me something I don’t know about the MiG-21?

“The air intake cone that you see in front of a MiG 21, is not a simple cone. It is bi-conic: at high mach speeds two shockwaves form one oblique wave at the point where the cone angle changes angle and one at the intake lip. Both these shockwaves capture maximum pressure and slows the air down to 0.4 mach in front of the engine for it to work efficiently. This is not a well-known fact.”

What tips would you give new pilots coming onto the MiG-21
“Well there are no real MiG-21 pilots left in the world, not many young pilots are going to MiG-21 squadrons. The ones there are, they know everything that it is to know about it.”

Should it be retired?
“It is nature, everything, like you and me, will live our useful life. Humans who were originally associated with this beautiful machine are all long gone. She too will be retired one day, gracefully.”

“Our seniors told us do not engage a Harrier in a turning fight. Seduce him to go vertical then you can have him, post VIFFing she would take a long time to accelerate, that is the time to catch him. That’s what we did with the harrier, let him fall out of the sky and pick him. If you aren’t careful, the Harrier would have you, fair and square.”

What is the hardest manoeuvre to pull off in a MiG-21?
“An outside drop. You can’t for certain say, you will be able to pull off and outside drop on a MiG-21 perfectly, every time. Outside drop is a manoeuvre in which you drop on to an enemy fighter who is turning away from you and you have to outmanoeuvre you aeroplane to reach the kill zone behind that aeroplane, perfectly.

You may also enjoy interviews with pilots of the following IAF types: MiG-25, MiG-27, MiG-29, Mirage 2000 & Su-30 ‘Flanker‘ and PAF types: MiG-19, F-86 Sabre, JF-17 Thunder.

What should I have asked you?
“You questions are well-designed. However, this interview is not enough to talk about everything that is interesting about the MiG-21. She is an institution in itself, being the jet fighter produced in the greatest number, and it has seen more action that any other jet fighter. It’s a ‘been there, done that’ aeroplane. I don’t think there will ever be a fighter that could come anywhere close to what the MiG-21 has achieved in its lifetime.”
In air combat with a MiG-29, who would have the advantage and why?
“Like I have said before, the MiG-21 is a pure manual fighter. She fights beautifully in the vertical plane, that’s why instantaneous and sustained turn rates aren’t relevant fighting a MiG-21. Vertically down or up, she can turn and catch any fighter at rates more than 90degs a second. I once flew a DACT mission against two MiG-29s, I didn’t engage them in a turning fight. I kept my fight vertical and got two kills. The deal with the MiG-21 is you cannot pitch your weakness against enemy’s strength. The MiG-21 fights well in the vertical plane and one shouldn’t be reluctant to use its vertical plane to fight.”
How would it perform in within-visual-range combat against a Hunter?
“I may be only few who flew against a Hunter and a Harrier. I must tell you this, in a low speed fight both these fighters will spin web around a MiG-21. MiG-21’s strength is in its speed, so the deal is keeping your speed high take them on in the vertical. Both will fall out of the sky, that is the time to pick them from top, like a hawk picking it pray from above.”
Hawker Hunter versus MiG-21
“This sortie was flown when Hunters were towing the target for us for air-to-air firing. Having finished the requisite numbers of missions, my CO decided to fly against a Hunter. The Hunter in turned around and scored a kill. A repeat manoeuvre was the same story. One couldn’t outmanoeuvre a Hunter in a turning fight, but the Hunter was a subsonic aircraft and beyond a particular speed she just wouldn’t accelerate. The key was to create separation from the Hunter and come from top, like a hawk.”

Sea Harrier versus MiG-21

“The story is similar with the Sea Harrier. The Sea Harrier does something called a VIFF (vectoring in forward flight) where she would turn around like a top in turning fight. Our seniors told us do not engage a harrier in a turning fight. Seduce him to go vertical then you can have him, post VIFFing she would take a long time to accelerate, that is the time to catch him. That’s what we did with the Harrier, let him fall out of the sky and pick him. If you aren’t careful, the Harrier would have you, fair and square.
At the end of the day, at the cost of repetition I say this: it is your ‘sang froid’, mastery of the machine, situational awareness and knowledge of the enemy aircraft. These is the sure recipe for a successful outcome in air combat.”

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Manual aircraft have an advantage over fly-by-wire designs?
“These can’t be compared; modern machines are built with a purpose. The pilot is also an input in the control loop. His manoeuvring inputs are demands that the aircraft tries to meet, within the safety and manoeuvring parameters. Modern aircraft have many aids to assist the pilot and controller on ground or on the AWACS to make an informed decision. They all form important elements — spokes in the wheel — with the wheel being warfighting. Modern day warfighting is complex, spread out over hundreds of kilometres — and more often than not you will never get to see your kill. This is all opposed to an aircraft, like the MiG-21. The MiG-21 has no frills, only the joy of pure flying, akin to barnstorming if you will. It would be unfair to compare the MiG-21 to more modern aircraft, except in one aspect. That is: below the safety speeds — if you can still manoeuvre — manual aircraft let you do it. The danger involved in doing this is high though. In an FBW aircraft, below safe speeds or safe angles-of-attack the aeroplane takes control of the machine and only hands it over to you once you are safe to manoeuvre again. This is where manual aircraft can score over modern aircraft with FBW. But then in modern warfare it is not envisaged that you will ever get into such a scenario. If you do, you would either be long shot down or the enemy has run out of ammo and he is now engaged with you to finish your fuel and make you eject. There is no reason why a modern aircraft would engage you in low-speed fight if he knows he is at a disadvantage.”

Special thanks to Group Captain Vinod and Angad Singh. 

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Intercepting bombers at night was a desperate and demanding mission. For the night fighter pilot the stakes were extremely high: if the bombers get through they will kill your countrymen and destroy your cities. Guided (if you were lucky) by primitive radar and armed with weapons that often temporarily blind you, the night fighter pilot faced vast dark skies full of formations of aircraft armed with dozens, or even hundreds, of guns looking to shoot him down. In World War II, carrying the heavy armament and radar required for the mission, while remaining fast enough to catch intruders required the power of two engines. 

The chaos and deliberately distorted reportage of ‘kills’ in wartime make the actual combat effectiveness of World War II hard to ascertain. There were more than ten night fighters worthy of inclusion: the Heinkel He 219 has a brilliant reputation, especially its reputation against the “untouchable” de Havilland Mosquito fighter-bombers”. One source* mentions that “In the next ten days the three Heinkel He 219A-0 pre-production aircraft [shot] down a total of 20 RAF aircraft, including six of the previously invincible Mosquitos. But no Mosquito losses were recorded in this period by the RAF and there is no record of any He 219 pilot claiming a Mosquito at this time, yet the myth of the He 219’s hammering of Mosquitos persists. The 219 was definitely a good night fighter though it was very heavy (the empty weight was greater than that of a fully loaded Mosquito), and its wing loading was very high for the period, though it was very well armed. With only 300 built however its historical importance was not enough to get it a top 10 placing. Likewise the Messerschmitt 262 certainly deserves a honourable mention.

Edward Ward, Mihir Shah and Stephen Mosley choose ten night fighters that excelled at this daunting task. 

10. Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu

Ki-45s were used as bomber escorts during the 1942 attacks on the Chinese city of Guilan where they were severally mauled by the P-40s of the Flying Tigers. Ki-45s met resistance in Hanoi later that year with the same devastating result. Realising this twin-engined heavy fighter was no match for fast agile single-engine opponents, it found gainful employment in the roles of ground attack, anti-shipping and fleet defence but it was in the interception role that the Ki-45 found its niche. The heavy armament of 37- and 20-mm cannon proved to be effective against the B-29 Superfortress raids which started in 1944. The Ki-45 KAId, was developed specifically as a night fighter, and it was intended to equip them with centimetric radar (though this never happened).  The aircraft took part in night defence of the Home Islands with air wings from the autumn of 1944 to the war’s end. They obtained notable successes, and one Ki-45 sentai claimed 150 victories, including eight USAAF B-29 Superfortresses during their combat debut.

8. Northrop P-61 Black Widow
The first aircraft in the world designed from the outset to carry radar, the Black Widow was the largest fighter of the war. Despite being the size of a medium bomber (the P-61A’s wingspan was five inches less than a B-25J and its empty weight about 3000 lb greater) its performance was good, particularly climb rate. The P-61 pioneered the use of spoilers as its primary means of lateral control and it was surprisingly agile. It was therefore reasonable to assume the Black Widow should have had a spectacular career but it never quite lived up to its potential. The SCR-720 radar, the most radical design aspect of the aircraft, gave little trouble in service but there were other teething issues: canopies imploded and the turret caused protracted problems. Furthermore the P-61 arrived just as Axis air activity was winding down, targets were scarce and most German fighters and bombers by this stage of the war were faster than the enormous Northrop. Ultimately the P-61’s greatest contribution to the European campaign was probably as a ground attack aircraft. Nonetheless three P-61 pilots and two radar operators became ‘aces’ with five or more victories.
But probably the greatest problem the P-61 struggled to overcome was that it wasn’t the aircraft the Air Force wanted. That aircraft was the Mosquito, but due to the demand from the RAF none could be spared for the US until very late in the war. Despite more than one fly-off ‘proving’ the P-61 was the better aircraft, possessing better speed, rate of climb and manoeuvrability, doubts lingered amongst senior US personnel. Colonel Winston Kratz, director of night fighter training in the USAAF, who organised one of the fly-offs went so far as to suggest his own conspiracy theory concerning the RAF aircrew flying the Mosquito on test: “I’m absolutely sure to this day that the British were lying like troopers. I honestly believe the P-61 was not as fast as the Mosquito, which the British needed because by that time it was the one airplane that could get into Berlin and back without getting shot down…The P-61 was not a superior night fighter. It was not a poor night fighter. It was a good night fighter. It did not have enough speed.”

7. Bristol Beaufighter

The Beaufighter was the best Allied night fighter until the advent of the Mosquito and operated at the time when the Luftwaffe was most active against the British Isles. On the 23rd of July 1940 a Bristol Blenheim (from which the Beaufighter was derived via the Beaufort torpedo bomber) had achieved the first ever successful interception using the revolutionary technology of airborne radar. Whilst incredibly significant, the Blenheim was an ineffectual fighter, slower than many of the aircraft it was intended to intercept. Luckily within less than two months of that first interception Beaufighters began operating with airborne radar, although it would take until November for the first radar-assisted Beaufighter ‘kill’. Compared to the aircraft it replaced the Beaufighter was in a different league. Although no one would ever describe it as particularly fast, especially when compared to the superlative Mosquito that would largely replace it, the Beaufighter had the performance necessary to deal with all German bombers.

Armed with four 20-mm cannon and six Browning machine guns, it possessed the heaviest installed armament of any fighter aircraft when it appeared in 1940. Agility was good for an aircraft of its size and its two powerful Bristol Hercules engines allowed for a large internal fuel load which could be supplemented with external tanks on later models. As a result the Beaufighter could maintain a standing patrol for hours or use its excellent range as a night intruder to attack aircraft over vast swathes of Europe. Its greatest operational weakness was its radar, the AI Mk IV set initially utilised by Beaufighter squadrons was primitive. Even with this impediment Beaufighters were responsible for 14 bombers destroyed on the night of the 10th May 1941, the heaviest loss experienced by the Luftwaffe during its nocturnal campaign against the UK. Most important night fighter variant was the Beaufighter Mk VIF with the spectacularly improved AI Mk VIII radar which bore the brunt of RAF night fighting operations until the Mosquito appeared. Surprisingly four USAAF squadrons also operated the Beaufighter, two converted to P-61s but the others kept their Beaufighters until the end of hostilities.

The B-29 Superfortress was the hardest heavy bomber of World War II to intercept. Exceptionally fast, flying at high altitudes and formidably well defended it was an interceptor pilot’s nightmare, yet the J1N1-S achieved significant successes against the Superfortress that was laying waste to mainland Japan. The absence of an effective radar and a sufficient performance at high altitude meant Japanese pilots usually only had a single-pass in which to destroy a B-29. Despite this, Lieutenant Sachio Endo destroyed eight B-29s (and damaged the same amount again) before he himself was downed by a B-29. Other J1N pilots racked up kills: Shigetoshi Kudo had nine victories, Shiro Kuratori had six victories, and Juzo Kuramoto, eight. Remarkably, one Gekko crew shot down five B-29’s in one night. The Model 11 Gekko (月光, “Moonlight”) had a crew of two,  twin 20-mm Type 99 Model 1 cannon firing upward at a 30° upward angle, and a second pair firing downward at a forward 30° angle, allowing attacks from above or below. 

The Messerschmitt Bf 110 ‘Zerstörer’ (‘Destroyer’) was truly a jack of all trades, but it was as a night fighter it did best. It was the mount of Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer, the most successful night fighter pilot in history and he scored all off his 121 of his kills in it, including nine Lancasters on one night.

Initially built as a long-range escort fighter for Germany’s bombers, it saw moderate success in Poland, Norway, and Denmark⁠—where it flew in a permissive environment and against poorly equipped opponents. However, its lack of manoeuvrability and poor tactics worked against in in the Battle of Britain. Forced to fly as a close escort to Luftwaffe bombers; the large, lumbering Zerstörer was easy prey for the RAF’s Hurricanes and Spitfires.
In Africa and Russia; its speed, cannon armament, and ability to sling bombs also allowed it to perform well in the ground-attack role. But in the night fighting role that the Zerstörer truly came into its own. As a heavy fighter, it had space the accommodate a FuG 202 Lichtenstein radar as well as a dedicated radar operator. The radar had a rather modest range by today’s standards: a mere four kilometres. Nevertheless, with ground controllers vectoring night fighter units to within half a kilometre of enemy bomber formations, the set was good enough to accurately fix the bombers and allow the fighters to creep up on them from the rear.

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Another plus in favour of the Zerstörer was its firepower. The front-firing 20-mm and 30 mm-cannon were powerful enough to damage or destroy Allied bombers within a few short bursts. Later variants, equipped with an upward-firing ‘Schräge Musik’ autocannon fitted in the rear cockpit, proved lethal. The RAF’s Lancaster and Halifax bombers⁠—which lacked belly turrets⁠—were particularly vulnerable. As the war wore on, however, the Bf-110 found its capability diminishing. In 1943, the US Eighth Air Force commenced daylight raids on Germany. The shift to daylight bombing, coupled with the B-17’s rearward and bottom-facing turrets neutralised the Zerstörer’s main advantage: stealth. No longer could night fighter units be relied upon to successfully shoot down Allied bombers while limiting their own losses. By 1944, as the USAAF began escorting its bombers with P-51 Mustangs, the writing was on the wall for the Bf 110. As with the Battle of Britain, the aircraft struggled against nimble, single-engine fighters, and the fleet suffered heavy losses. It was phased out of production by mid-1944.

(Incidentally  Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer, survived a mass of dangerous mission only to die from a fractured skull caused by a car crash in 1950 when his Mercedes was hit by a truck near Bordeaux.)

4. Douglas F3D Skyknight 

Despite being saddled with possibly the worst nickname ever given to an aircraft: ‘Drut’ (the ‘sophisticated’ nature of which becomes clear when read backwards), the F3D was arguably the finest early jet to serve with the US Navy and the best night-fighter of the early ‘fifties. Because of the massive fire control equipment of the time, which required the use of three different radars, the Skyknight was a decidedly large and not exactly sleek aircraft but what it lacked in looks it more than made up in capability. The fire control system was extremely sophisticated for its era and proved effective, despite being a product of maintenance heavy pre-transistor valve technology.

Marine Corps F3Ds were deployed to Korea barely a year after the aircraft entered service and during the conflict scored more air-to-air victories than any other Naval type, despite there never being more than 24 aircraft in theatre. Much larger and considerably slower than its principal opponent, the vaunted MiG-15, somewhat surprisingly the hefty F3D could out-turn the Soviet fighter. More importantly its powerful electronics allowed it to locate and destroy other fighters by night whereas its opponents could only be guided towards targets by ground based radar. Over Korea the Skyknight became the first jet aircraft to intercept another jet at night as well as recording the first air-to-air victory achieved solely by radar, without visual contact between the aircraft and its target.

The F3D found itself increasingly outclassed as a fighter but the Skyknight was still in the frontline when the US found itself committed to war in Vietnam. Now designated the EF-10, with all its contemporaries long since retired, the Skyknight not only continued combat operations but again made history when it conducted the first Marine corps airborne radar jamming mission in 1965.

The Skyknights worked hard until they were eventually retired during 1970, a remarkable longevity of service for an aircraft of the F3D’s vintage. Even then its usefulness had not expired, the capacious fuselage and benign flying characteristics lent themselves to a swathe of experimental purposes and the Skyknight flew on into the 1980s.

3. Sopwith Camel ‘Comic’

2. Junkers Ju 88

Likely the most useful aircraft Germany ever produced, the Ju 88 excelled in every role it undertook. Its operational career in its design role as a bomber was winding down when it enjoyed a renaissance as the Reich’s most important night fighter of the late war period. Despite its bomber origins, the Ju 88 was a faster night fighter than the Messerschmitt Bf 110 and was notable for its manoeuvrability. Its greatest asset over the Messerschmitt fighter though was probably its endurance. With the forward bomb bay utilised for ammunition storage, the rear bay was used to carry fuel. The Ju 88G had an internal fuel capacity of over 2000 litres and boasted a prodigious loiter time, reassuring for crews – some earlier Wilde Sau night fighters had crashed due to running out of fuel before they could land. Early night fighter variants were something of a lash-up, retaining the bomb aimer’s gondola, which contributed to drag but by the end of 1943 Junkers were mass producing the purpose-built Ju 88G. Initially fitted with 1700 hp BMW radials, the Ju 88G-1 dispensed with the gondola and sported Ju 188 tail surfaces for improved handling. Standard armament was four 20-mm cannon in an under fuselage pod and some aircraft were fitted with two more cannon in a Schräge Musik installation. Crews had an array of sensors to home in on targets, most Ju 88Gs sporting FuG 220 Lichtenstein SN-2, the standard Luftwaffe intercept radar as well as FuG 227 Flensburg which detected signals from bombers employing the Monica tail warning radar, and FuG 350 Naxos Z which could detect H2S signals at ranges as great as 35 km. Most formidable of all to actually achieve anything like widespread service was the Ju 88G-6 which combined 1750 hp Jumo 213A V12 engines for a sparkling performance (though still some 50 mph less than the contemporary Mosquito NF Mk.30). A few were fitted with the outstanding FuG 240 Berlin radar, derived from captured British cavity magnetron technology. Probably the most formidable German night fighter, like many other brilliant Axis aircraft it was all a case of too little, too late.

1. de Havilland Mosquito

The oft used expression “if it looks right it flies right” is a fallacy, but a fallacy that the Mosquito does its best to validate. Of course the looks are only the starting point; the combination of twin Merlins, good handling, slippery aerodynamics, and a composite structure that would only become the vogue decades later when everyone else discovered carbon fibre made for an aircraft with very few peers throughout the 1940s. It should come as no surprise then that the Mossie, conceived as an unarmed bomber but rapidly morphing into a multi-role combat aircraft, became a night fighter. The first deliveries of the NF Mk II, the first night fighter variant to see service, began in January 1942. The first nocturnal kill came in June, the first of over 600 before the end of the war. Truth be told it was actually the first two with Wing Commander Smith having a brace of successful interceptions on the one night. The Mosquito’s then radical construction readily lent itself to adaptation.

A crucial advantage during a period when the nascent science of airborne radar was leaping forward, a time when the war for technical supremacy as well as tactical was becoming ever more crucial. New improved sets could be accommodated, and the cockpit adapted to suit, with relative ease. True, the thimble-nosed NF.XVII was pug ugly but that is a minor consideration. More important was the deadly armament carried throughout. Four 20mm Hispano-Suiza cannon kicking their staccato war cry through the airframe as bomber after bomber would come to meet their fate over England’s sleeping towns and cities. When the Luftwaffe retreated back across the Channel the Mosquito had the range to go hunting in foreign skies. Intruder sweeps, loitering around enemy airfields waiting to pounce on returning aircraft, even dawdling about pretending to be a four engined heavy. The faithful Mosquito carried her crews in relative comfort as they went looking for trouble, and had the capability to keep them safe when they found it. Few aircraft achieved so much, or stir the soul, like the Mosquito. In the rarefied world of those who seek their prey in the night sky no other aircraft even comes close.

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*That’s from wiki  but my own copy of Bill Gunston’s ‘The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Combat Aircraft of World War II’ (Salamander Books 1978) states:“The first six night sorties resulted in the claimed destruction of 20 RAF bombers, six of them the previously almost immune Mosquitoes!” 

Woken up drunk in air combat with no idea who the enemy is? It’s happened to all of us, now thanks to this handy guide you will be able to tell your ‘Flankers’ from your Gripens, and avoid the embarrassment and social stigma of fratricide. 

Canard deltas

Some fighters look like a triangle with another smaller triangle in front, these are canard deltas.

Dassault Rafale 

A box that looks like a packet of tin-foil near the top of the tail. A big bent ‘walking stick’ near the front. And the ‘mouth’ is in two parts (on either side of the lower body) each shaped like a kidney. The front triangles (or canards) are close to the back triangles (the wings).

Relatively rare. Can be seen in France or in hot countries with poor human rights.

Eurofighter Typhoon 

A big mouth like a VCR player (gen Z and Gen Alpha readers will need to Google this). Sausage-like pods on the extreme wingtips – never missiles. A lop-sided frog eye on one side near the window bit. The front triangle is a little further from the back triangle than the others.

Pretty common, can be seen in five European countries or hot countries with poor human rights.

Saab JAS-39 Gripen 

Only one engine (the bum-hole at the back) and the little triangle is sharply swept. The mouths look like they could suck up a standing suitcase. It’s also smaller and more svelte than the other and has a pinched waist like it’s wearing a corset.

Relatively rare, can be seen in Central/Eastern European countries popular for stag-dos, Sweden and some other popular holiday destinations.

Chengdu J-10 

One bum-hole..is that the Gripen? Nope- it’s the J-10. Note the rounded wingtips and two little fins on the bottom near the back. Has a mouth like a small VCR player. Also, like the Rafale has a walking stick bit sticking out the front near the window.

Common…if you’re in mainland China, otherwise extremely unlikely to see.

Chengdu J-20

Should be an easy one to spot. It’s MASSIVE. Has two vertical tails (unlike any other canard delta aircraft). Two bum-holes. Weird boat-like hull shaped body (like an F-22 or F-35). The wings are relatively small compared to the main body and the little triangles are extremely far from the big triangles. Like the J-10, it has little fins on the rear underside of the body. Looks like a cool futuristic baddy plane (bit like Firefox).

Rare unless you’re in mainland China, which as you’re reading this on the open internet, I assume you’re not.

The twin-tails 

These all have twin vertical tails (those big vertical fin things at the back on the top).

These guys have a big triangle at the front at a little triangle at the back, which looks more traditional.

Lockheed Martin F-22 Lightning II

The Raptor is big and loud and the cockpit canopy (the big glass window) reflects with a weird gold sheen (like that of the Rafale and F-35 it contains gold I think). The wings and tail are weirdly angular as if designed by a nerd with a ruler. Stealthy fighters look a bit like they haven’t been taken out of their packaging yet. The bum-holes look like zig-zaggy paddles or the vizor on a Gothic suit of armour. Zigzagged panel lines are there to help aircraft hide from radar, so are seen on stealthy designs like the F-22, F-35, J-20 and to a lesser extent, Rafale.

Rare, even in America.

Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II

Is that an F-22? Nooooooooooo. Similar look, but whereas the Raptor looks like a perky athletic Alsatian guard dog with alert eyes and tail high, the F-35 looks like a fatter hound drooping from exhaustion. F-35 has one bum-hole and smaller less swept wings. The F-35 is also smaller. The Chinese J-31 looks like it but hasn’t entered service yet, so let’s ignore it for now.

Reasonably common in the US, and in small communities around the world in rich countries. Sound cool by calling it by its US nickname of ‘Panther’.

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McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle 

A proper round forward fuselage and great big ramped mouths on the sides. Note how the tails don’t cant out like those of the Raptor or Hornet. A huge round nose and a massive canopy. Looks a bit like a F-22 that’s been taken out the box, or a female version. Long stalky undercarriage (the wheels and the sticks that hold them on). Like with most US and Russian aircraft, the bum-holes are not right at the back but tucked in a bit, the horizontal tail is the furthest rear section.

Common in the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Japan with a sprinkling in some other countries.

Sukhoi Su-27 ‘Flanker’

Wait, is this an F-15? NO you dummy! It’s a ‘Flanker’. Looks more like a lovely bendy squashed swan than does an Eagle. Look how the mouths (the intakes for the engines) are lower, slung underneath the fuselage, and the nose curves down. The canopy is smaller and the bum-holes (the exhaust nozzles) go further back than the horizontal tail.

Here’s an Idiot’s Guide to Chinese Flankers. 

Common in Russia and with the airforces of everyone who hates (or is hated) by the US. Also found in India and Ukraine.

Mikoyan RAC MiG-29

Wait, this is just a little ‘Flanker’ right? Yes, in many ways it looks like a scaled-down Flanker. As it’s smaller, the canopy appears relatively bigger and the whole aircraft looks stubbier. Those flabby armpits (LERXes) that join the wing to the fuselage look bigger and more curved than a Flanker’s – also no bee sting.

Common in Russia and with the airforces of everyone who hates (or is hated) by the US and hasn’t got much money. Also found in India and Ukraine.

Interview with a MiG-29 pilot here.

McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet & Boeing Super Hornet

The Super Hornet only got funding by pretending to be a Hornet, so despite being far bigger and containing mostly new stuff it retains a similar configuration. The main identifier is the intakes – like kidneys on the old Hornet and like slanted boxes on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Unlike a MiG-29, the intakes are mostly level with the fuselage, rather than underslung. The intakes are much further back than an F-15s and the vertical fins canted outwards. The Hornet also has a very long nose.

Mikoyan MiG-31 ‘Foxhound’

Does that F-15 look super hench? Has it Russian red stars on the wings? Do the intakes and exhausts look over-sized? That’s not an F-15, it’s a MiG-31. Unlike the  F-15, the vertical fins are snipped diagonally at the top and it has ventral fins.

Commonish in Russia. Bizarrely also possible to see in Kazakhstan (my wifeeee etc.).

Grumman F-14 Tomcat

If you’re in Iran and see something that reminds you of Tom Cruise <insert joke about gay rights in Iran here>, then it’s an F-14. Unlike anything else, the wings swing and it has twin tails. Also has ventral fins.

Rare, but possible to see in Iran.

Tailess deltas

Tailess deltas have a big triangle wing and no little triangles.

Mirage 2000

Pretty. A simple shape, a big triangle wing, one bum-hole. The front (or leading-) edge of the wing is relatively straight. The intakes have spikes in them.

Pretty common in hot countries.

HAL Tejas

This a Mirage 2000? No! It’s smaller and the inboard section of the leading edge of the wing is at a shallower angle to the outboard section. It is also has a daintier rear end; it is the Kylie to the Mirage 2000’s Jennifer Lopez (or the Justin Timberlake to the Rock for non- gynephiles)

The other guys

MiG-21 ‘Fishbed’

Has a hole with a cone in it for a nose and a straight leading edge.

Chengdu F-7

Has a hole with a cone in it for a nose and a straight leading edge and a kinked leading edge. Actually not all J-7s have a kinked wing, but I’ll leave you to work that out here. Little known fact, the NATO codename for F-7’s is ‘Fishcan’. It’s basically a MiG-21 ‘Fishbed’  anyway.

Common in skint countries.

Lockheed F-16 & Mitsubishi F-2

A single vertical fin, a cropped delta wing and horizontal surfaces at the rear. One bumhole. A smiling mouth under the fuselage, a sleek look and on the petite side. Big bubble canopy. If it looks like an F-16 but has a different canopy and big red circles on it it’s a Mitsubishi F-2.

F-16: Common across the world.

F-2: Rare, Japan only.

CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder

Though CAC/PAC is a deeply unappealing name, the Chinese/Pakistani Thunder looks OK. Big round armpits, a single vertical fin, ventral fins and intakes with the outer lip forward. Build looks less plasticy and more old school than other fighters up close. Common in Pakistan, rare in Myanmar and likely to come to Nigeria soon.

Interview with a JF-17 pilot here.

Northrop F-5 series 

Two tiny bum-holes – can I go home yet? Also, whole aircraft is tiny. Teensy little intakes. If it has twin tails than it’s the Iranian HESA Saeqeh, but that’s highly unlikely. Let’s have two pictures of the Saeqeh anyway, because it looks cool.

Dassault Mirage F1

Come on, how many more of these do I have to do? Bet some pedant notes a type I haven’t included and tweets me at  2AM to let me know in a pissy way. Alright, alright, it has ice cream cones in the intakes like the Mirage 2000 and looks pretty normal.

AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-kuo

You will only see this is Taiwan. It looks like a mash-up of all the 4th generation fighters. You’re just not going to see this OK? Unless you’re in Taiwan and in that case look out for kidney shaped intakes, a single fin and conventional layout.

Right that’s it, I’m having a glass of wine and publishing this damn thing.

(You know what an F-4 looks like)

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 We asked you to design a fighter aircraft. I was overwhelmed by the quality, ingenuity and imagination that went into the submissions. It was hard to narrow the entrants down, but we eventually decided on the following aircraft. The brief was extremely demanding and had to be solved using only technology available in 1938.

Requirement 760

Design a fighter aircraft using only technology available in 1938. The aircraft must be a capable dogfighter. Armament is to be four cannon. Aircraft must have a top speed higher than 380mph, be easy to repair and maintain and offer a high level of battle damage resistance.

The categories

(Note: judges may not assess their own designs) 

Aesthetics

Award points for beauty, or an impressive or unusual appearance or features. Explain reasoning.

Points out of 100

Design 

Award points for clever, innovative or appropriate design features.

Explain reasoning.

Points out of 100

Historical accuracy

Could this have existed in the time of the requirement? Was the technology there? Would parts supply have been possible in the political/industrial situation? Explain reasoning.

Points out of 100

Effectiveness

How well would this have have fulfilled the brief?

Points out of 100

Bespoke category 

Points out of 100

The judges

In reality by 1938 the biplane was generally being chucked away in favour of the monoplane but I wondered, had the cantilever monoplane not been taken up so wholeheartedly, what would have been the developmental path of a new fighter biplane.

Thus, the Lammergeier, conceived by the Norfolk based EJW aircraft company for sale as an off-the-shelf fighter with world class performance, yet not too advanced for less industrialised and smaller nations to operate.

A cantilever biplane with a very short wingspan, the Lammergeier has plenty of wing area, good for rough field operations and general manoeuvrability. The short span means lower drag than a conventional biplane and therefore high speed and high rate of roll. No draggy struts or bracing wires either. The aircraft is very small to minimise weight and rate of climb should be excellent. The large tail surfaces and short moment arm of the fuselage confer very responsive characteristics in pitch and yaw. The armament of four 20-mm drum fed Hispanos (belt feed was not available for this weapon in 1938) being mounted one each at the knuckle of all four cranked wings – a good compromise of concentration of firepower without the unnecessary burden of synchronisation equipment.

The engine is the Gnome Rhone Mistral Major which was a known and tried unit by 1938, familiar to many international customers, it also had the advantage of being relatively available compared to other decent engines (in real life it powered a swathe of thirties and forties designs, notably Romania’s IAR 80 and the Italian Re 2000 and SM.79). A radial engine was chosen for its greater resistance to battle damage than liquid cooled types. Armour plate behind the seat protects the pilot and the windscreen is of bulletproof glass. Undercarriage is retractable outward, mounted just outboard of the lower cannons and provides a wide track for good ground handling. Two self-sealing fuel tanks are mounted in the centre fuselage, between the wings. Range would undoubtedly be modest but is not specified in the requirement.

Disadvantages: pilot view is poor in some directions but the designer envisages the extremely high manoeuvrability will compensate for this to some degree in the air at least. The aircraft is highly responsive but like Polikarpov’s I-15 and I-16 can be tricky for the novice.

The aircraft is depicted serving with the Royal Hellenic Air Force, where its high rate of climb and general ruggedness would be an advantage. It also features the same engine as the PZL P.24 fighter delivered to Greece during 1937-38.

EJW Lammergeier: Score
Stephen: “I don’t get the twin cantilever wing structure… the whole point of the biplane layout should be to minimise the wing structural weight. The aircraft is going to be heavier than something with a structural link between upper and lower planes, while the reduced span implies increased lift- dependent drag. So it’s going to be a low wing loader with low inertia in roll, but not quite as low as if they’d ditched the pure cantilever… and the interference drag will still be an issue.”

Aesthetics

Stephen: “One for those who like *odd* biplane designs. It’s a mid-1930s aircraft, and reflects that with a mix of features more typical of something going obsolescent during the Spanish Civil War. 50%”

Jim Smith: “Looks a fabulous little aircraft: 85%”

Hush-Kit: “Bananas. I love it. Gloriously eccentric wings. 85.”

Aesthetics score: 220/300

Design

Stephen: “A mixture of being underpowered, overweight and draggy means that it’s not going to have many customers post 1940. It might be a surprise package at low altitudes, if you make the mistake of getting low and slow with it. It could have been a *lot* better, had the structure been better thought out. The Fiat biplanes and Gloster Gladiator survived through handling characteristics, but this aircraft is going to be heavier by virtue of the structural design. 40%”

Jim: “A very interesting concept, with considerable thought given to packaging and meeting the main design drivers. Suspect the structure would be relatively heavy, with two cranked wings. I note four ailerons are shown, but no means of linking these together (although this might be handled in the control mechanism at the expense of some complexity. 70″

Hush-Kit: “The Italian CR.42 was the last viable biplane (sesquiplane) fighter, and it took its first flight in 1938. Despite being a great design, its age was over and it struggled against monoplane fighters. Why, with the benefit of hindsight would a biplane design be considered? My guess is aesthetics, which will earn this points, but not in this round. What will earn it points is the attention and understanding of mechanical detail displayed. 65.” 

Design score: 175/300
Historical accuracy

Stephen: “The choice of a Hispano cannon is the only thing that’s not archaic about the
core design. This is a mid-, rather than late-1930s design, and there might have been other 20mm cannon options kicking around in Europe. But by 1940, it’s not going to be fast enough to catch a bomber to make use of the lethality of the cannon. 80%”

Jim: “Sound reasoning on the choice of engine, which should have been available. Does look the part, but I suspect lots of landing accidents likely due to very poor view ahead and to forward 45 deg when the tail is down in the flare.” 70

Hush-Kit: “Seems totally possible. 85”

235/300
Effectiveness

Stephen “It may have given someone a surprise in the Spanish Civil War, but the engine is inadequate for 1938, let alone 1940. The Bristol Pegasus would have been a better choice. Obsolescent at service entry. 20%”

Jim: “Not convinced 380 mph would be available with interference drag from the biplane arrangement. Manoeuvre performance likely to be superb. Armament requirement met. Very sceptical about repairability and battle damage resistance – largely due to complexity of wing planform and cranked spars. 55″ 

Hush-Kit: “This a trifle nose heavy and prone to tipping over and bending those long gun barrels. Multiple blindspots in the frontal hemisphere sounds like a liability in a fighter. Imagining this is extremely agile, if a little slow. Wondering if the gun arrangement on the upper wing would slow down re-arming. Guess it’s the kind of thing the Finns could use to great effect and everyone else would hate. 45”

120/300

Bespoke

Stephen: “This is one of those quirky designs that’s never quite going to be remarkable about anything except looks. Those that survive combat in 1939 will be melted down or in museums by 1940. 50% for museum novelty value.”

Jim: “Some extra points for the quality of the cutaway drawing. 40.” 

Hush-Kit: “Exceptional artwork and an enjoyably characterful design: 75.”

165/300

EJW Lammergeier Total score 915/1200

Smith Claymore by Jim Smith 

Stephen: “Smith Claymore… This smacks of Jim and Ron, going down the route of the art of the possible. Despite pretensions to Martin Baker lineage, this is really what happens if you stick a Merlin into a Yak-3 or Dewoitine 520… a small fighter with a big engine and lots of firepower. This is close enough to ‘what happens if the UK builds a Yak’ that we can read across. No issues here with credibility of the technology, although the actual Yak-3 turns out slightly later, and has an engine that’s comparable with a Merlin 45.”

Aesthetics

Ed: “Well, it’s hardly going to set the world on fire is it? That said it isn’t ugly. In contrast to the Veil, the other ‘normal’ aircraft in the line up, it is marginally less interesting looking so it gets a plodding 31”

Stephen: “Conventional enough that it looks like a shrunken MB5, or a Yak, or a MiG, or a Dewoitine… and maybe lacking distinctiveness as a consequence. 70%.”

Hush-Kit: “Bit of a snooze-fest. Neither as sleek as the Spitfire or as joyfully agricultural as the Hurricane. Sorry, 28.”

129/300

Design

Ed: “Thoroughly sensible: Martin Baker’s approach to aircraft construction, had it been taken up by any of the major manufacturers, would have resulted in aircraft that were easier to build and maintain than those that actually appeared. Nothing earth-shatteringly radical here though so a respectable 73”

Stephen: “Design… very low risk. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened with an aircooled radial instead. A Hercules II power egg in this airframe would have made the radiator unnecessary and given as much power as in the eventual Yak-3. 75%”

Hush-Kit: “Great, well considered design. Would it have been upgradeable? Would its small size have limited it potential to be upengined and upgunned? 75”

223/300

Historical Accuracy

Ed: “In general the Claymore is a profoundly plausible aircraft for 1938 though I am concerned by that bubble canopy, given that no British aircraft had one until 1940 (and even then the somewhat obscure Miles M.20) though the Whirlwind nearly did. Likewise that wing, despite the designer‘s claim to the contrary, looks far too thin to fit a drum fed Hispano in it, even the Hurricane’s thick wing had to have bulges to accept the ammunition drum and belt feed wasn’t available until 1941, so a high but not perfect 90″

Stephen: “There’s nothing here to scare the horses. The engine and airframe are low risk, but represent good practice by mid-1941, rather than 1938. The design principles are those of the Yak, or even Fw 190. Note that the latter spawned the Bearcat. 90%”

Hush-Kit: “The bubble canopy raise question marks. A bubble canopy is a canopy made with the minimum or no bracing, to provide the pilot with an unobstructed view. The majority of a bubble hood is one piece. Though some experimental bubble hoods were tried in the First World War, and some later ones came close (including the Me 209) the first truly effective modern one was a feature of the Miles M.20 fighter (1940), a type which failed to enter service. Later in the war many types including Fw 190, Tempests, P-38s and some P-51s had bubble hoods. Other than this – looks good. 85.” 

