More RAF firsts

[AndyDT]

Apparently The English Electric lightning, an interceptor from the 1950s is faster than the latest USAF F-22 and it was the first craft to achieve supercruising:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise

What's more the Lightning was faster than the F22 and the Eurofighter, supposedly the two best aircraft on the planet and TSR-2 from the 1960s could supercruise. This was abandoned for no other reasons than cost and pioneered the swing wing design that the Americans allegedly copied:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsgIcURRN7M&feature=related

Also, allegeldly, the Lightning intercepted a U2 craft at 90,000ft and the Americans thought it was a UFO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLMhdUYUQQg&feature=related

What an awesome piece of technology. When is the UK going to stop fantasising about getting in bed with the Europeans and start excelling in the world-beating technology it can do with ease.

[Perpetual Change]

I don't see what this has to do with politics (other than the last-minute lamentation about the UK getting "in bed" with the rest of the world), but that stuff seems pretty cool.

[AndyDT]

I'd have said cancellations are politics.

[Perpetual Change]

But do you think the high-tech gadgets made the Bond movies better?

[yorost]

Your speed comparisons to the F22 are worthless.  Many jet models surpass them in speed, as do many surpass the English Electric Lightning.  The reputation of F22's and others are not built on speed, whereas the Lighting's reputation is almost entirely built on speed.

Also, allegeldly, the Lightning intercepted a U2 craft at 90,000ft and the Americans thought it was a UFO.

The Lighting would have a near impossible time controlling itself at that altitude.  If it happened, the U2 was flying at lower levels where the Lighting can operate without tumbling out of control.  Romantic hearsay tales don't make true stories.

[AndyDT]

Your speed comparisons to the F22 are worthless.  Many jet models surpass them in speed, as do many surpass the English Electric Lightning.  The reputation of F22's and others are not built on speed, whereas the Lighting's reputation is almost entirely built on speed.

Which surpass the lightning? The SR-71 Blackbird?

Also, allegeldly, the Lightning intercepted a U2 craft at 90,000ft and the Americans thought it was a UFO.

The Lighting would have a near impossible time controlling itself at that altitude.  If it happened, the U2 was flying at lower levels where the Lighting can operate without tumbling out of control.  Romantic hearsay tales don't make true stories.

The Lightning was the first aircraft to supercruise. And I think the TSR2 was the first to have the swing wing.

It flew from 1959 until well into the 80's and set (and still holds) a number of speed records. Its climb rate was 50,000 feet per minute, which is still unrivalled. It was known to have reached 88,000 feet and is rumoured to have intercepted a U2 spyplane.

[https://www.squidoo.com/English_Electric_Lightning]


The TSR2 seemed likely to have been better:

Flight 14 was XR219's trip to Warton, during which it went supersonic for the first and only time. TSR2's performance was shown to good effect on this flight; when Beamont engaged reheat on a single engine, the chase aircraft (a Lightning T.5, a Mach 2 aircraft and certainly no slouch) was initially left behind despite engaging reheat on both of its engines!

[https://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/tsr2/history.php]

I once read it would have been the best strike fighter until the period of the first Gulf War, 25 years later. The Tornado - a European consortium aircraft - and Concorde - an Anglo-French project - used many of the designs from the TSR2. That's how advanced it was.

[yorost]

Yes, of course the Blackbird was much faster than the Lightning, but numerous MiG models and F series reach higher speeds, too.  The F22 is definitely not the fastest out of the F series, it was just a much different concept to begin with.

[rumborak]

You know Andy, you're really denigrating your own country with these threads. The only impression one gets is that the UK is a country of missed opportunities.

rumborak

[Perpetual Change]

The Lighting would have a near impossible time controlling itself at that altitude.  If it happened, the U2 was flying at lower levels where the Lighting can operate without tumbling out of control.  Romantic hearsay tales don't make true stories.

Well, there goes my experiment with taking an Andy thread seriously 

[ddtonfire]

You know Andy, you're really denigrating your own country with these threads. The only impression one gets is that the UK is a country of missed opportunities.

rumborak

I was thinking the same thing. Brilliant engineers, incompetent politicians.

