Drifting through the correspondence file, which had been placed at the
bottom of the Tiger's cage.

In article ,
(The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) writes:
On 2 Sep 2003 21:09:04 -0700, (Guy alcala) wrote:

The only effort to do this that I can see came with the
"super-Stirling" using Centaurus engines mooted by Shorts in 1941.
The Centaurus wasn't going to appear in adequate numbers in time to
have an impact on Stirling usage in the real world, meanwhile in
1941-42 the MAP and AM were unhappy with Short's chronic failure to
meet existing Sitrling production targets. Any new type or equipment
change which would further hinder production seems to have been
dismissed out of hand, although that's conjecture on my part in the
absence of hard evidence.

Green says they were supposed to get new wings of 135 ft.(!) span.

And the Wellington was upgraded to become the Warwick.... Have you
seen the thickness of the Stirling's existing wing? Even moving the
tips out for greater wing area is going to leave it struggling with
poor engine output at altitude and serious airframe weight issues.
No, what you really wanted was improved engines and extended wings,
with the emphasis on the former. Yes, that's right, Sabre-engined
Stirlings blackening the sky with their trails of carbonised oil and
ingested engine components [delusional ranting edited by men in white
coats]

A couple of points - the Warwick has always struck me as one of those
"It's nice, but why?" airplanes. It really didn't do anything that
other airplanes did better. By the time it came off the line, the
RAF's Medium bombers were teh B-25 and B-26, (Excuse me, Mitchell and
Marauder) except in those parts of teh world where the Wellington was
still viable. The Oceam Patrol stull has being handled by the
Catalina, the Sunderland, the Liberator, the Fortress, and the
U.S. Navy's patrol forces. So why all the effort? Was it an
Industrial Policy Effort to keep Vicker's Geodesic Structures skill
up to par, in case there was an urgent need to rebuild the R-100?

As for the Stirlig's wing thickness. It's not all that bad, really.
It's just, lke the B-24 and the Davis Wing, that they stuck it onto
that godawful fuselage. (Which ended up being mainly empty space,
anyway.) It's not like Critical Mach Number improvement is going to be
high on the list of Stirling Improvements. As for teh altitude
perfomance of the Hercules, in the VI and XVI models, they really
weren't all that different than the corresponding Merlin XX-24 series,
epsecially in terms of cruise power.

Sabre engined Stirling? If you're not careful, MI-? shall be visiting
you, sir, to see why you'd wish to damage the War Effort so.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster