Plane wrong

You see, I don’t think he was right, that Tim Harford. But as he’s a journalist for the FT and BBC, I’d better set my case out.

In a talk about great leaps of genius versus smaller incremental tippy-toe steps, he mentioned the Spitfire as one example of mould-breaking innovation. What would have become of us, ran the subtext, if it hadn’t been for the inventor of the chariots of Spitfire? Thank goodness they had the cleverness and daring to come up with something out of the blue that could fly straight back into the blue and fight the Hun.

Well, no. The Spitfire, to my understanding, was a series of progressions starting with the Supermarine S-series seaplanes of the 1930s. Rich sponsors provided the cash, and Supermarine provided the experts. Together, they won a series of aerial races that were the equivalent of the America Cup – but instead of hugely expensive J-Class yachts, the protagonists piloted hugely expensive single-seater seaplanes.

And come the gathering storm of fascism and lebensraum, the push to re-arm saw the seaplane boys become fighter men. Supermarine responded to an Air Ministry contract with a military development of the prize-winning seaplane, stripped of its floats and loaded with machine guns. The stability and speed originally developed to win the Schneider Trophy were now harnessed to provide a gun platform to match Germany’s best. R J Mitchell had designed a winner.

The Mark I Spitfire soon led to the Mark II, Mark III and many others – up to 24 different versions all told. Marginal refinements to air intakes, exhaust stub alignment, radiator design and other parts each gained a few miles per hour of airspeed – critical when trying to catch or outrun an enemy pilot set on killing you.

There was the odd huge step. Sir Stanley Hooker realised the need for a supercharger and then designed a brilliant retrofit. This alone gained around 25mph, and saved the life of many an Allied airman. Moving to fuel injection from carburetion stopped fuel starvation in tight turns, and was another major improvement.

So there was never a single stroke of genius, so far as I can see. Instead, an unbroken line of an adjustment here, a small tweak there, led to a highly-advanced fighting machine. Brilliant work, but not a single leap.

But look to the night skies, and therein lies the great leap forward – in the shape of a lumbering bomber. The Lancaster was true genius. Of all the thousands built, the vast majority were the Mark I. Yes, that’s right. The very first production version was fine just as it was.

Of course, there were countless changes to internal equipment. Radar came, guns got bigger, navigation devices arrived and automatic bomb-sights decided when to do the deed. But the airframe and engines were pretty much the same at the end as at the beginning.

Who was the hand behind this? – Roy Chadwick, that’s who. Perhaps the most overlooked man of the Second War, he was the chief designer for A V Roe. He designed many aeroplanes for civilian and military use, and one of the worst was the Manchester. A twin-engined plane, it was powered by an unreliable engine – the Kestrel was literally a pair of V-12 engines bolted together, and it didn’t work. Lose one out of two engines and you’d very often crash and burn. A bad plane, feared more by its crews than by the enemy.

But faced with disaster, Chadwick just stretched the wings a tad, tucked in an extra engine on each wing and changed from an X-24 to a V-12 – the famous Rolls-Royce Merlin. Powerful and reliable, it was the muscle behind this new bastardised creation, which was christened the ‘Lancaster’ by Avro.

Some people said it was as though Chadwick knew the Manchester wasn’t going to work, and made allowance for the changes right from the beginning. Well, maybe he did…

But whatever the truth, the Lancaster was just right – it worked, it flew well, it got people there and back. The delivery girls didn’t like it because if was boring to fly. The aircrew loved it because it looked after them. German civilians feared it because it killed them in their thousands. That’s just how it was.

About the only development of the Lancaster was the version that had Hercules engines fitted – and then only because they couldn’t make enough Merlins. Some crews said the rotary Hercules were better, some didn’t. Either way, it didn’t turn a dog into a star.

Tim, I think you were right about allowing people to make huge mistakes in the search for the truly inspirational piece of advancement. And I also think the steady trudge toward perfection is important. But I do think you fingered the wrong suspect in your talk. Hope you don’t mind anorak criticism!

Comments

[Mark Ogilvie]

I dropped Tim an email highlighting this post, and he kindly replied - here's his response in full:

"Thanks Mark - very kind of you to write such a detailed commentary.

I can't argue with your facts but I do defend my interpretation. 

The S-class planes were denounced by the air ministry as "freaks"; the government pulled funding and Lady Houston needed to step in as a philanthropist. 
Then and the request for prototypes that led to the Spitfire being commissioned by Henry Cave-Browne-Cave was definitely a long shot, as the received wisdom at the time was
a) No point in fighter aircraft
b) If you were going to build a fighter aircraft, it should certainly be a 2-seater.

Churchill himself denounced the Spitfire in parliament!

So I think it was a huge long-shot in the sense that it was regarded as a useless technology, unpopular with both bureacrats and politicians, and yet it was commissioned anyway because Cave-Browne-Cave had imagination and balls of steel...

(Much more about this in my book "Adapt".)

Cheers!
Tim"