[AndyDT]

You know Andy, you're really denigrating your own country with these threads. The only impression one gets is that the UK is a country of missed opportunities.

rumborak

I'm trying to point out the lack of vision of politicians. One setback leads to a lack of confidence whereas this wasn't always so (e.g. laying the first transatlantic telegraph cables, railways and steam power). Examples since the beginning of the 20th century however tell a different story:

- the first computers (Charles Babbage etc): Royal Navy couldn't see the advantage
- Frank Whittle's jet engine: funds pulled from project
- the Comet: the worlds first passenger jet airliner, one crash and industry collapsed
- the Miles 52 project: project abandoned and the Americans ran with the technology to break the sound barrier
- TSR2: funds pulled from project in favour of poorer American aircraft which in any case wasn't bought
- Blue Streak ICBM: abandoned in favour of American Polaris and technology passed onto Europeans eventually to be used in Ariane
- Black Arrow: third or forth country to successful launch a satellite and funds pulled from project
because politicians thought there was no market for satellites
- HOTOL: funding pulled
- Concorde: world's first supersonic passenger jet airliner; one and only crash - in France - and confidence is lost completely and we're told that the European Airbus is the future
- Virgin Galactic: can't currently launch from the UK
- Skylon:

Request for funding from the British government was undertaken in 2000, with a proposal that could have offered a large potential return on investment. The request was not taken up on at that time. Subsequent discussions with the British National Space Centre led to agreement in 2009 on a co-funding agreement between BNSC, ESA and REL to continue technology development for the SABRE engine.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_Skylon#Economics_and_political_will

The first firm results from the Reaction Engines trade mission to the USA (as reported last month) came in February with the placing of a small study contract with the Physical Science Laboratory at the New Mexico State University. NMSU will be undertaking a preliminary evaluation of the requirements that SKYLON D1 will need to meet for safe autonomous flight based on their extensive heritage with unmanned flight vehicles, their expert knowledge of the US National Airspace System, and their expertise and experience in the Global Airspace System. https://www.rocketeers.co.uk/node/879

I'd predict the US DoD will monitor this very closely, run with anything useful then sell it back to us if we're lucky.

[Dr. SeaWolf]

What an awesome piece of technology. When is the UK going to stop fantasising about getting in bed with the Europeans and start excelling in the world-beating technology it can do with ease.

I fail to see how the two things have anything to do with each other.

[rumborak]

I would say it's, if at all, the other way around.
In the end, it almost always comes down to money. How much money can a given country dump into an effort before they give up?
The UK, if they want to go it alone, is going to have a much shorter breath than say the US. Just looking at the GDPs, the UK's is a 1/7th of that of the US. So, the UK has two options: Either do stuff alone and run the danger of always lagging behind because the funds are simply not there, or continue to contribute into European cooperations like the ESA that can actually make a mark.

That is not to say the UK shouldn't have its own endeavors. But Andy's point continuously seems to be to detach from everything Europe-related. What that would mean in the long run though is that the UK would become a second-tier country in advanced science.

rumborak

[AndyDT]

What an awesome piece of technology. When is the UK going to stop fantasising about getting in bed with the Europeans and start excelling in the world-beating technology it can do with ease.

I fail to see how the two things have anything to do with each other.

The Lightning was British designed and produced, so was the TSR. The Tornado was fairly unspectacular and a European consortium. Blue streak and Black Arrow were British designs that worked, the European effort at satellite launching was initially a failure.

I would say it's, if at all, the other way around.
In the end, it almost always comes down to money. How much money can a given country dump into an effort before they give up?
The UK, if they want to go it alone, is going to have a much shorter breath than say the US. Just looking at the GDPs, the UK's is a 1/7th of that of the US. So, the UK has two options: Either do stuff alone and run the danger of always lagging behind because the funds are simply not there, or continue to contribute into European cooperations like the ESA that can actually make a mark.

That is not to say the UK shouldn't have its own endeavors. But Andy's point continuously seems to be to detach from everything Europe-related. What that would mean in the long run though is that the UK would become a second-tier country in advanced science.

rumborak

The UK can keep up with the US without economic parity, it's shown that in areas like nuclear weapons, nuclear power, jet aircraft in the past and

The space industry in the UK currently contributes £6.5 billion a year to the UK economy and is second only to the USA in space science.

https://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/detail.aspx?NewsAreaId=2&ReleaseID=413555&SubjectId=2

The Typhoon which the Luftwaffe is buying is over-budget and years overdue. So much for European projects.