265/300

Effectiveness

Ed: “Probably fine. The resistance to battle damage is definitely there with the Martin Baker construction. It looks pretty manoeuvrable. The bubble canopy would confer excellent pilot view so it is likely a good dogfighter. I wonder if it would attain 380 mph? The Spitfire Mk I was only good for 362 mph on the same engine and it had a thinner wing so one would have to assume the speed requirement would be a struggle for the Claymore. A solid 62.”

Stephen: “Effectiveness… yes, very, if there’s enough room to shoehorn the weaponry into. 90%”

Hush-Kit: “Arguably the most effective solution of all the entrants. 85.”

237/300

Bespoke category 

Stephen: “Jim and Ron *know* what works at low risk, and they’re ringers. Tell them that I said they need a handicap and ask if either of them has flown a Yak lately. -40%.”

Hush-Kit: “Ability to confound 12-year old boys trying to identify it: 65.”

Ed “Likelihood to be obsessed over by aircraft enthusiasts 80 years later: inasmuch as all WWII aircraft are obsessed over, the Smith Claymore would certainly have a following but due to its relative conventionality I don’t think it would be overly popular unless it saw particularly spectacular service somewhere. Probably equivalent with a Tomahawk or something of that ilk. 50.”

115 – 40 =

75/300

929/1200

Arado Ar 313 Mikado by Maximilian Bührdel

“The engineers at the Arado Flugzeugwerke tried to develop a two engined fighter with as little drag as possible and utilising the new Argus As 410 piston engine. This engine was much sleeker in design than comparable engines of the time and future variants would be even sleeker with cooling and turbos installed behind or in front than around the engine. The resulting fighter wasn’t much of a looker with its thin twin booms and the two pusher screws.

Compared for instance with the P-38 Lightning the Ar-313 twin booms were wider apart and the outer wings much smaller. For best agility the forward swept outer wings could be swept as a whole, like modern tailerons or canards. High forces were required to manoeuvre the aircraft, but to the surprise of the engineers no structural stability problems occurred. Four 20mm guns found easily place in the wings.

Because of the pusher props the plane needed a tricycle landing gear. The front wheel was offset to the left, because the central room in the small cockpit was occupied by the pilot. The back wheels set just in the double rudder under the twin booms. The short landing gear left little place for shock absorbers so the ride at the ground was really bumpy.

Special care was taken to provide an escape option for the pilot that didn’t result in his being butchered by the pusher props. The solution was a kind of ejection seat: The canopy of the aircraft was fixed and the pilot entered the plane by sitting on the seat. The seat with the floor plate was then pulled upwards by some kind of pulley system. This system worked as a kind of spring and the pilot could be shot out at rails. Right through the floor. Sounds crazy but it worked somehow, when the pilot had enough time afterwards to get ride of the seat.

After a flight with the first prototype field marshal Erhard Milch said: “This fighter has a rubbish paintjob, but flies like a dragonfly. It looks like someone lost a game of Mikado (german for jackstraws).” And the name was earned.

Stephen: “I found this intriguing, and close to a halfway house between the Westland Whirlwind and the Lockheed P-38, although the pusher props point at either long prop shafts or a scarily aft c.g. It’s the most radical of the designs, yet there’s enough about individual features out there to make all of the disparate technologies available suitable for 1938. But… no real consideration of the ability to tolerate battle damage.” 

Arado Ar 313

Aesthetics

Ed: “If pure insanity equates to aesthetic excellence then the Ar 414 should walk this section. It don’t think one could call it conventionally elegant but it does possess a certain spindly P-38-esque charm. Extra points for the natty blue and purple splinter paint job. Score: 87”

Jim: “Frankly ugly. 30.”

Stephen: “Surprisingly sleek and modernist in a 1930s style. This would have been early for a twinboom design. 90%”

Aesthetics score: 207/300

Design

Ed: “The Mikado is certainly, ahem, ‘innovative’. The all-moving wing tips are intriguing and do have a historical precedent on the S.E.100 of 1939. Likewise the downward pilot entry/escape system did pop up on various later aircraft but I doubt it would inspire confidence in any test pilot despite the very stable undercarriage design. The twin fuselage booms look far too slender to handle any kind of aerodynamic load and structural integrity has got to be questionable at best. Tandem wing aircraft never seem to succeed despite occasionally promising prototypes and given the existence of the more conventional and probably more effective Messerschmitt 110 it would seem unlikely at best that the Arado would make it into production.

The twin fuselage booms look far too slender to handle any kind of aerodynamic load. So given that the design is simultaneously innovative yet also extremely questionable it gets a totally bet-hedging 50″

Jim: “I quite like the concept of a twin-boom fighter, but I think the realisation of the concept is poor. The tailplane is so large it’s virtually a tandem wing aircraft. I’d expect it to be stable over a wide cg range – not what you want in a fighter. The replacement of the outer wings by all moving ailerons is a novel concept, but I suspect a more conventional outer wing would give better sustained turn due to higher aspect ratio. Concerns too about engine cooling and propulsive efficiency. 40″

Stephen: “Good at hitting the speed targets, and German 20mm cannon were more mature than the Hispano by 1938. Some structural issues around flutter might be expected. Not much consideration for battle damage tolerance though. Pusher props and tricycle undercarriages imply novelty in ground handling, and maybe some issues around unprepared landing sites. 70%”

Aesthetics score: 160/300

Historical Accuracy

Ed: “It is very unlikely that the Ar 414 would have existed. The only even mildly comparable aircraft with a tandem wing and mid-engine layout was the Miles M.39 which apparently flew well but not until 1944. Thus a Low score of 17.”

Jim: “When you consider some of its contemporaries, e.g. the Fokker G1 of 1936, or the Bell Aircuda of 1937, then it is clear that twin-engine, twin boom, and twin-engine pusher propeller fighters were considered plausible. The clear blown canopy looks a little avant garde for the time, but not, I think, completely out of the question. 60″

Stephen: “There’s a lot of novelty and technical risk around this design that worry me a little. The wing span and area imply high landing speeds, and this would have been a *real* handful in the mid-40s, let alone the late 1930s. I’m tempted to say that this is an oddity. The Argus engine is a little less powerful than the RR Peregrine of the Whirlwind, but does have the virtue of being air cooled. 75%.”

HE Total 152/300

Effectiveness

Ed “If one ignores the probable crash on takeoff that would have accompanied every attempt to fly the Mikado, it remains a resolutely mixed bag. On the one hand, the terrifying all-moving wingtips and massive tail surfaces would have proffered remarkable manoeuvrability (to the extent, one suspects, of causing structural failure), however the underwhelming power output of two Argus engines would make the required maximum speed an impossible prospect. The armament location offers a good concentration of firepower and the pilot is blessed with an excellent view. By contrast the aircraft is apparently large and offers a substantial target and the required resistance to battle damage seems unlikely given the dainty structure although the Argus engines are air-cooled so the vulnerability of a liquid cooling system is at least avoided. Thus a less-than-stellar 42”

Stephen: “There’s a question of CONOPS. This is an interceptor for defence against bombers. It doesn’t have a low enough wing loading to be much use in a turning fight. I can see it eventually becoming useful in home air defence, but it’s a real oddity in the Luftwaffe of 1938. The layout makes it amenable to mount radar in the nose eventually, but single-seat night ops in this aircraft would be challenging. 60%”

Jim: “Not convinced 380 mph achievable – much neater Fokker G1 only capable of 300 mph. Dogfighting capability in the ‘sitting duck’ class. No real evidence of design for ruggedness and battle damage resistance. 30″

132/300

Bespoke

Jim: “Concept drawing quality does not compare with many of the other submissions, but the back story is good. 30.” 

Stephen: “This is probably a decent airframe for use as a reconnaissance platform, or as a low altitude air racer. High speed, low level… and close to the Westland Whirlwind in performance (but Westland took landing characteristics more seriously). 75%

Ed: “Likelihood to be obsessed over by aircraft enthusiasts 80 years later: It’s German and mental. Given that crazy German aircraft don’t even need to have actually existed to be featured in manifold books, magazines and model kits (such as the Triebflugel, Lerche etc) the Ar 414 would undoubtedly be massively famous within aviation circles in the contemporary world. A resounding 100.”

205/300

Total 856/1200

Curtiss Model 78 Greyhawk by Aleksi Salonen

Greyhawk

Stephen: “Where to start? The engine installation is nonsensical (cooling?) the fin size implies a startling lack of directional stability, and the weapons installation appears to be inspired by Klunk. Cracking drawing skills though.”

Aesthetics

Ed: “Where to begin? The Greyhawk is impressively weird. Despite its crazy layout it is identifiable at a glance as a Curtiss product, and, whilst not possessing a conventional beauty it has a purposefully aggressive air. It is undoubtedly unique and merits a high score of 87″

Jim: “Not a looker. In fact, somewhat terrifying for friend and foe alike, I suspect. 60.”

Stephen: “… Klunk would have been proud. An image that even a mother might be ambiguous about… 20%”

167/300

Design

Ed: “The fuselage circling airscrew is a novel and elegant solution to the problem of concentrating firepower about the centreline on a single-engine aircraft. Whether it was possible is another question entirely and one that I am unable to answer. There was at least one precedent to this design in the shape of the Gallaudet D.4 of 1918 which utilised a Liberty V-12 powering a fuselage-encircling airscrew in the rear fuselage.  Why mount the engine on its side? I am unaware of any fixed wing aircraft that actually employed this arrangement nor any benefit arising from its usage but I can see a number of potential problems. Probably worst is that cooling would likely be problematic. In addition the engine in this arrangement offers a large area downwards which makes it more vulnerable to fire from the ground and the required gearing and shaft drive adds unnecessary complexity and likely reliability issues. A mixed bag, hence 43.”

Jim: “Extremely original layout, with embedded engine mounted horizontally in the fuselage, multi-blade propeller, tricycle landing gear. 75″

Stephen: “There’s so much about this that just isn’t feasible, starting with the propulsion layout. No cooling outlet and a transverse mount for an air-cooled engine just isn’t practical. I’m also unsure as to whether the wing spars actually connect somewhere near the engine or not. The directional stability characteristics are going to be interesting at least. Will the fin actually overcome the precession of the aircraft in yaw due to engine torque? 10%.”

128/300

Historical Accuracy

Ed: “The only actual aircraft that came close to replicating the Greyhawk’s layout is the P-39 which is roughly contemporary and similarly featured an engine mounted behind the cockpit to free up the nose for an impressive armament arrangement. By contrast with the Greyhawk it utilised a liquid cooled engine which seems more sensible if the engine is not in the nose of the aircraft and it had a simpler transmission arrangement. The rear fuselage and tail was a lot more conventional in position and proportion as well. The P-39 was not an unequivocal success and one can’t imagine the Greyhawk succeeding without a lot of work. I don’t think any particular technological aspect was beyond the state of the art in 1938, except perhaps that wonderful propellor, but combining them all in one airframe looks risky at best. 31.”

Jim: “Although a rather unlikely-looking design, it appears largely consistent with the technology brief. I would be worried about the gearing and shafting arrangements to drive the propeller. This is a much more complex arrangement than the prop-shaft extension used, for example, on the Aircobra. 75″

Stephen: “The choice of a Hispano cannon is the only thing that’s not archaic about the core design. This is a mid-, rather than late-1930s design, and there might have been other 20mm cannon options kicking around in Europe. But by 1940, it’s not going to be fast enough to catch a bomber to make use of the lethality of the cannon. 80%.”

186/300

Effectiveness

Ed: “This is not likely to be a fast nor a manoeuvrable, or even controllable aeroplane. There is a hell of a lot of aircraft for what appears to be quite a modestly sized engine, it looks about as streamlined as a brick and the tail surfaces are tiny. Would it be easy to maintain? Doubtful given the engine location and the problematic engineering. If that wasn’t enough, the design does not include the specified armament of four 20-mm cannon. Therefore a rather disappointing 16″

Jim: “No chance of making the required 380 mph top speed. Good agility is likely due to the concentration of mass around the cg, and relatively short-span low-aspect-ratio wing. Six-blade propeller looks inefficient due to relatively short blades. I’d also be concerned about the cooling of the engine and gearboxes, noise and fire protection for the pilot. With the low pitch, yaw and roll inertia, and the small size and low moment arm of the tail control surfaces stability may be an issue. Not an aircraft one would wish to spin, as rudder would be largely blanked by tailplane. 40″

Stephen: “Not. Even if the vehicle was a practical aircraft, 4 0.5” Brownings are going to be inadequate within a short period. 10%.”

