Monday 6 June 2016

Armstrong Whitworth Meteor unbuilt variants & Armstrong Whitworth A.W.58

Today we post about various Armstrong Whitworth projects which never materialized, and therefore we haven't drawn them since there aren't even line drawings of them. Here they are:


  • Armstrong Whitworth A.W.60: Meteor NF.11 powered by Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphires engines.
  • Armstrong Whitworth A.W.61: Meteor NF.11 powered by Rolls-Royce Nenes engines.
  • Armstrong Whitworth A.W.62: Meteor NF.11 powered by de Havilland Goblins engines.
  • Armstrong Whitworth A.W.63: Meteor NF.11 equipped with the American APQ-43 radar.
  • Armstrong Whitworth A.W.64: Meteor NF.11 with staggered side-by-side seats.
And now about the Armstrong Whitworth AW.58. This project appeared at first in November 1948 to cope with a contract for the MoS that was drawn with a 60º swept wing and an all-moving variable incidence tail-mounted high on the fin.
As it was requested also to have fighter capabilities, inside the nose intake there was also going to be a housing to fit a radar scanner while the guns were expected to be in the wing roots where also space was allocated to fit ammunition boxes. It was expected to have an undercarriage retractable into the fuselage and the fuel capacity was going to be of 217gal. (986 litres). Apparently another version powered by two jet engines was rejected by Armstrong Whitworth before it was submitted to the MoS. 
Due to some design and specification problems made Armstrong Whitworth to reconsider the designs and, on 1950 the A.W.58 design was redrawn again to turn it into a delta winged, T-winged more solid design with the wing placed high on the fuselage with a fuel capacity of 340gal (1546 litres). 
It was expected that this new design could achieve mach 1.1 speed at 36000ft (10973m) high. However, it was considered that Fairey's design was better, and these designs were discarded in favour of the also failed Fairey-Delta III.










Sources:
1. Hall Park Books - Warpaint Series 22 - Gloster Meteor
2. Midland Publishing - British Secret Projects - Jet Fighters since 1950

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