[Adami]

Andy, England would crumble up and die in isolation.

[El Barto]

You know Andy, you're really denigrating your own country with these threads. The only impression one gets is that the UK is a country of missed opportunities.

rumborak

I'm trying to point out the lack of vision of politicians. One setback leads to a lack of confidence whereas this wasn't always so (e.g. laying the first transatlantic telegraph cables, railways and steam power). Examples since the beginning of the 20th century however tell a different story:

- the first computers (Charles Babbage etc): Royal Navy couldn't see the advantage
- Frank Whittle's jet engine: funds pulled from project
- the Comet: the worlds first passenger jet airliner, one crash and industry collapsed
- the Miles 52 project: project abandoned and the Americans ran with the technology to break the sound barrier
- TSR2: funds pulled from project in favour of poorer American aircraft which in any case wasn't bought
- Blue Streak ICBM: abandoned in favour of American Polaris and technology passed onto Europeans eventually to be used in Ariane
- Black Arrow: third or forth country to successful launch a satellite and funds pulled from project
because politicians thought there was no market for satellites
- HOTOL: funding pulled
- Concorde: world's first supersonic passenger jet airliner; one and only crash - in France - and confidence is lost completely and we're told that the European Airbus is the future
- Virgin Galactic: can't currently launch from the UK
- Skylon:

Request for funding from the British government was undertaken in 2000, with a proposal that could have offered a large potential return on investment. The request was not taken up on at that time. Subsequent discussions with the British National Space Centre led to agreement in 2009 on a co-funding agreement between BNSC, ESA and REL to continue technology development for the SABRE engine.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_Skylon#Economics_and_political_will

The first firm results from the Reaction Engines trade mission to the USA (as reported last month) came in February with the placing of a small study contract with the Physical Science Laboratory at the New Mexico State University. NMSU will be undertaking a preliminary evaluation of the requirements that SKYLON D1 will need to meet for safe autonomous flight based on their extensive heritage with unmanned flight vehicles, their expert knowledge of the US National Airspace System, and their expertise and experience in the Global Airspace System. https://www.rocketeers.co.uk/node/879

I'd predict the US DoD will monitor this very closely, run with anything useful then sell it back to us if we're lucky.

Actually Andy, the Comet is something that frequently comes to mind when you make these posts.  You often overemphasize the benefit of being first, and that was a fantastic example of one of the pitfalls.  The Comet was fatally flawed from the get go.  It wasn't canceled because of any political actions.  There were multiple crashes that all happened very close together.  It was grounded while they looked for the problem, and when they cleared it after not finding anything,  another one crashed right out of the gate.  Their problem was simply a learning curve issue of the sort that gets worked out with trial and error.  Unfortunately for de Havilland,  Boeing was perfectly positioned to learn from the mistake and dominate the market for the next 50 years.  Politics had nothing to do with the outcome. 

Being first is always to your advantage in a race, but in the rest of the world, getting it right is more important. 

Also,  the Concord wasn't useful or cost effective.  It wasn't fuel efficient.  The engines were stunningly unreliable and flamed out constantly.  It was too expensive to fill the seats.  It was a novel idea that was poor in implementation.  It was doomed long before the crash (which was actually just a freak event unrelated to BA, AF or the UK).

[ddtonfire]

The Concorde actually was profitable.

[zerogravityfat]

concorde will be flying for the 2012 olympics.

[AndyDT]

Actually Andy, the Comet is something that frequently comes to mind when you make these posts.  You often overemphasize the benefit of being first, and that was a fantastic example of one of the pitfalls.  The Comet was fatally flawed from the get go.  It wasn't canceled because of any political actions.  There were multiple crashes that all happened very close together.  It was grounded while they looked for the problem, and when they cleared it after not finding anything,  another one crashed right out of the gate.  Their problem was simply a learning curve issue of the sort that gets worked out with trial and error.  Unfortunately for de Havilland,  Boeing was perfectly positioned to learn from the mistake and dominate the market for the next 50 years.  Politics had nothing to do with the outcome.  

