by "ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
Published 09/06/2017 at 12:35
by "ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
Published 09/06/2017 at 12:35
Tags: wingspan
; Planelopnik
; planes you've (probably) never heard of
STARS: 11
From the Planes You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of Department of Wingspan , we bring you the Saunders Roe SR.53 .
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
Strategic bombing got its baptism by fire in the First World War, and in 1932, British politician and eventual three-time Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made a speech to the British Parliament in which he famously said, “The bomber will always get through.” In the Second World War, strategic bombing was used to level entire cities and kill tens of thousands of non-combatants, demonstrating that yes, the bombers always got through, but often at a heavy cost to the bombers and their crews. The doctrines of strategic bombing changed little when the world entered the Nuclear Age in 1945, but, with the advent of the nuclear bomb, only a single bomber need get through to devastate a city. Stopping these bombers—all of them—became a paramount concern in the era before antiaircraft missiles. But to stop the bombers, you had to get them before they could loose their weapon. And to do that, you needed a very fast interceptor.
During WWII, the Germans experimented with rocket-powered interceptors such as the Messerschmitt Me-163 Komet . This stubby rocket plane could fly faster than any fighter, but once its fuel was spent it became a defenseless glider. The solution to this problem was the development of mixed propulsion interceptors, where a rocket motor would power the jet for takeoff and rapid climb while a jet engine would bring the interceptor home. Saunders Roe was a company that had made a name for itself by building flying boats, but had also been carrying out research into high altitude, high speed flight. In the Spring of 1951, they proposed the SR.53, an interceptor that boasted both a rocket motor and a turbojet engine.
The SR.53 was an advanced design, with delta wings and a T-tail outfitted with a moving tailplane, or
stabilator
, for control during transonic flight. It was powered by an
Armstrong Siddeley Viper
turbojet fed by small air intakes behind the cockpit for traditional flight, and a
de Havilland Spectre
liquid-fueled rocket engine with two exhaust nozzles placed below the jet exhaust. Saunders Roe predicted that the rocket could propel the SR.53 to speeds above Mach 2 to an altitude of 67,000 feet, and it could reach 50,000 feet in just over 2 minutes. It would be armed with two
de Havilland Firestreak
heat-seeking missiles on the wingtips, but no internal guns. The Air Ministry ordered three prototypes, and the first, XD145, took its maiden flight on May 16, 1957, followed by the second prototype, XD151, seven months later.
By all accounts the SR.53 was a solid aircraft, and pilots reported favorably on its flying characteristics, calling it “an extremely docile and exceedingly pleasant aircraft to fly, with very well harmonized controls.” Saunders Roe felt good enough about the design to propose a much larger and more capable interceptor, the SR.177, but history was not on the side of Saunders Roe. The maiden flight of the SR.53 came just one month after the publication of the 1957 Defence White Paper which called for the abandonment of British efforts to develop high-speed interceptors in light of the advent of antiaircraft missiles and improved long-range radars (the English Electric Lightning would be the last British interceptor of its kind). Development of jet engine technology had also led to the afterburner, or reheater as the British called it, meaning that rocket engines were no longer required to quickly intercept incoming bombers.
In light of these technological advances and the controversial changes in defense doctrine, the SR.53 was canceled in July 1960, and work on the third prototype was halted. By this time, a fatal crash had claimed the second prototype, and the sole remaining SR.53 was shelved and now resides at the Royal Air Force Museum Gosford. The SR.53 was the last fixed wing aircraft to be built by Saunders Roe, and the company became defunct in 1964 when it merged with
Westland Aircraft
.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
If you enjoy these posts, please join in the conversation and let me know. If you missed an episode, you can find them all at
Wingspan
. Other aircraft also-rans can be found at
Planes You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of
.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
"415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°)" (415s30)
09/06/2017 at 13:03, STARS: 1
Huh, it’s like an under over rifle.
"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
09/06/2017 at 13:06, STARS: 3
Pretty much, except one barrel is a .30-06 while the other is a blunderbuss.
"Jcarr" (jcarr)
09/06/2017 at 13:35, STARS: 2
Glad there are plenty of SR20s of the SR.53.
"Kiltedpadre" (kiltedpadre)
09/06/2017 at 14:24, STARS: 2
Something like this.
"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
09/06/2017 at 14:41, STARS: 0
Exactly.
"Chariotoflove" (chariotoflove)
09/06/2017 at 16:12, STARS: 0
At first glance, you would think such a well designed jet plane could have been adapted to jet-only power and marketed that way. I must be missing something.
"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
09/06/2017 at 16:28, STARS: 2
Jets at the time just didn’t have the grunt that they felt they needed to intercept the nuclear bombers. Hence the need for rocket power. Afterburners solved that problem, which is why we don’t see rockets today.
"Chariotoflove" (chariotoflove)
09/06/2017 at 16:46, STARS: 0
I got that part. I just keyed in on the quote that it was “an extremely docile and exceedingly pleasant aircraft to fly, with very well harmonized controls.” It seems to me that such a plane with all that development put into it could find a new purpose with adaption to all jet power or perhaps be upgraded to an after burning jet, since that was one of the stated reasons it became obsolete before production. Maybe the company just didn’t have the resources to shift directions or do further development. Just my idle thoughts on a cool plane.
"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
09/06/2017 at 17:04, STARS: 4
I think it if were up to Saunders Roe, they would have continued with it. The problem was the shifting priorities of the people with the money. They decided that interceptors were no longer needed, and the English Electric Lightning was the last full blown fighter/interceptor the English developed, and they’ve been buying from us ever since. There was a lot going on in the 50s, and tech was developing faster than they could build aircraft to match it. Aircraft that were cutting edge in 1950 were considered obsolete by 1955, whether they actually were or not And in hindsight, a lot of the decisions were shortsighted, such as not putting a gun on the F-4 and instead relying entirely on missiles since it was believed that guns would be obsolete. Korea and Vietnam proved the fallacy of that belief, and fighters have had guns ever since. Still, I’ve never understood how governments abandon aircraft that have already had so much time and money invested in them. The Avro Canada Arrow is the textbook example, with the B-1A a close second. The Arrow would have kicked ass, at least for a relatively short time, but it was canceled in favor of—American aircraft. What I find interesting is how, in many ways, we’ve kind of reached peak tech. The only real advance made recently is stealth, and the F-16s that we fly now were introduced in the 1970s, though the latest ones are considerably more powerful today, at least in electronics. I guess the final frontier the F-35 is nearing is the wholly integrated battlefield, where one aircraft takes the place of two or three.