In addition to better engines one positive change to the Cutlass that would have significant benefit would be to reconfigure the wing for better and more effective high lift/high drag devices, like Fowler flaps, or a variable incidence wing or the like. The position of the cockpit and the inability to increase the nose length or radome size all harken back to the long nose wheel strut needed to increase the angle of attack to allow take offs and landings are reasonable speeds. Additional engine power doesn't affect that, you need to get the drag up while also increasing lift to get the airspeed down to acceptable carrier values.
Possibly modern carrier landing speeds are now higher, obviating the need for the long struts or extreme lift/drag devices, which would be good for this planform.
If you could get the nose down to something approaching that of other aircraft of the period, then you have a lot of scope to ad d a longer nose, bigger radome, more fuel, second crewman, etc. But it all comes back to the wing and the landing speed.
By all accounts, once you got the thing in the air and if you could keep it together long enough, the Cutlass was a really good fighter with great roll rates (i.e. turning performance) and being a steady gun/bomb platform.
A strike version based on a better nose, two crew, more fuel and possibly higher thrust, yet dry (non-afterburning) turbofan engines (like the Spey) carrying a pile of bombs could be a very competitive aircraft through the 60s and 70s.
Paul