66/300

Bespoke 

Likelihood to be obsessed over by aircraft enthusiasts 80 years later

Ed: “Pretty high I should think. It’s weird and amazing-looking and American.  80”

Jim: “Nice cutaway drawing, Side view did not reproduce well. 30″

Stephen: “Bespoke… I thought this was the best drawn of all the competitors, although it’s not anywhere near viable as an aircraft. Heath Robinson award winner for 2019. 75%.”

185/300

Total score: 732/1200

Firewasp by Tom Ackerman

Looks like a dH take on the Westland Whirlwind… I’m not sure how wooden monocoque structures are going to stand up to the point loads imposed by the suggested weaponry, but this shares clean lines, and uses dH Gipsy King engines rather than the RR Peregrine. That implies a degree of being underpowered, although there is the suggestion that these can be upgraded to 610 hp. It’s also
similar in many ways to the proposed Arado design, although less radical in configuration.

Aesthetics

Jim: “This is a neat, trim aircraft, but somehow lacks the DH magic when it comes to styling. 75.” 

Ed: “Although the oversized canopy looks a bit weird, the twin fuselage with offset cockpit is a stylish approach and the elegant de Havilland touches make the Firewasp a daintily attractive yet undoubtedly radical machine so it does well here. 86”

Stephen: “Ahh, de Havilland. Uncle Roger would have been proud, and all those hand-finished mouldings for the fairings would have made these fantastic private tourers once the Boche had been sent packing. 90%.”

251/300

Design

Ed: “The craziest aspect is the gun. The Gast system was just going into production for Germany at the end of World War One but seems to have been ignored by everyone until resurrected by the Soviets in the fifties. The 30-mm Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-30-2 as fitted to the Su-25 is a Gast gun. Whether Martin Baker or some other manufacturer would have been able to alter the Hispano cannon to a functional Gast weapon is fanciful but not totally ridiculous. The use of Gipsy King engines is interesting. Not being powered by Merlins is a distinct advantage in 1938 but a combined power output of 1220 hp for a twin engine fighter is decidedly low. Also where is the exhaust? The canopy design appears to afford excellent visibility and the relative simplicity of the aircraft is a definite plus. The twin fuselage design, although nothing comparable was flying in 1938, was ultimately vindicated by the Twin Mustang so the Firewasp would have been ahead of the curve in this regard. An optimistic 54.”

Stephen: “Credible, except for the weaponry, which isn’t really going to fit where it’s supposed to. The engine availability in wartime is going to be tricky, as with the Peregrine (and I think the Whirlwind was a missed opportunity). 75%.”

Jim: “A ‘British’ Lightning. Surprised by the number of twin-engine entries. Very few twin engine fighters were all that good in 1938. But going for wooden construction, light weight and the very neat Albatross-style engine installations a good idea. 70″ 

199/300

Historical Accuracy

Ed: “The most difficult to assess aspect is the Gast gun. Because it was never developed in the UK it is difficult to be sure whether it was possible within a reasonable timeframe nor whether it offered a significant enough advantage over conventional weapons. The Hispano cannon was not exactly problem free in the early war years so a twin barrel outgrowth with a terrific rate of fire sounds like it might be a developmental nightmare. More prosaically the Gipsy King’s power output is pretty weedy and even the 610 hp per engine quoted here is entirely speculative on a developed model as according to de Havilland the Gipsy King produced 525 hp. According to one source only 95 engines were apparently ever built (which leads one to consider the ultimate production total of 47 and a half Firewasps ho ho) and it was described as ‘an extraordinarily complicated way to develop 500 hp’ which doesn’t bode too well for reliability. Awkward: 43”

Stephen: “I’ve no doubt that dH could have put together a twin-engined fighter in 1938 if asked… but the twin boom layout is a novelty for them at this point. The smaller engines go out of production very quickly during wartime. 75%.”

Jim: “Does look slightly ahead of its time – not unreasonable for DH perhaps, but can’t help feeling that Geoffrey de Havilland would have gone either straight towards the Mosquito (perhaps as a single-seat fighter version of the Comet), or to a pod and boom piston-engine Vampire, noting Vampire has a wooden fuselage pod and four cannon. 70″

188/300

Effectiveness

Ed: “The streamlining of the engines, taken from the Don is excellent but one cannot help but suspect that the aircraft is underpowered and unlikely to make the speed requirement. The Firewasp’s elegant slender wings and fuselages do not imply a particularly manoeuvrable machine either. If the Gast gun worked it would likely have proved a fearsome weapon. As good as four Hispanos Possibly. Fighter aircraft designed to be low-cost and simple to produce, despite obvious merits, never seem to make it into production and it is unlikely the Firewasp would be any different. It would probably have made an excellent training or reconnaissance machine but for the original requirement it does not quite convince. Therefore 24.”

Stephen: “Suffers from the issues of the Hispano maturity more than most. I don’t think the gun is credible. Otherwise, in the same class as the Whirlwind, although termites and bacteria will make this aircraft liable to issues in the tropics. 60%.”

Jim: “A bit sceptical about the armament, but with a very clean and light design and 2 x 610hp engines, should be close to the speed requirement. Suspect out and out manoeuvre performance not quite as good as the single-engine solutions. Wooden structure likely to be OK – DH having plenty of experience in this area. 70″

154/300

Ed: “Likelihood to be obsessed over by aircraft enthusiasts 80 years later? There’s a special de Havilland magic that tends to stir the British enthusiast’s heart in a slightly inexplicable fashion. There is no doubt the exciting Firewasp would go down well with them and a totally accurate replica would probably have been built in New Zealand by now, to the relative bemusement of non-Commonwealth based aircraft enthusiasts who are still listening to portentous music and looking at an old man standing with a quiet, yet highly marketable, dignity next to the XP-3x Barn Owl. 83″

Stephen: “This really isn’t very different conceptually from the Whirlwind, with the exception of wooden construction. Structurally radical for 1938, but within a short space of time they were doing this with the Vampire. 60%.”

Jim: “Would have liked to see how undercarriage was done, and whether airscrews were variable pitch or not. 30″

173/300

965/1200

Reconstituted Aviation XP-3X Barn Owl by Brad Clarkson

Requirement 760.   The XP-3X BarnOwl from Reconstituted Aviation.  Dual radials give it speed, range and durability, the push-pull arrangement allows single-engine cruising.   Referred to as the “Barn-Door Owl”, it was originally conceived as a fighter-destroyer and morphed into a fighter-bomber and tank hunter in (obviously) Russia where its quad 20mm cannons were upped to dual 37’s and was nicknamed the ‘Big Shaver’.   Effective in the Far East where it was known by the Japanese as ‘Wandering Death’.  Good roll rate but otherwise a tough American bruiser that eventually got a cool bubble canopy prior to its retirement.

Barn Owl

“Stephen: Reconstituted Aviation XP-3X Another intriguing configuration. The tandem engine installation was subsequently proven by the Do-335 and Cessna 337, so this is an innovative layout for the period. It’s a good way of getting the frontal area of the air-cooled radial down too, although the fuselage boundary layer will make cooling the aft engine trickier than the forward item. Combined with the twin booms, I actually think this is a workable configuration, capable of doing 380 mph and carrying a decent payload.”

Aesthetics

Ed: “Personally I love it but I have always had a penchant for fat aircraft such as the Brewster Buffalo and twin boom types. This combines the two in a shiny cuddly whole. I freely admit this wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste though so I suggest a respectable 82”

Jim: “A tough-looking aeroplane. Seversky meets SAAB J-21A.  Style looks credible for the period, if not exactly pretty. 75.”

Stephen: “Should never be a factor in aircraft design, but this has a gruff, workmanlike charm, in the way a Skyraider does. 75”

232/300

Design

Ed: “The twin-engine/twin-boom arrangement employed by the Barn Owl was one of those studied by Lockheed when they were formulating the P-38 which first flew in January 1939, so the general arrangement was being considered by American designers at the time. Having both engines on the centre line mitigates some of the more undesirable features of more conventional twins and the massive wing area and tubby fuselage suggest plenty of room for fuel and stores. It would be easy to see this aircraft having considerable development potential. 90”

Jim: “Twin-engine ‘Push-me Pull-you’, which as noted above looks in keeping with the technology brief. Twin engine fighters – tried often, but would have to wait for P-38, Mosquito, Beaufighter to be convincingly effective. 70.”

Stephen: ” I like this. It’s a way of getting a twin-radial engined aircraft to have lower drag, and I think it works without excessive risk. The twin-boom layout means that they wind up with tricycle undercarriage, but I think the layout has potential, and plenty of fuel volume. 80%.”

240/300

Historical Accuracy

Ed: “Apart from its general arrangement, there is nothing particularly unlikely here. Although the engine type is not specified, the narrow cowl suggests the Wright Cyclone (I doubt a Twin Wasp would fit) which was a thoroughly dependable and available unit in 1938. Drop tanks in 1938 would seem to be pushing it. First US fighter able to utilise a drop tank was the P-40C of 1941 I suppose the aircraft pictured could be a developed model but still… Anyway this is a minor issue so 75″

Jim: “Does look the part.  Engines not specified, but no reason to suppose this would be technically unachievable in 1938. 75.” 

Stephen: ” Like the Arado, it’s a challenging concept for the 1930s, and obviously draws on hindsight unavailable at the time. But, all of the component technologies are there. Getting radials to work on faster aircraft in the late 1930s is a challenge, and this is a good way of meeting it. 75%.”

225/300

Effectiveness

Ed: “It is likely that the Barn Owl would have been a thoroughly useful aircraft but with regard to the requirement in particular it is difficult to imagine such a large and heavy aircraft being a capable dog fighter.  The top speed specified might be problematic as this is not a particularly sleek aircraft, I guess it would depend on the engines fitted. I am also concerned about the ability to actually fit two 20-mm cannon into each of the tail booms as portrayed. There doesn’t appear to be room for such a large weapon, at least as shown in the three view. Judging by muzzle size I’d say those were .50 cals (but I may well be wrong) which, to be fair, the USAAF would have specified anyway. Resistance to battle damage should be high – this is a radial twin after all and US aircraft tended to be reliable and easy to maintain. Thus a not particularly mind blowing 50″

Stephen: “It has the potential for good range, due to the space for fuel volume. In the Beaufighter or Bf 110 class, but at higher speed and with solo crew. 75%.”

Jim: “Not much chance of making the required 380 mph top speed, it just looks too tubby, and likely to be carrying around too much weight. I’d also be concerned about the efficiency and cooling of the rear engine installation, and pilot escape in case of needing to bail out. As suggested, inertia distribution likely to be good for roll rate, less so for pitch manoeuvres. Engines likely to be rugged – tail booms do look a bit slender. 60.” 

185/300

Bespoke

Stephen: “This deserves plaudits for innovation, albeit inspired by hindsight. 75%.”

Ed: “Likelihood to be obsessed over by aircraft enthusiasts 80 years later: Massive. It would probably feature in tattoos on Hells Angels arms. But also on American museum promotional material with Colonel Sanders lookalikes standing next to a resolutely polished XP-3x and a Stars and Stripes whilst wistfully talking about the ‘Barn Owl of Freedom’. It would be awful. 100”

Jim: “Very well presented, although a bit light on technical detail. Good back story suggesting operations in Russia and the Far East. 40.” 

215/300

1097/1200

Vickers Veil by Philip ‘Doc’ Tibbitts

Design

Jim: “Geodesic structure is a good idea. Likely to be strong and easy to repair. 65.” 

Ed: “It is curious that only three geodesic aircraft ever saw production and service as this method of construction did offer immense strength and damage resistance as dramatically proven by the insanely rugged Vickers Wellington. The major downside of geodetics is that even a minor design change such as lengthening the fuselage requires a total redesign of the entire unit which rather limits potential development of the aircraft. Engine choice is sensible and it is easy to see the Veil being a useful asset to fighter command in the early war period. On the other hand, apart from the novel construction method, the Veil is extremely conventional so scores a sensible but not earth shattering 74.”

Stephen: “An early Pegasus-engined design would have been underpowered, and resemble the Fokker XXI, effective against slower targets, but easy prey for the Luftwaffe in 1940. A Hercules-engined variant would probably outperform the Hurricane Mk II, although 380 mph might not be achievable with fabric skin. At some point a move to metal skinning would be necessary. 75%”

214/300

Historical accuracy 

Jim: “Very credible from the aircraft structure perspective. Double Wasp would not have been available – did not fly until 1940. I assume that the R-1830 Twin Wasp was intended. The other engines mentioned are possible. Complexity of using geodesic construction in a small airframe might be an issue. 70.”

