Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "The Gloster F.5/34: Almost the British Zero?" video.

  1. The Gloster F.5/34 seems quite obviously to be more suitable to adapt into carrier use than the Spitfire was. But of course, the RAF didn't particularly care about Royal Navy needs, and the Fleet Air Arm was under their thumb until May 1939. By which point Gloster's fighter had already been rejected and the two prototypes relegated to instructional airframes.
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  2. The 2nd F.5/34 prototype did have the 8 machine guns installed. And the real missed opportunity with the F.5/34 was not as an alternative to the Hurricane and Spitfire, but as an alternative to the Sea Gladiator. The Sea Gladiator wasn't ordered until 1938, 2 years after the F.5/34 first flew. If those 2 years had been spent instead navalizing the F.5/34 and converting the Gladiator production line to build it, the Fleet Air Arm could've had a modern monoplane fighter going into WW2 instead of a fixed landing gear biplane.
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  3.  @timonsolus  In fact, skip the Sea Gladiator, which wasn't even ordered until 1938. The F.5/34 prototype first flew in 1936. As for an engine upgrade? The P&W R-1830 Twin Wasp would work well if it was available in sufficient numbers.
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