Fairey Albacore Specification S.4/36 Monoplane.
Based upon a design rejected by the Air Ministry.

It was in 1936 when the Air Ministry place a specification which resulted in the Fairey Albacore, however, when Fairey delivered their design for the Albacore, they in fact submitted two sets of designs, one was the biplane which was produced and delivered to the Fleet Air Arm, the second design which was rejected by the Air Ministry was of a monoplane variant of the Albacore.

It would be really interesting to see exactly what it would have looked like, especially in comparison to my own pictures of a monoplane variant of the Albacore that I edited in Windows Paint from a picture that I found on the Shipbucket database, and by using common sense I came up with a "possible design".

If not a definite design form then I would be interested in knowing just how close my vision of such a plane comes to the initial monoplane designs, and I do intend to build such a model from two model kits of the Albacore and Fulmar just as soon as I can get my hands on one of each.

Considering the circumstances of the times and the need to save materials and funds then Fairey would have probably reused as many parts from other planes so as not to waste time making new jigs which would use up extra materials and funds when jigs already exist for other planes in production.

Looking at the other Fairey aircraft of the time I could only see the Fulmar as using wings that were suitable for use on the Albacore being a low wing design and so I replaced the biplane wings with the single wing of the Fulmar along with the undercarriage of the Fulmar and it looks very much like a Nakajima B5N "Kate", but the engine looks tiny in comparison, and so I made a duplicate image with a larger power plant which would have required a larger propeller, and so bigger undercarriage and arrestor hook.

I then went and edited again for a third variant which was a single seat model with a tear drop/bubble canopy, I think on paper albeit digitally speaking, the imagination can look upon the monoplane designs quite favourably, and although it would have possibly have been much better than the biplane in my opinion, and in my opinion I believe that it probably would still have been a poor performer but still a better performer than the biplane version that was produced.

I said the comparison with the Nakajima B5N Kate, but with the bubble canopy as a single seater it looks more like a Mitsubishi A6M Zero although possibly larger and heavier and so wouldn't perform like a Zero, however, compared to the Kate the Albacore without the engine upgrade had more power than the Kate with an equivalent wingspan to the Fulmar which would give the Albacore monoplane a power advantage of 130+ hp over the Kate, with a larger more powerful engine than the Kate I believe that the power advantage would greatly increase, and if you remove the weight of the torpedo from the equation then we are looking at an even greater increase in power.

As stated above, I do have a picture that I adapted from picture that was submitted to the Shipbucket database, and on this picture I have included the original biplane design, I guess I shall call it the "V. I" for "Version I" whilst also including five variants of the monoplane.

Of the monoplane variants:-
V. Ib shares the same engine as the biplane version, however it has the wings and the undercarriage of the Fairey Fulmer Mk. I.

V. II has a much larger engine than the V. I but is identical to V. I in all other ways.

V. III has the larger engine of V. II however it does differ in design with it having been converted into single seat aircraft with a bubble canopy.

V. IV is identical to V. II in all ways with the exception to the entire tail section which for V. IV has been replaced with the tail section from the Fairey Fulmer.

V. V is identical to the V. III in all ways in that it is a single seat version of V. II with the addition of a bubble canopy but with the exception of the entire tail section which for V. IV has been replaced with the tail section from the Fairey Fulmer.

The decision to use the tail section of the Fairey Fulmer on V. IV and V. V was made with the consideration of possible war time hardships in mind with the need to save on time, effort, costs and materials, and sharing parts between two different planes kind of makes sense, however both designs are present in my designs so that others can decide which they personally believe would be the most probable design to fit the needs and requirements of the time and circumstances.

I believe that at the time Fairey would quite possibly have been under constraints with the impending war, and I also believe that Fairey would have considered making savings in all areas of design, research, tooling and production by sharing parts between models which they would have produced, savings which were not made with the placing of orders for a variant of the Albacore (in the biplane variant) for which shared parts were not compatible to use on two different models of production aircraft.

For the proposed project at hand, two kits would be needed, the two kits would be:-
Fairey Albacore Mk I - Trumpeter | No. 02880 | 1:48.
Fairey Fulmar Mk I - Trumpeter | No. 05822 | 1:48.
or,
Fairey Fulmar Mk II - Trumpeter | No. 05823 | 1:48.