Well, this one has no spats but it does have a radial engine ...
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Interest in the Hawker
Harrier was expressed by the Swedish
Försvarsmakten which required a new fighter aircraft for the
Flygvapnet. For almost a decade, the Swedes had operated the Bristol
Bulldog Mk IIA as the
Flygvapnet's J 7. Attrition had taken its toll on the J 7 fleet but the biplane was also now entirely obsolete as a fighter aircraft. Negotiations were undertaken to secure a Swedish production license for the
Harrier monoplane. Glosters (through Hawkers) was to supply kits of major components for assembly by CVM - the
Flygvapnet workshops at Malmslätt.
To meet Swedish requirements, Gloster prepared a pattern aircraft for delivery. To that end, the remains of the original prototype
Harrier were rebuilt to take the specified radial engine - a Bristol
Mercury. (For production aircraft, the powerplant would be Swedish-licensed engines - 920 hp Nohab-built
Mercury XXIVs.) [1] The change in appearance was dramatic. The svelte lines of the RAF's
Kestrel-powered
Harrier were gone. In its place was a somewhat brutal-looking fighter where purposefulness was valued higher than attractive lines.
The revised prototype flew with a 840 hp Bristol
Mercury IX. To accommodate that radial engine, the cockpit was raised along with the upper fuselage decking. Other noticeable changes were in armament. At Swedish request, a fixed armament of four machine guns was fitted - two in the lower fuselage and two in the upper cowl, displacing the main fuel tank. These guns were all Swedish-supplied 6,5 mm Ksp m/22 FN-Brownings. An entirely new fuel tank was install below the raised pilot's seat with a second tank directly behind the cockpit. The aircraft was shipped to Sweden for trials but a
Flygvapnet pilot quickly wrote-off the prototype in a crash-landing at Linköping.
Bottom The Bristol
Mercury-powered Swedish '
Mercury-Harrier' as delivered. There were some issues with the factory-applied markings. First, the Swedish roundels were also meant to be applied to the underside of the wings. Second, the fin flash was an inappropriate marking (having become obsolete in May 1937). And, finally, the 'J 8' code should have been a
Flygvapnet-applied indivdual aircraft number.
"Förändring är en förutsättning för utveckling ..." [2]
The pace of progress was brisk in the 1930s and the
Försvarsmakten had come to see
Flygvapnet plans for a Hawker fighter already dated. Revisions were in order and higher performance was demanded. Changes would be made both to specified engine type and to armament. The quartet of rifle-calibre machine guns were to be replaced with heavier-calibre weapons - the 13,2 mm akan m/39A. This gun was another FN-Browning piece, however, the Swedish guns fired Hotchkiss 13,2 x 99 mm ammunition. [3] The British engine was to be replaced by a US-made Pratt & Whitney R-1830
Twin Wasp.
Throughout the Summer of 1939, Glosters shipped semi-finished
Harrier components by sea from Sharpness Dock to Gothenburg (Göteborgs hamn). With the outbreak of war in September 1939, Hucclecote informed the
Försvarsmakten that Glosters could provide no further assistance with their revised 'Swedish
Harrier' project. Realizing that the
Flygvapnet's CVM was becoming overwhelmed with war work (as well as being somewhat out of its depth), the Hawker fighter project was transferred from Malmslätt to the newly-formed Kungliga Flygförvaltningens Flygverkstad i Stockholm (FFVS) under Bo Lundberg. The latter had been tasked with developing an entirely new, domestic fighter design. But that would have to wait.
Ingenjör Lundberg - who had come from Sparmanns - and his team began their new task with a survey of Gloster-supplied parts. This this, the teams' design for cowling the Pratt & Whitney engine was adapted. [4] The closely-cowled '
Tvillinggeting' (
Twin Wasp) was less 'draggy' (having a diameter 3.5 inches less than the original Bristol
Mercury. However, the R-1830 also weighed almost 300 lbs more than the single-row
Mercury. To address airframe c/g, the engine bearers were shortened but it was concluded that balance would only be established by lengthening the fuselage. That was accomplished through the simple expedient of moving the vertical tailplane aft.
By the time that the first FFVS J8 was flown at Bromma - there was no prototype as such - the world had changed utterly. The German
Luftwaffe was now based on Sweden's borders with Denmark and Norway. Finland had fought its
Vinterkrig with the Soviet Union. Never had Swedes felt so vulnerable to outside aggression. That urgency was transferred to the
Interimistiska jaktplansprogram (IJP) as the revised
Harrier programme had been dubbed. The result was the FFVS J 8A armed with four 8 mm Ksp m/22 machine guns - these rifle-calibre weapons being immediately available for installation. [5]
In May 1940, J8As began to equip the fighter units of the newly-formed
Skånska Flygflottiljen (F 10) based at Bulltofta near Malmö. For the most part, flights were dispersed to more remote
flygbaser like Rinkaby. There, in the south, sovereignty patrols were the order of the day. Of the 18 FFVS J 8s completed, eight were J 8As, the remainder J 8Bs. All served with F 10 until displaced by domestically-designed FFVS J 22 fighters. The 14 survivors were then refurbished and rebuilt as J 8Cs - with a reduced armament of two 13,2 mm guns. Thence, the J 8Cs were re-assigned north with a new recce-fighter
flygeskadern of
Norrbottens flygflottilj (F 21). Northern operating conditions were harsh and, by May 1945, only six J 8Cs remained airworthy at Luleå.
Top FFVS J 8B of F10. Note extended fuselage and Swedish-design wooden tail fin. The enlarged, retractable tailwheel was also a local development.
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[1] The Nohab
Mercury XXIV - aka My S3 - was then entering production for ASJA-built Northrop B 5B light bombers.
[2] "Change is a prerequisite for development ..."
[3] The heavier-calibre FN-Browning gun was similar to those mounted in Belgian
Harriers. However, having no access to Avions Fairey, the FFVS team had to devise their own design of gun mounts.
[4] These
Twin Wasps were not the SFA STWC-3G '
Tvillinggeting' later built without a license. Rather, these engines were all ex-French 'war prize' booty purchased from Germany.
[5] It would not be until early 1941 that J 8Bs armed with the planned 13,2 mm FN-Brownings began arriving at combat squadrons.