Ed: “The Veil is a totally plausible aircraft for its era. The most unusual aspect of its design, geodetic airframe structure, was employed by two aircraft in production by the same manufacturer during 1938. The remainder of its design is thoroughly conventional so it warrants a convincing 100 for historical reasonableness.“

Stephen: “For a period, the Hercules II was producing more power than the contemporary RR Merlin. By the Merlin 45, Rolls were ahead in the game, and the Merlin 60-series were further advanced. But from 1940-41, the Hercules II is a powerful, reliable and available option. The contemporary allied fighters are variants of the Mk II Hurricane and various Kittyhawks. The Veil would have been a competitive alternative to these, and maybe more effective in austere environments (no tropical filters!) while being better suited to navalisation. 80%.”

250/300

Effectiveness 

Jim: “Not convinced 380 mph available with fabric covered geodesic structure and 900 hp engine. But strength and battle damage requirements met. Dogfighting capability hard to judge. 60.” 

Ed: “Because it isn’t particularly wacky, the Veil may well have proven quite effective. It certainly answers the requirement on most counts, especially the resistance to battle damage one, my biggest concern being whether it would attain the 380mph specified as it looks pretty draggy. This is largely conjectural as we can’t see what the wing looks like, which also rather affects whether it would have been a capable dogfighter. Thus a slightly speculative 57.”

Stephen: “Probably more effective than a Mk II Spitfire or Hurricane, by virtue of greater installed power and 4-cannon armament. Key questions are the reliability of the Hispano in 1940. It’s also going to be more robust to ground fire, something that made offensive Ops by Fighter Command a lottery in 1941-42. 80%”

197/300

Bespoke

Jim: “Only a side view available so some factors hard to judge. 30.”

Stephen: “At some point the UK realised the benefits of air-cooled radial engines. Putting tropical filters on aircraft in North Africa, Asia and elsewhere crippled the supposed benefits of the liquid- cooled V12s otherwise used. The Fleet Air Arm also lacked effective fighters until well into the war, and this design would have been more effective than the Wildcat/Martlet against bombers. It potentially has the same kind of longevity in use that saw the Hurricane operate into late war in Burma. 80%.”

Ed: “Likelihood to be obsessed over by aircraft enthusiasts 80 years later: It’s not got a Merlin and, from the outside at least, it isn’t very unusual. However it is British and has a certain gruff appeal so will certainly float the boat of vast swathes of angry middle aged bearded men across the home counties. A red-blooded 62 points therefore.”

172/300

Pegasus Seahorse by Nicolas Bucher

Stephen: “380mph, in a flying boat? With an inverse sesquiplane layout? With a Napier Sabre? In 1938? Who do they think they’re kidding?”

Aesthetics

Ed: “This aircraft is sensational. 95”

Stephen: “Aesthetics… The bastard offspring of a Supermarine Walrus, a Tempest V and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. 20%”

Jim: “I really like the look. 80.” 

195/300

Design

Ed: “Hmmm. Love the natty retracting floats. The vertical tail surfaces look a bit on the small side given the sheer amount of aircraft they’re expected to keep going in a straight line. My biggest worry though is the sheer amount of structure provided for the radiator and airscrew. That’s a lot of struts and a lot of drag. If you’re going to have all that, why not mount the engine up there and avoid all those iffy power-sapping and likely failure-prone driveshafts and gearboxes? Taking the drive past 90 degrees twice seems like a recipe for disaster. However, it is certainly a radical and daring approach. As is turbosupercharging a Sabre. Thus a credibility confounding 60”

Stephen: “Phenomenally overcomplex, doesn’t really take the requirements into consideration, and looks like an excuse to build an imperial barge. 10%”

Jim: “Pusher flying-boat biplane fighter – but not sure the concept could possibly meet the requirement. It looks like a Walrus on LSD. 50.” 

120/300

Historical Accuracy

Ed: “Starting with the nit-picky, Hispanos were drum fed in 1938 as previously mentioned so that’s a bit rum but this is ignoring the elephant in the room. A turbocharged Napier Sabre! The Sabre was first run in 1938 and wouldn’t equip an operational aircraft until mid 1941. Napier had enough problems even fitting a two stage supercharger on the Sabre and a turbocharged Sabre never appeared. Which isn’t to say it wasn’t possible but one would have to regard it as extremely unlikely. But is that more or less unlikely than driving a contra-rotating propellor through a shaft system? I am unsure. Contra-props weren’t really a thing in 1938, at least in a production-ready reliable form. This aircraft is believable as an extremely speculative unbuilt study from 1941 or so but not really in 1938. Thus a low 20.”

Stephen: “The Napier Sabre engine, although first bench-tested in 1938 (like the Centaurus) took a few years to mature into a practical powerplant. The power needed to get such a draggy vehicle to 380 mph is such that even with the fully-developed Sabre engine, it’s going to be an exercise in brute force and ignorance. Trying to get a not-quite biplane with strut bracing and a flying boat hull to these speeds will also be structurally challenging. Little or no credibility here. 10%”

Jim: “Very concerned about the turbo supercharging to deliver the stated power. I just don’t think this sort of power would be available at the time. Sweepback of the wings looks good, but not really a feature of 1938 aircraft unless the c.g. is in the wrong position. 35″ 

65/300

Effectiveness

Ed: “The Seahorse would not, I think, have been a particularly great answer to the requirement. With its weedy tail-surfaces I doubt if it would be much use in air to air combat with fighters. Would it have been resistant to battle damage? A few bullet holes in the hull and it would sink. Easy to repair and maintain? It has an overly complex drive system mated to an unproven development of one of the least reliable aircraft engines of the Second World War. What could possibly go wrong? With all those struts and extra wings would it have been able to drag itself over 380 mph? Probably, to be fair, if the promised 2650 hp actually materialises. A problematic 34″

Stephen: “Turning aviation fuel into noise and making jaws drop in disbelief is a highlight, but I don’t know what else might be feasible here. 30%.”

Jim: “Not a chance of making the claimed 400 mph top speed. Plenty of wing area, but looks to have high inertia (due to separation of engine from fuselage axis) and high drag (due to biplane configuration, struts, wires and floats). For reasons noted above, do not believe powerplant would be available. Hence not meeting speed or manoeuvre performance. No real evidence of design for ruggedness and battle damage resistance. 35.” 

99/300

Bespoke category

Ed: “Likelihood to be obsessed over by aircraft enthusiasts 80 years later: Very high. It’s unusual, fantastic looking, crazily designed and a flying boat. 90″

Stephen: “Sheer bloody-mindedness. This aircraft probably has its own wardroom, complete with piano and bar. 70%”

Jim: “Drawing looks well executed but resolution provided poor and difficult to read, particularly the critical details on the engine.” 30. 

190/300

Final results & winners 

Each entrant had something wonderful about it, and it was a hard decision. But here are the final scores:

Seahorse: 669/1200

Curtiss Greyhawk: 732/1200

Arado 313: Total 856/1200

EJW Lammergeier 915/1200

Smith Claymore 929/1200

3rd place- Bronze dH Firewasp: 965/1200

2nd place Silver Vickers Veil: 986/1200

1st place – Gold – Reconstituted Aviation XP-3X Barn Owl 

Sadly, this site will pause operations in December if it does not hit its funding targets. If you’ve enjoyed an article you can donate here.

“Aerocaccia II” by Tullio Crali, 1936. The World as seen through the restricting telescopic gun sight. Those Warren “zigzag” strutted biplanes look a lot like a sort of stylized Italian CR.32’s. Spanish Civil War inspired or just training, I guess. If you understand Italian.

via Tullio Crali: Target Fixation (II). — The Dreamy Dodo

Ferdinand I of Bulgaria was the first leader to fly, doing so in 1910. Soon after, the idea of a customised airliner for the transportation of national leaders spread across the globe. Often practicality is as important as a sense of theatre for presidential aircraft, and these sometimes lavishly equipped machines show-off the wealth, sophistication and importance of the nation making a visit. Sam Wise takes us on a brief important flight through ten of his favourite presidential aircraft. 

Sadly ten was not enough to include all the aircraft we might have liked to include, and honourable mentions must go to Truman’s C-54 and the West German VFW-Fokker 614.

10. Columbine II (I’d better avoid a pun here)

Air Force One is best known as a 1997 thriller movie starring Harrison Ford as a US president who single-handedly defeats some real bad hombres trying to hijack an aeroplane he’s on. What most don’t know is that the film is actually named after the aeroplane designated as the US President’s personal transport – today a VC-25A (well, a 747 really), but first of all an achingly beautiful Lockheed VC-121 Constellation named Columbine II. Lending its name to all future POTUS transports (yes, we know Air Force One is technically whatever plane he’s on at any time, but whatever), Dwight D Eisenhower’s personal transport was the first to use the AF1 callsign and it stuck ever since, along with the fact of having a dedicated USAF transport aircraft to move the president around.

9. Saudi Comet ‘Aziz carrier’

The Saudi royal family has had an extraordinary range of Royal Flight aircraft across the decades. 747s, MD-11, Convair 340, Tristar, even an L-100 Hercules, but none come more stylish than the de Havilland Comet 4. Although a troubled type, the Saudis have always had a penchant for British aircraft and when they look as stunning as the Comet did it’s no surprise that King Saud bin Abdul Aziz would want to fly on it. That said, he was probably very happy he didn’t on its last day in 1963 – after less than a year in service with the Royal Flight and crewed by de Havilland trained American pilots it crashed into a peak of Italy’s Catena delle Guide while on descent. The King and his family were not on board, but the accident made it the shortest lived presidential aircraft on the list.

8. Argentine FMA IA 50 Guaraní II ‘Guaraní indeed’

Another presidential fleet with quite an eclectic stable, Argentina’s Agrupación Aérea Presidencial’s jewel – or not – has to be the spectacularly ugly but wonderfully indigineous Guarani II. Ok, it’s not a world-beater in any category but the audacity to assign your president an aircraft that looks like this for his personal transport is quite something and instantly pushes it into the cool category – it’s a hell of a flex to turn up on a state visit in a plane that’s part washing machine. Somewhat notable, the type was the first Latin American-designed aircraft to cross the Atlantic and was further flight tested in France, so there’s some distinction for it.

7. North Korean Mil Mi-17 ‘공산주의 땅벌’

The ‘Air Koryo’ Presidential Mi-17 easily falls into our Top Ten because I’ve actually flown on it. Even if I hadn’t – how could you not include a Hip with sofas and a wall-mounted clock on the list?! The helicopter is also used to transport tourists around the country in something resembling comfort, and could well be the only helicopter in the world with a throw rug.

6. Bell Boeing MV-22B Osprey ‘Trump’s Plopter’

Ospreys are cool. Darling of Hollywood and bane of cynical, ill-informed aviation nerds the V-22 family has pushed through the rocky times to become a brilliant transport platform, and what better validation can there be than flying around your head of state? Marine One use the MV-22 in that ridiculously slick dark green scheme to move the President around on short hops, presumably with rock music and eagle screeching blaring out when the propellor mounts rotate.

There’s some rumours that they don’t let the POTUS actually fly on the V-22s themselves out of fear of the safety record – but we don’t believe that, do we? No, it’s much nicer to think of President Trump flying around in something that had four crashes in a ten year testing period…

Interview with an Osprey pilot here. 

5. Gambian Ilyushin Il-62 ‘Use your Ilyushin’

There aren’t many Il-62s left flying in the world, and even fewer have been taken on service this side of TaTu’s All the Things She Said hitting number one in the UK charts, but so The Gambia’s presidential classic Classic was in 2005 if you can believe it. The aircraft was first delivered to the Uzbekistan government in 1993 but eventually made its way to The Gambia as the personal steed of the president. It’s probably still flying today. Why Africa’s smallest country and one of its poorest needs such a large and maintenance heavy Soviet airliner is anyone’s guess, but you keep on trucking. Plus, it looks great.

4. Commando, Churchill ‘Going Commando with Winston’

Commando was Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s personal transport in the Second World War. A heavily modified Consolidated Liberator II, and an airframe that would in fact undergo significant modifications itself with a full tail and nose change, it took Churchill to North Africa to put Montgomery in charge of the British forces there, Turkey and even Moscow to speak with Stalin.

The VIP interior included an electric galley and even a bed for the PM for his long flights and the crew was mixed US and Canadian who all received British awards for their flying services after Churchill eventually switched to an Avro York for his transportation needs.

Commando itself met a mysterious end in 1945, disappearing on a flight over the Atlantic to Canada with no trace ever found. A sad end for a notable and historical aircraft.

3. Brazilian Lockheed VC-66 Lodestar ‘FAB 001’

This is a real one-off aircraft. Ish. The world’s only VC-66 Lodestar was also Brazil’s first ever presidential aircraft, taken on strength in 1942. Originally a C-66 (itself unique) which was a military versioning of the Lockheed 18 with a VIP interior, it was eventually redesignated the extraordinarily different VC-66 Lodestar and flew with the Brazilian Air Force as FAB 001 (big Thunderbirds fans, I guess) until the mid 60s
2. French Sud Aviation Caravelle ‘Le Comet’*

The Sud Aviation Caravelle is one of a long line of beautiful French aircraft, and served as a suitable mount in VIP fit for President Charles de Gaulle. The President, who took his name from the ghastly Parisian airport, chose the type as his personal aircraft in 1958 and in fact the prototype had been christened by his wife only three years earlier. The aircraft was a delight to fly by all pilot’s accounts and with ovoid windows and engines mounted on rear pods it was a defining look of those early jet years, and with a French roundel and beautiful presidential livery it particularly stands out on this list.

