Where can I get a copy of Air Ministry Specification F.37/34?

[mhaselden]

I need a copy of the full Air Ministry Specification F.37/34 which ultimately resulted in the Supermarine Spitfire.  Anyone know where I might get a copy, preferably in PDF format, without having to visit the UK National Archives?

 

Any help greatly appreciated.

 

Many thanks,
Mark

[Ed Russell]

Maybe in here

 

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780851302201/British-Aircraft-Specifications-File-Meekoms-0851302203/plp

[SteveBrooking]

Mark I've got the Air Britain book and as far as I can tell the entry for F37/34 is not a verbatim copy of the Air Ministry document it is more a description of how the spec came to be written/issued...it seems essentially it was written by Supermarine. There is a copy of the spec in "Spitfire the history" by Morgan and Shacklady if you pm me an email address I'll send you a photograph.

[Work In Progress]

1 hour ago, SteveBrooking said:

it seems essentially it was written by Supermarine

Yes, F.37/34 did not result in the Spitfire because it was not the usual conception of a spec being an Air Ministry wish list which resulted in proposals for an aeroplane. In fact it was the other way round. The Spitfire design resulted in F.37/34, which was back-formed to describe the aeroplane that Supermarine were actually working on, in order to give it the necessary paperwork to pave the way for procurement. In the same way F.36/34 is a description back-formed from Hawker's Hurricane design.

 

If you want the spec that actually resulted in both those designs it's F.5/34, which caused Supermarine to do the first work on the design that become the Model 300. At that stage it was still a Goshawk-powered offering which the Air Ministry was not impressed by. The F.5/34 contenders which they liked enough to commission prototypes were the Bristol Type 146, Martin-Baker M.B.2, Vickers Type 279 Venom, and the un-named Gloster F.5/34 prototype which looked a bit like a monoplane Gladiator. Supermarine and Hawker did not win prototype contracts for their F.5/34 proposals, but both companies decided to continue design work on their respective machines using their own development investments.

 

Supermarine carried on doodling on the 300, and when they married it up to the PV.12 (origins of the Merlin) it started looking a lot better than anything required by F.5/34.  Similarly Hawker carried on with their own Interceptor Monoplane design. Eventually the Air Ministry realised that F.5/34 was an inadequately ambitious spec, presumably to the chagrin of those who'd won prototype contracts for it, as none of those types were ordered for production.  The AM effectively commissioned both the Spitfire and Hurricane directly rather than in competion with each other, or indeed with anything else.

 

Not the most elegant bit of military procurement, but it got the right results in the end. Which is better than a lot of military procurement.

Edited February 22, 2020 by Work In Progress

[mhaselden]

15 hours ago, Ed Russell said:

Maybe in here

 

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780851302201/British-Aircraft-Specifications-File-Meekoms-0851302203/plp

 

Thanks for the pointer, Ed.  

 

 

4 hours ago, SteveBrooking said:

Mark I've got the Air Britain book and as far as I can tell the entry for F37/34 is not a verbatim copy of the Air Ministry document it is more a description of how the spec came to be written/issued...it seems essentially it was written by Supermarine. There is a copy of the spec in "Spitfire the history" by Morgan and Shacklady if you pm me an email address I'll send you a photograph.

 

Thanks Steve.  Given that the book is 411 pages, I worried that it might simply be a precis of the specification, leaving out some critical details.  

 

I have the Morgan and Shacklady book but, alas, I put it into storage when we moved to Germany a year ago.  

Edited February 22, 2020 by mhaselden

[Graham Boak]

It isn't strictly correct that either the Spitfire or Hurricane stemmed for F5/34.  The both were initially supported as high speed fighter experimental aircraft,  following the failure of F7/30, with attention paid to a number of fighter specifications drawn up in this period.  It is perhaps better to describe some of these as Operational Requirements, but the term was not then in use.  A more relevant fighter specification/OR for the aircraft as they appeared was F10/36.

Edited February 22, 2020 by Graham Boak
Edit. This should be F.10/35, thank you Bob.

[mhaselden]

1 hour ago, Graham Boak said:

It isn't strictly correct that either the Spitfire or Hurricane stemmed for F5/34.  The both were initially supported as high speed fighter experimental aircraft,  following the failure of F7/30, with attention paid to a number of fighter specifications drawn up in this period.  It is perhaps better to describe some of these as Operational Requirements, but the term was not then in use.  A more relevant fighter specification/OR for the aircraft as they appeared was F10/36.

 

Hmmm....I can't find F.10/36 in the UKNA records search.  I can find F.7/30, F.5/34 and the specs for both the Hurricane and Spitfire.  The Wikipedia page on RAF aircraft specifications also doesn't list an F.10/36 - it does include a spec 10/36 but that relates to the Beaufort.  Any pointers to where I might find more details of F.10/36?

[Work In Progress]

1 hour ago, Graham Boak said:

It isn't strictly correct that either the Spitfire or Hurricane stemmed for F5/34.  The both were initially supported as high speed fighter experimental aircraft,  following the failure of F7/30, with attention paid to a number of fighter specifications drawn up in this period.  It is perhaps better to describe some of these as Operational Requirements, but the term was not then in use.  A more relevant fighter specification/OR for the aircraft as they appeared was F10/36.

Hard to see how "the spec that actually resulted in both those designs", which is the language I used, could have been anything/36 when the Hurricane first flew in 1935. The Goshawk-powered Supermarine 300 was a submission for F.5/34, and anyone would recognise it as a Spitfire once you plugged in a PV.12

[gingerbob]

F.10/35

[mhaselden]

10 minutes ago, gingerbob said:

F.10/35

 

Thanks....although it still doesn't show up in the UKNA search listings.  Perhaps it was included in the Spitfire specifications file.  

[Graham Boak]

Yes, F 10/35, sorry.  That does indeed make more sense.  I suggest that everyone interested in these developments should read Colin Sinnott's The RAF and Aircraft Design 1923-1939, which makes much clear the involved history of the Spitfire and Hurricane, and the comparative unimportance of F5/34 to either.  It is worth asking that if a recognisable Spitfire was credited to F5/34, why it was that two different (and much lesser types) were actually selected.  The Hurricane did not feature at all in F.5/34 but was a completely separate study beginning in a Hawker internal study of monoplane vs biplane against the Fury requirement.

Edited February 22, 2020 by Graham Boak

[Work In Progress]

52 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

 It is worth asking that if a recognisable Spitfire was credited to F5/34, why it was that two different (and much lesser types) were actually selected. 

It is indeed, but that does not alter the historical fact.

Military procurement is often perverse. That said, the Spitfire with a Goshawk would not been enough of an advance over the actually available Gladiator - and neither would any of the F.5/34 contenders, which is why none of them went into production. The Gloster one was probably the best of the litter, and with an 840 hp Mercury would probably have out-performed a Goshawk Spitfire, but such was the rate of progress towards the 1000 hp engine that I think it was probably the right decision to skip that generation, jumping straight to the Hurricane and Spitfire.  The Air Ministry at the time was firmly of the opinion that 300+ mph medium and heavy bombers were about to become commonplace, so 275-300 mph fighters (F.5/34) were expected to be obsolete before entering service, and they may as well stick with the Gladiator until a 325-350 mph fighter was available to replace it.

Edited February 22, 2020 by Work In Progress