Hawker Siddeley bought de Havilland in 1960 but kept it as a separate company until 1963. In that year it became the de Havilland Division of Hawker Siddeley Aviation[1] and all types in production or development changed their designations from "DH' to "HS" (see Hawker Siddeley Trident and BAe 125). The famous "DH" and the de Havilland name live on, with several hundred Moths of various types and substantial numbers of many of the company's other designs still flying all over the world.[2]

Following the structural problems of the aircraft in 1954, all remaining Comets were withdrawn from service, with De Havilland launching a major effort to build a new version that would be both larger and stronger. This one, the Comet 4, enabled the De Havilland airliner to return to the skies in 1958. By then, the United States had its Boeing 707 jetliner along with the Douglas DC-8, both of which were faster and more economical to operate. Orders for the Comet dried up.

De Havilland also pushed into the new field of long-range missiles[3], developing the liquid-fuelled Blue Streak. It did not enter military service but became the first stage of Europa, a launch vehicle for use in space flight. In flight tests, the Blue Streak performed well—but the upper stages, built in France and Germany, repeatedly failed. In 1973, the Europa program was canceled, with Blue Streak dying as well
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland#de_Havilland_engines

and

Nationalisation of aircraft production

On 29 April 1977, as a result of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act, Hawker Siddeley Aviation and Dynamics were nationalised and merged with British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) and Scottish Aviation to form British Aerospace.[1] However, HSA and HSD accounted for only 25% of the Hawker Siddeley business by this time, and the non-aviation and foreign interests were retained by a holding company known as 'Hawker Siddeley Group Plc after 1980.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley

The Aircraft and Shipbuilding Act, introduced by socialist MP Tony Benn. Instead of supporting an edge technology from a dynamic private company, it was all centralised into a nationalised monolithic company. Prime Minister Thatcher had to denationalise it for it to become one of the biggest aerospace companies in the world.
Thus surely politics has a lot if not everything to do with it.

Being first is always to your advantage in a race, but in the rest of the world, getting it right is more important.  

Also,  the Concord wasn't useful or cost effective.  It wasn't fuel efficient.  The engines were stunningly unreliable and flamed out constantly.  It was too expensive to fill the seats.  It was a novel idea that was poor in implementation.  It was doomed long before the crash (which was actually just a freak event unrelated to BA, AF or the UK).

Poor in implementation? It was a world first, like the Comet an absolute "marvel" (many peoples' words).

concorde will be flying for the 2012 olympics.

That's great news.

[zerogravityfat]

https://www.save-concorde.co.uk/

[yorost]

The Concorde was a joint British and French venture.  Even with both countries involved it was an economically draining project.  Weren't they cooperating on it due to unwillingness to go it alone on funding their independent projects?  I'm lost as to its significance to this thread, what is it supposed to be demonstrating?

The development costs were well over a billion pounds and then they dramatically undersold most of the built Concordes for additional losses around half a billion pounds.  They operated at a loss for a number of years and apparently had their most profitable years of making around 50 million pounds of profit.  Even without the years operated at a loss and assuming they were always running at their most profitable years they would have had to operate for 30+ years to really break even on the money spent on it.

Operating a profit does not mean a project was profitable.  It turned out to be profitable for British Airways, but  overall the British lost money  You might as well look at it as the UK subsidizing British Airways with billions of pounds.  At least they didn't do as badly as the French did on the Concorde.

[YtseBitsySpider]

This thread reminds me of the AVRO project in Canada.
More support for Rumby's failed politics and missed opportunities.

[El Barto]

The Aircraft and Shipbuilding Act, introduced by socialist MP Tony Benn. Instead of supporting an edge technology from a dynamic private company, it was all centralised into a nationalised monolithic company. Prime Minister Thatcher had to denationalise it for it to become one of the biggest aerospace companies in the world.
Thus surely politics has a lot if not everything to do with it.

De Havilland's goose was cooked in 1958.  The Comet was their big chance, and when it crashed, Boeing took off and ran. The Aircraft and Shipbuilding Act occurred nearly 20 years after the Comet.  I'm not sure what your point is, but de Havilland was a non-factor long before nationalization. 

Poor in implementation? It was a world first, like the Comet an absolute "marvel" (many peoples' words).

Being first and marvelous doesn't really matter if there's no practical application.  Concorde was pretty nifty, but as an airliner it was more of a novelty than anything else.  There's a reason why nobody else has tried to capture that market.  Boeing and Airbus are building really big planes and really efficient planes.  Neither of them seem to be too worried about building really fast planes.  Airlines don't really have much to gain from niche markets. 

[AndyDT]

The Aircraft and Shipbuilding Act, introduced by socialist MP Tony Benn. Instead of supporting an edge technology from a dynamic private company, it was all centralised into a nationalised monolithic company. Prime Minister Thatcher had to denationalise it for it to become one of the biggest aerospace companies in the world.
Thus surely politics has a lot if not everything to do with it.

De Havilland's goose was cooked in 1958.  The Comet was their big chance, and when it crashed, Boeing took off and ran. The Aircraft and Shipbuilding Act occurred nearly 20 years after the Comet.  I'm not sure what your point is, but de Havilland was a non-factor long before nationalization. 

Poor in implementation? It was a world first, like the Comet an absolute "marvel" (many peoples' words).

Being first and marvelous doesn't really matter if there's no practical application.  Concorde was pretty nifty, but as an airliner it was more of a novelty than anything else.  There's a reason why nobody else has tried to capture that market.  Boeing and Airbus are building really big planes and really efficient planes.  Neither of them seem to be too worried about building really fast planes.  Airlines don't really have much to gain from niche markets. 

The point is that both were UK firsts in aerospace and lessons could be learnt particularly from government in ensuring the success of these ventures rather than merely an economical equation. In this one can point to both left and right wing governments who seemed more concerned with ideology than ensuring national success. Hopefully this will change.

[El Barto]

Well, probably not the sort of lesson you were looking for, but the English pioneered air crash investigations after the Comet crashes.  This was actually the government stepping up big time to try and get the thing back on track, as they were actually quite interested in the success of the Comet.  Without the rather brilliant research that went into it, de Havilland and quite possibly British aviation in general would have been dead meat for sure.  It's just that the damage had already been done.  The blame for that one is entirely de Havilland's;  possibly, somewhat unfairly.  One of the pitfalls of being a pioneer is that you're the first one out there getting shot at.

As for Concorde, the way I understand it the French and British governments were almost entirely responsible for it what success it had.  They subsidized the bejesus out of the thing, and frankly, it was a misguided effort.  Perhaps where they dropped the ball was in not being a bit more foresightful in where they spent their pounds and francs. 

[AndyDT]

That's true but i think you have to pick yourself up and learn. That's what NASA have done, I think it's something British governments seem to have overlook in their zeal to impose an ideology -statism or capitalism, collectivising aerospace and then letting it collapse as a short term economic equation.

Incidentally, I'd also point out that Winston Churchill said that "the whole world including the USA, would sink into the abyss" if the RAF had not defended Britain in 1941. That's an asset, still one of the biggest airforces in the world, that surely should be expanded not cut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lXsbn5LCzQ

[rumborak]

Incidentally, I'd also point out that Winston Churchill said that "the whole world including the USA, would sink into the abyss" if the RAF had not defended Britain in 1941.

A very British-centered view of things, and nowhere near reality. The USA wouldn't have gone anywhere, no matter what.

rumborak

[AndyDT]

It was selling supplies and arms to Britain before official involvement, the Nazi's disliked the USA, Hitler reportedly planned to conquor the US eventually and the US was not the word's major military power in 1940, quite a way from it. The US was not even prepared for war in 1940 as far as I'm aware. The impact of air supremacy could have been fatal for the UK and the Royal Navy could have been unable to stop an invasion. Without Britian and the Empire, the US *would* have been next in Hitler's sights I'm sure.

[El Barto]

It was selling supplies and arms to Britain before official involvement, the Nazi's disliked the USA, Hitler reportedly planned to conquor the US eventually and the US was not the word's major military power in 1940, quite a way from it. The US was not even prepared for war in 1940 as far as I'm aware. The impact of air supremacy could have been fatal for the UK and the Royal Navy could have been unable to stop an invasion. Without Britian and the Empire, the US *would* have been next in Hitler's sights I'm sure.

Too much territory.  Too many people.  Too far away.  The only people who could successfully mount an invasion of North America is the Mexicans.  I won't diminish y'alls finest hour and I'm glad you guys held out, but the USA was never in any risk. 

[rumborak]

^^^ This.