1. Tupolev Tu-114 ‘Cleat intolerant’

The Tu-114 – one of the best looking turboliners ever made – was arguably the first long-range airliner ever built. It was developed specifically for Khrushchev to look baller when arriving in the US, a play in the endless game of US-USSR dickmeasuring that lasted for 40 odd years, the short ranged Il-18 having been deemed too paltry and humiliating for the big man. It blew the Americans away, to the point that when it landed in the US it was so large they had nothing that could get the president out of the aircraft to the ground, and he had to use the escape ladder. Much more successful than its brother the Tu-116, the Cleat was also basically developed from the Bear strategic bomber, which is, you know, a pretty rad thing to say about a presidential plane. One of few aircraft designed specifically for this role, it nevertheless turned into a very successful airliner by all accounts and served Aeroflot for many years. The Tu-114 still holds the world record for fastest propellor-driven aircraft.

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If all things from a certain category look the same to you, then you’re probably an outsider. The exception to this rule being airliners, which all look the same to a lot of insiders too. Airbus is particularly guilty: spewing out a series of uniformly bland designs that leave observers uninspired to even check the identity of the passing plane on the Flight Tracker app. But the skies are alive with secrets my friend, these clones are not clones! The following story will change your life as we, at Hush-Kit, with the help of artist, Maule pilot, air traffic controller and comedian Dorian Crook, can finally share the arcane secret that allow identification of modern airliners. Mesmerise lovers, blow the minds of colleagues and terrify therapists with your new ability to tell an Airbus A320 from an A319. Don your Goretex, leave sexy at the door and prepare for An Idiot’s guide to Identifying Airliners. 

Or if you can’t be bothered to memorise this, the identity of a plane is normally written on the side at the front of the aircraft. 

NOTE: We know this is by no means comprehensive and a part two may follow. 

Squashed engines = Boeing 737

The barrel bit under each wing is an engine, if it’s a bit ‘squashed’ on the bottom like this one, then it’s a Boeing 737. You can see it’s not quite circular, the lower lip is a little flattened. (This wasn’t the case with early 737s, but you’re unlikely to see them).

The nose is a bit pointy too.

Double decker all the way = Airbus A380

Fat. Four engines. Tall tail. Appears to move in slow motion. Really massive with a huge forehead. From the front it looks like the body (or fuselage if you’re feeling fancy) is so heavy it’s bending the wings down.

Frilly engines = Boeing 787 Dreamliner 

If the back of the big barrel bits (it has two engines) look frilly as if attacked with a pastry cutter, then it’s a Dreamliner. They also have skinny shark-fin wings.

(update – if it has four engines with scalloped bits at the back it’s a 747-8)

Airbus A350

Looks like a Dreamliner without frilly engines, wearing a Zorro mask.

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Boeing 747 

VERY big, with four engines, a face like a dolphin and a bump on the top. The front is double decked. That room the pilots look out of is placed higher than on other aircraft. 

Boeing 747SP

The Boeing 747SP was the Special Performance i.e. long-range version. This was achieved by reducing the weight of the aircraft, mainly by shortening the fuselage so it appears to be just that big nose and tail. There was maybe room for 3 passengers in between the cockpit and the toilet. By the way, if you fly, or work on, a Boeing 747, you absolutely HAVE to call it a “Seven-Four”. If you say “Seven-Four-Seven” you’ll look like a fool. On the hill overlooking Seattle…

Boeing 767, 777 or Airbus A330? 

All are huge twin-engined sausages. They’re very big. They also all have the same amorphous quality of looking fat* or sleek depending on which angle they’re looked at from. There’s a more serious guide to identifying these types here.

* (We would only fat-shame aircraft, never people. Sleek fat people do exist.)

777: The singing fish 

The 777 is the biggest. It’s enormous. But if you’re not in a position to judge its height it does have a scalloped ‘flat’ end to the tail – viewed from the left it looks like a singing fish. . Also 777s don’t have those tiny mini-wings (winglets) at the end of their wings that some A330s have (as do some, but not all, 767s).

Airbus A330

Little winglets? And boring straight-bottomed cockpit windows?

Can’t tell it from a 777? Join the club mate, but the winglets should help.

Boeing 767

Airbus A340 ‘Heroin heron chic’

Four engines and very long and skinny. Or if it’s a A340-600 it will be COMICALLY long and skinny.

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Embraer 190

Looks a bit like a small DC8 (younger readers will need to research this)-especially in Alitalia colours-but without the nostrils. It’s Brazilian, so all Embraer destination airports are required to shave the grass either side of the runway.

Bombardier C-Series

Fairly rare this, especially as it has now been bought by Airbus and is now the Airbus 220. Visual clue is a little cat-flap at the bottom of the tailplane. Probably with some Swiss Cheese nearby. Or it could be an APU inlet. Despite this being a very new aircraft, it sounds like a 1950 vacuum cleaner when reverse thrust is applied.

Nice curved nose like a dog or de Havilland Comet.

Fokker 50

Reminiscent of the 1950s- era Fokker Friendship. Mainly because it is a 1950s Fokker Friendship but the engines are different. And it has two nosewheels instead of one.

Handley-Page HP 42

One of the first successful airliners (cue Twitterstorm), this one knew what it was doing. Flying regularly from Croydon to Paris. There was no HP42 NewGen, Neo, Excel, or other such nonsense. The only modification was that the First Officer had to bring in the flagpole carrying the Ensign, before the aircraft took off. This machine also had a revolutionary Head-Up Display: The pilot’s looked up and checked that they were still following the Reigate-Ashford railway line, and thus pointing the correct way to Paris. Smoked Salmon sandwiches with the Captain. Ok, that doesn’t help you identify it, but there’s none left anyway. Just showing you what we’re missing……..

A lot of the others

If in doubt it’s probably one of the smaller Airbuses or a 737.

A320 family

Despite the best attempts by scientists no one can really tell an Airbus A318 from an A319, A320 or A320…and there’s even an A321. If you can read and recall just one of the following points you’re ahead of the pack (whether it’s a pack you’d let into your home remains a valid concern) .

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The poem Invictus is about survival and stoicism. It was read by US prisoners of war in North Vietnamese prisons, sometimes written with rat droppings on toilet paper. The 360 Invictus is Bell Helicopter’s proposal for the US Army requirement for an armed scout helicopter. We asked Ron Smith, former Head of Future Projects at Westland Helicopters, for his thoughts on the return of a futuristic, yet familiar, shape. 

“Bell has released imagery representing its proposition for the US Army FARA (Future Armed Reconnaissance Aircraft) requirement. Details of the requirement are a little sketchy, but a recent summary in Vertiflite (members’ magazine of the Vertical Flight Society) highlights the specific characteristics, which can be seen at the bottom of this page. 

From a general point of view, there is a general similarity to the schemes shown in the past for Comanche. Indeed, the early 1980s work at Westlands, featuring shaped fuselage, internal weapons carriage and close attention to IR signature anticipates some of these features. The Bell version of a canted Fenestron (they will wince at the name), or ‘fan-in-fin’, will be designed with minimisation of external noise in mind. Of equal importance will be preventing the visibility of rotating tail rotor elements to threat radars, at least from a frontal aspect.
The latter consideration also applies to the closely faired rotor head assembly shown in the Bell artist’s impression. One can expect minimisation of corner reflectors, screening of sensors, metallised transparencies and choice of materials and treatments in rotor blade construction. Bell state “This design is based on Bell’s 525 Relentless rotor system which has been tested and proven at speeds in excess of 200 Knots True Air Speed (KTAS).”
The only comment made by Bell that can be related to an optionally manned capability is that “Fly-by-wire flight control system—synthesises technologies, reduces pilot workload and provides a path to autonomous flight”
In terms of the impression, the weapon bay shown looks slightly small – one cannot envisage more than four weapons being carried internally on an aircraft of this size. Bell commented that it could be “Armed with a 20-mm cannon, integrated munitions launcher with ability to integrate air-launched effects, and future weapons, as well as current inventory of munitions”.
The nacelle fairings suggest that the front face of the engines will be shielded from view, but that extreme measures have not been taken in respect of infra-red suppression. This makes me wonder if a variable area nozzle / variable cycle engine approach might be under consideration to provide the required dash speed. Bell talk in terms of a supplemental power unit without defining this further.
Bell claim a speed >185kt (without saying whether this is continuous or a dash capability). For maximum compliance, they would be looking for this as a sustained capability. In terms of mission performance, they state a combat radius: 135nm with >90 minutes of time on station and the ability to hover out of ground effect at 4,000 ft and 95F, which is a pretty standard US Army requirement.
The clean wing surface (devoid of weapons and weapon mounts) is consistent with a degree of unloading the rotor at speed. Bell’s press release confirms this. This also avoids the typical clutter of corner reflectors that would have an adverse impact on radar cross section.
The sketch also leaves one wondering about target acquisition and identification. There is a relatively small nose-mounted sensor, which is low-set and would result in exposing the helicopter above the skyline if it is used for target acquisition. Also, a desire to reach out farther (than Hellfire) implies (to me) non-line of sight operations, or at least third-party targeting and networked operations. The same target acquisition question also surely arises if the aircraft is to be used in an optionally un-manned mode. The Bell statement “Provisioned for enhanced situational awareness and sensor technologies” leaves open the possibility that these are deliberately not shown in the current artist’s impression.
Among Bell’s final statements is that “Bell is committed to providing the U.S. Army with the most affordable, most sustainable, least complex, and lowest risk solution among the potential FARA configurations, while meeting all requirements,” said Keith Flail, vice president of Advanced Vertical Lift Systems at Bell.  More questions than answers, but it looks like a very interesting and credible project with strong resonances with work that I was involved in twenty-five years ago. That credibility is consistent with a relatively straightforward approach to addressing the FARA requirements.

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“FARA is one element of FVL (Future Vertical Lift), which seeks to break out of a cycle of military rotorcraft development by incremental upgrade, in particular by focusing on advanced rotorcraft configurations.”

FARA itself is intended to be optionally manned. To me, this is a slightly debatable philosophy. If the vehicle is to be manned at all, it will be constrained by various requirements that would not arise for a purely unmanned platform. These might include:
• Space, volume and protection provision for the crew (when present)
• Provision of external fields of view for human operation
• Design for human crash survival protection
• On-board information display and control systems arranged to suit human anthropometry
• Levels of redundancy to meet acceptable safety (probability of failure) criteria when a human crew is present (and therefore at risk) (whether from accident, or enemy action)
These considerations are likely to be significant cost and weight drivers and will generally have a negative impact on vehicle shape, size and detectable signatures compare with a fully unmanned system.
Similarly, if a vehicle that can fly with human crew is also required to operate unmanned, it will have additional complexity associated with on-board and off-board decision making, particularly in respect of deploying weapons and protecting third parties, be they members of the public, innocent civilians, coalition partners or members of one’s own forces.
Various elements of hardware and software that might not be regarded as safety critical in a manned aircraft may become a concern in unmanned operations.
By being ‘optionally manned’ the system is burdened with two (possibly conflicting) sets of constraints, simply as a result of being neither one thing, nor the other (or both at once, if you prefer).

Moving on to other FARA requirements:
• Ability to leverage deep interoperability across intel, fire and manoeuvre elements (thoroughly sensible, but probably requires doctrinal developments if it is to be effective)
• Able to avoid radar detection
• Ability to operate in tight urban canyons (implies 40ft maximum rotor diameter, but likely also to have comms, datalink and target acquisition / tracking challenges)
• Open avionics systems architecture – pretty much a given nowadays; current terminology is MOSA modular open systems architecture. Bell comment that their MOSA solution is being provided by Collins. There will probably be some emphasis on use of Artificial Intelligence for crew decision support (whether operating manned, or unmanned).
• Able to exercise some level of interoperability with unmanned systems – interesting to speculate whether this means data sharing for mutual situation awareness, or directing unmanned systems to engage targets, or being directed based on information gathered by unmanned systems …
• FVL anticipates air launched effects from platforms such as FARA to degrade or destroy “Area Access and Aerial Denial” structures (which I take to mean (at least) layered air defence systems). Support to ground troops is also mentioned, in conjunction with longer stand-off ranges than are available with Hellfire. (RVS – Target acquisition and positive identification is likely to be a challenge for such non-line of sight systems and will presumably rely on networked intelligence from a range of assets).
• General Rugen, Army Director of FVL is quoted as saying flying should start in November 2022 (to support government-sponsored flight test and evaluation in fiscal year 2023).
• Cruise at 180 kt or more; dash at up to 200 kt or more
• 20mm cannon and integrated munitions launcher
• Gross weight around 14,000lb (RVS comment: similar to Westland Wildcat)
• Single or twin engine
Note: Optionally manned and available turboshaft engine powers probably favour a twin-engine solution. (RVS)

— Ron Smith
October 2019

Dr Ron Smith joined the British helicopter company Westland in 1975, working in Research Aerodynamics, remotely piloted helicopters, before becoming Head of Future Projects. He had a strong influence on the design of the NH90, and was involved in the assessment of the Apache for Britain. 

