Design and Development
The Type 322 was designed by Supermarine to meet a 1937 requirement (Specification S.24/37) for a replacement for the British Royal Navy's Fairey Albacore biplane (even though the Albacore was yet to fly, with orders placed both with Supermarine and with Fairey Aviation. Supermarine's design was a high-wing monoplane, originally intended to be powered by the Rolls-Royce Exe engine, which unusually, featured a variable-incidence wing, first demonstrated on the French Paul Scmitt biplane at the Paris Airshow in 1913.
Variable incidence allowed the fuselage to be kept at the optimum angle for good visibility whilst maintaining lift – particularly useful for a carrier-borne aircraft and with tail-wheel undercarriage. The incidence could be varied between 2 degrees when the flap setting was neutral, to 16 degrees when the flaps were lowered to 60 degrees. The lift coefficient with the wing at this setting was 3.9 (double that of conventional and contemporary aircraft), giving a stalling speed of 57 knots. Since it was intended for carrier use, the wing also folded – a remarkable technical achievement in view of the small increase in structural weight involved. The undercarriage was a fixed tailwheel type to save complexity. It would have been very challenging to retract the landing gear into the wings. It was primarily of wooden construction, in common with the Albemarle troop transport since, when it was being built, there was a danger of light alloy being in short supply. The Exe was cancelled in 1938, and the Rolls-Royce Merlin was substituted in the design.
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