Dreamstar 3 Posted June 2, 2009 ive been thinking... What ifs WW2 RAF Style has anyone made a Boulton Paul Defiant? been thinking of makin a ground attack version.... Different Engine ( Maybe a Griffon or Napier Sabre ) and a Typhoon style wing, actually having forward firing armament, while retaining the turret, allowing for 2 gun runs per pass, or a AC-130 style circle gun run pattern... it would allow for higher speed ( somewhere around the Spitfire IX even with the drag of the turret ) and it would overcome the Defiant's achillies heel of no forward firing armament Just a thought Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wrench 9,421 Posted June 2, 2009 Veltro was working on a Defiant, before his injury (and about 8 or 12 dozen other aircraft.... ) when doing the research for the hangar screen, and downloading a few book (most notable is the Warpaint), it says the turret could be turned all the way forward, but iirc some problem with the inturreputer mechanism, and loosing props opps! I don't think there was 'room to grow' in the wings for adding other weapons, even 303s. Underwing pods ala Hurric 2d (?c?) would degrade the performace even further. And by the time the Napier Sabre was finalized, the Defiant's day was loooong over, to say nothing of the major redesigns needed to shove that engine in (although that didn't seem to stop the IJN from doing something similiar to the Judy and more important, IJAAF to the Ki-61, turning it into the Ki-100) wrench kevin stein Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dreamstar 3 Posted June 2, 2009 I just think it woulda been fun.... totally from a "what if" perspective.... and the Sabre was in development at the time cos the Typhoon was almost at the prototype stage when the defiant was withdrawn.... so theoretically it could happen.... granted a re-design would have been in order, thats why i thought Griffon too...... cos personally ( and i accept that it might be just me that thinks it ) i think the Defiant had the makings of a superb ground attack aircraft Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Shaolin 0 Posted June 2, 2009 Yeah, "what if" is funny! But with the Defiant - a big NO! That plane is like the creepy, ugly brother of the Hurricane! :crutch00: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