India has a new light fighter, the indigenous Tejas (which translates as ‘radiance’). Other than its small size, there are two more unusual things about Tejas: large control surfaces where the front of the wing meets the aircraft’s body and a naval variant with a pure delta wing. 

“As a supplement to my recent piece on the Tejas programme, Hush-Kit have asked me to contribute an item about leading-edge vortex controllers (LEVCON) on the Tejas, seeking to explain what these are, how they work, and why they might be used on Tejas. As explained in my previous article, this piece is from an outsider’s perspective, but in this case, from the background of an aerodynamicist experienced in combat aircraft performance and configuration design.

I’m going to write about LEVCONs in the context of the Navy variant of Tejas, and seek to explain why they are being used on that aircraft. The picture below shows the Navy version of Tejas in its recent land-based arrested landing trials, and the second picture provides a clearview of the LEVCON behind some of the trials team. Pictures are from the Indian Navy via swarajyamag.com.

 

To understand LEVCON, and their application to Tejas, it is first necessary to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of delta wing planforms for combat aircraft.Delta Wings
In the context of supersonic aircraft, the delta wing is an attractive design option. The key source of drag in supersonic flight is wave drag. Wave drag arises as a consequence of the pressure distribution on wing and body surfaces in supersonic flows. Wave drag is extremely sensitive to the thickness to chord ratio of the wing, and also to leading edge radius. In aeronautics, the thickness-to-chord ratio, compares the maximum vertical thickness of a wing to its chord (the distance from the front to the back of a wing). A thick wing, with a rounded leading edge, will have a very high wave drag if it experiences transonic or supersonic flows. In addition, wing sweep reduces the local mach number and delays the occurrence of wave drag in transonic flight. This is why fast aircraft tend to have highly swept wings. 

From this brief discussion, some of the advantages of a delta wing planform for a supersonic fighter aircraft become apparent. The delta planform offers the possibility of using a low thickness to chord ratio wing, which simultaneously provides good wing area, a highly swept leading edge, and low transonic and supersonic wave drag, while still providing reasonable internal volume for structure and fuel.

The validity of this approach is illustrated by the large number of fighter aircraft using delta, or near delta planforms, some as pure delta wings without additional stabilising or control surfaces, others with either tailplanes or canards. Examples of pure deltas include the Dassault Mirage series and the Convair F-102 and F-106. Examples of canard deltas include Typhoon and Rafale, while the Lockheed Martin F-22 and even the McDonnell F-15 may be considered as tailed near-deltas.

Disadvantages
What then might be the downside of using a delta planform? There are two potential issues with the use of a delta wing planform, both arising out of its inherently low aspect ratio. Aspect ratio is defined as ‘span-squared divided by wing area’, and it provides an indication of the efficiency of the wing – its ability to deliver lift with minimum drag. High aspect ratio wings are seen on sailplanes, and the best of these deliver lift to drag ratios of more than 60 to 1. A 60-degree sweep pure delta wing has an aspect ratio of ~2.3, compared to a sailplane which might have an aspect ration of 30, or a typical airliner, which might have an aspect ratio of 9.5.

Low aspect ratio increases lift-dependent drag of the aircraft, and this in turn reduces sustained turn rate performance. The maximum sustained turn rate for a high-performance combat aircraft will generally be limited by structural design limits, except at high altitude or at supersonic speeds, where aerodynamic limitations are more likely. This is because, for much of the flight envelope, a high-performance aircraft might be physically capable of turning at more than 9g, but pilots cannot sustain this loading for sustained periods. Consequently, to save weight, the structure would generally be designed to a 9g limit. Outside the structurally limited region, higher lift-dependent drag will result in the aircraft maximum thrust being reached at a lower sustained turn rate than for a higher aspect ratio configuration.

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The other impact of having a low aspect ratio highly swept wing is that the lift curve slope of the aircraft is low. What does this mean? Well, the lift curve slope is the amount of lift generated by the aircraft for a given angle to the airflow. A low lift curve slope means that the aircraft has to fly at a higher angle to produce a given amount of lift than a configuration with a higher lift curve slope. Alternatively, the aircraft might have to fly at a higher approach speed to generate the same lift.

It is easy to see that this latter aspect of a delta wing could pose some issues for a naval fighter. Landing on to a carrier is a high-intensity operation, and even today remains one which is largely dependent on the visual picture presented to the pilot as he approaches the ship; that picture being enhanced by shipboard landing systems and Deck Landing Officer guidance. A high angle of attack for landing raises the nose of the aircraft, making this critical picture more difficult to see. The alternative of landing at a higher speed may simply not be possible as the energy to be absorbed by the arrester system of the aircraft and ship will increase with landing-speed squared, imposing higher loads on the aircraft structure and undercarriage.

High-lift devices
High lift devices are systems which increase the lift available to an aircraft, generally in the landing configuration, but occasionally also used to improve sustained turn rate. Higher lift available to the aircraft reduces the approach speed and angle to the airflow of the aircraft. In the context of highly-swept naval aircraft designs, extreme examples may be seen in the variable incidence system used for the F-8 Crusader, and, in a sense, the variable sweep solution for the F-14 Tomcat, transforming a low aspect ratio highly swept wing into a conventional moderate aspect ratio, low sweep configuration.
Many approaches to providing higher lift in the landing configuration have been used. The most traditional approach, seen on almost all commercial aircraft is the use of slats and flaps which extend from the trailing and leading edges of the wing to both increase wing area, and wing camber (the curvature of the lifting surfaces) to increase lift. In some naval aircraft, most notably the Buccaneer, high pressure air from the engine is blown over flap surfaces to further increase lift.

One aspect of these devices is that in addition to producing more lift, they also change the centre of lift on the wing, generally resulting in strong nose-down forces that need to be balanced through a tailplane or canard deflection to provide the required opposing force to balance, or trim, the aircraft. These flap-and-slat high-lift devices are used on aircraft with delta, or near-delta, planforms, examples being the A-4 Skyhawk or F-4 Phantom, both of which use a tailplane to balance the aircraft. Similarly, Rafale and Typhoon use canard control surfaces to trim the aircraft on approach.

Another approach to increase lift is to use a leading-edge strake. This is a sharp-edged, very highly-swept extension to the aircraft leading edge at the fuselage side, introduced to great effect on the F-16 and F-18. This has the effect, at high incidence, of generating a powerful vortex over the inboard portion of the wing, and can increase both instantaneous and sustained turn rate substantially. In the landing configuration, Concorde, which had a slender delta planform, exploited vortex lift generated over its blended wing design, to reduce approach speeds, although the relatively high incidence required led to the need to also droop the nose of the aircraft, to provide visibility on landing.

The leading-edge strake has been widely adopted, with several combat aircraft being fitted with LERX, or leading-edge root extensions, as a simple way of modifying the aircraft to improve instantaneous or sustained turn rate, or both. Examples may be seen on many aircraft, but the Harrier LERX modification is a good example of a modification to an existing design.

 

LEVCON
The LEVCON uses the idea of a passive strake to generate a powerful vortex over the wing, but does so in an active sense. In other words, it is a device for modifying the vortex flow over the wing which may be used to increase lift, to control the aircraft, or both.
The basic principles are described in US Patent US5094411A:
“The use of vortex flaps as a leading edge device for reducing the lift-dependent drag of highly-swept, thin wing aircraft that are prone to leading edge flow separation and vortex formation, has been extended and adapted for aircraft control, particularly at high angles of attack where conventional trailing edge surfaces lose effectiveness. Down-deflected vortex flaps capture the vortex suction on their upper surfaces to generate an aerodynamic thrust force component that results in drag reduction. Conversely, up-deflection of flaps magnifies the vortex to thereby increase wing lift accompanied by a drag force on the flaps. The present invention combines the advantageous features of up and down deflected vortex flaps to induce thrust and drag forces in order to generate directional control moments. Similarly, the differential operation of the flaps creates unequal lift increments on the wing panels to generate lateral moments. The segmented, differentially actuated flaps of the present invention thereby improve the ability and agility of high-swept thin wing aircraft during manoeuvring at high angles of attack.”

Translated, this shows the concept of deflecting leading edge surfaces down to reduce drag and, for example, improve Sustained Turn Rate, or to deflect them up to generate a stronger vortex and additional lift. An advantage of the latter approach is that upward deflected LEVCON can force the formation of a leading-edge vortex at lower incidences, where a fixed strake would not generate significant lift. The patent also describes the possible use of such devices to provide yaw and roll control.
Tejas
The pictures shown earlier reveal that in making its recent arrested landing, Tejas was using an upward deflected LEVCON. This innovation makes a lot of sense for Tejas, because, as a pure delta with no balancing tail or canard surface, a conventional slat-and-flap high lift system cannot be used.

 

Moreover, the large upward deflection of the LEVCON will force the development of the leading-edge vortices, and the associated increase in lift, to occur at low incidence, allowing the view over the nose of the aircraft to be maintained for the approach to landing. Because the additional lift is developed over the whole length of the wing, it is likely that the pitching moment generated is less than would have been seen with a conventional system, and, on the approach, might even require a small droop of the trailing edge surfaces, which would also increase lift.
The only photographs I have seen of Tejas with LEVCON deployed are for the naval variant. The ski jump trials were conducted with the LEVCON more or less in line with the wing, increasing lift slightly, but with little effect on drag, whereas the recent arrested landing with upward deployed LEVCON would have generated significant lift and drag.
Subsequent development of the aircraft may see LEVCON integrated into the control system to improve manoeuvre capability for both variants, but whether this will be implemented remains to be seen.

 

Tejas is indeed an interesting little aircraft, and, in my view, is the first carrier aircraft to use a pure delta planform. I recognise that some might disagree with this, pointing to the Douglas F4D Skyray as having this distinction. In the Skyray, however, the landing approach speed problem was resolved using slats on the outboard wing, and large triangular trimming tail surfaces, forming the junction between the wing trailing edge and the fuselage, to cope with the slat-induced pitching moment. The Skyray was aerodynamically, in effect, a tailed-delta rather than pure delta.
As indicated in my earlier article there are plenty of developments to watch in this program, some of which may be observed via the official website.

Why the Viggen-like wing? 

The wing of Tejas is reminiscent of of the Swedish Viggen, a tactical fighter designed in the 1960s. Both wings have a inner section that sweeps back at a more shallow angle than the outer section – why has Tejas opted for this ‘Viggen-style’ wing?

This is what DelhiDefenceReview has to say about the Tejas planform , written in the context of an article about the Medium Weight Fighter (MWF):

“As mentioned earlier, MWF retains the main wing from MK1 with minor modifications. It has the same iconic double delta wing featuring lower sweep angle for the inboard section. In a pure delta wing, the LE vortex, which constitutes a large portion of the total lift, starts forming right from the apex, the point where the wing LE attaches with the fuselage. The lower sweep on the inboard section results in the wing LE vortex forming slightly downstream of the apex. This pushes the CoL slightly aft-ward and helps bring down the static instability to a manageable range. This wing configuration also allows the designers to have a significantly larger wing area for the same LE sweep angle, length of fuselage and static instability margin. Figure 14 shows the blue outline of a pure delta wing which would need to have its apex downstream to maintain the same level of instability. In addition, the leading edge portion of the inboard section is lifted up a bit to provide the required clearance between the air intakes and the lower surface of the wing.”

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Clearly this sort of thinking may have influenced the wing design for Viggen, but one must also bear in mind that Viggen was not designed as an unstable platform. Short take-off and landing (STOL) requirements were, I believe, a strong driver for Viggen, and the canard foreplane is important in this regard. The trailing edge flap on the Viggen provides a nose-up pitch control on rotation for STO which adds to aircraft lift. The alternative of using elevons only at the rear of the delta wing would reduce lift, resulting in a longer take-off run.

The article on Tejas suggests that the planform essentially allows a larger wing area for a given level of stability – again a useful property given STOL requirements for Viggen. However, one must also consider the canard, and particularly how its trailing vortices interact with the flow over the wing. This is likely to be a more complex aerodynamic situation than for Tejas.

You may be interested to read:

Interviews with IAF pilots of the following types: MiG-27, MiG-29, Su-30, Mirage 2000, India military aviation news and Tejas analysis.
— Jim Smith Sept 2019

Jim Smith had significant technical roles in the development of the UK’s leading military aviation programmes from ASRAAM and Nimrod, to the JSF and Eurofighter Typhoon. He was also Britain’s technical liaison to the British Embassy in Washington, covering several projects including the Advanced Tactical Fighter contest. His latest book is available here.