From the point of where Hitler went for multi-front war, it was a doomed enterprise. The RAF certainly helped a good amount to wear down the German war machinery, but at no point was the US or the rest of the world in any direct danger, nor would have Hitler have succeeded in the long run, even without the RAF.

rumborak

[AndyDT]

It was selling supplies and arms to Britain before official involvement, the Nazi's disliked the USA, Hitler reportedly planned to conquor the US eventually and the US was not the word's major military power in 1940, quite a way from it. The US was not even prepared for war in 1940 as far as I'm aware. The impact of air supremacy could have been fatal for the UK and the Royal Navy could have been unable to stop an invasion. Without Britian and the Empire, the US *would* have been next in Hitler's sights I'm sure.

Too much territory.  Too many people.  Too far away.  The only people who could successfully mount an invasion of North America is the Mexicans.  I won't diminish y'alls finest hour and I'm glad you guys held out, but the USA was never in any risk. 

Even if the evidence that Hitler planned to bomb the USA (and then the USA would be under attack on two fronts at home) is ignored, the attacks on US shipping before WW1 and WW2, the attacks on New York before WW1 ignored as well, if Britain had gone under there would be no staging post to liberate Europe meaning that the Nazis would have had the entire continent and a staging point to cross the Atlantic unhindered. The US was always under threat and Canada would have been at risk and less well defended.

[yorost]

Canada and the US operated very closely in North America during WWII.  Regardless, there is no way Canada would be easily conquered before the US was, because controlling Canada would require controlling the US.  Supply lines would be near impossible otherwise, both now and even more so then.

The attacks on North American soil weren't anything more than show, a stretch of the hand for propaganda.  They offer very little real threat had Britain fallen as it isn't from the air and most industry is inland.  Hitler did not pose a significant threat to North America, just holding Europe would require too much effort to think about crossing an ocean against a largely unified in defense two continents.

[rumborak]

I can not fathom what we're discussing here right now. I mean, there was a reason why the US entered so late in the war; because the public didn't perceive it as a danger to them. And rightly so.

rumborak

[El Barto]

It was selling supplies and arms to Britain before official involvement, the Nazi's disliked the USA, Hitler reportedly planned to conquor the US eventually and the US was not the word's major military power in 1940, quite a way from it. The US was not even prepared for war in 1940 as far as I'm aware. The impact of air supremacy could have been fatal for the UK and the Royal Navy could have been unable to stop an invasion. Without Britian and the Empire, the US *would* have been next in Hitler's sights I'm sure.

Too much territory.  Too many people.  Too far away.  The only people who could successfully mount an invasion of North America is the Mexicans.  I won't diminish y'alls finest hour and I'm glad you guys held out, but the USA was never in any risk.  

Even if the evidence that Hitler planned to bomb the USA (and then the USA would be under attack on two fronts at home) is ignored, the attacks on US shipping before WW1 and WW2, the attacks on New York before WW1 ignored as well, if Britain had gone under there would be no staging post to liberate Europe meaning that the Nazis would have had the entire continent and a staging point to cross the Atlantic unhindered. The US was always under threat and Canada would have been at risk and less well defended.

A strong argument could be made that the RAF did Adolph a favor by holding out.  Most people now think that Sealion would have been a stunning disaster.  The Royal Navy would have slaughtered their transports and y'all would have gassed every last German that did get through on the beaches.  The only thing that would have really helped is that he might have launched Barbarossa early enough to avoid the Russian Winter, but it's debatable as to whether or not that would have really mattered if he still didn't have England.  

As for any potential invasion of North America, I gave it some thought and what I came up with was taking Venezuela as a starting point.  Easy to take.  Easy to hold.  Natural resources in abundance, including the oil Jerry couldn't get from Caucasus or North Afrika.  The neighboring countries most likely would have rolled over, and the bulk of the fighting would take place in what would probably now be the 51st-54th states in Mexico.  

A fascinating thing to ponder, really.  

[YtseBitsySpider]

It was selling supplies and arms to Britain before official involvement, the Nazi's disliked the USA, Hitler reportedly planned to conquor the US eventually and the US was not the word's major military power in 1940, quite a way from it. The US was not even prepared for war in 1940 as far as I'm aware. The impact of air supremacy could have been fatal for the UK and the Royal Navy could have been unable to stop an invasion. Without Britian and the Empire, the US *would* have been next in Hitler's sights I'm sure.

Too much territory.  Too many people.  Too far away.  The only people who could successfully mount an invasion of North America is the Mexicans.  I won't diminish y'alls finest hour and I'm glad you guys held out, but the USA was never in any risk. 

OwRLY................."WOLVERINNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEES"