The cockpit was set at the front of the fuselage in typical fashion, though aft of the nosecone set to house the interception radar fit. The cockpit would be framed as usual and seat its two crew - pilot and navigator/weapons operator - in a side-by-side arrangement.
The aircraft was drawn up with a running length of 68.2 feet, a wingspan of 42 feet and a height of 15.2 feet. Empty weight reached 41,500lb while Maximum Take-Off Weight (MTOW) peaked at near 30,000lb. All told, the Type 559 was one of the larger submissions entertained for requirement F.155.
At the heart of the Type 559's propulsion scheme was a combination powerplant involving two afterburning turbojets and a pair of rocket motors for boost power. This was intended to satisfy high cruising speeds, dash speeds, and rate-of-climb for the interceptor design. 2 x de Havilland "Gyron" PS.26/1 turbojets would output 20,000lb of thrust each while 2 x de Havilland "Spectre Junior" boosters would supply momentary thrust output, adding an additional 5,000lb of power each. All told, this would help to get the interceptor up to speeds of Mach 2.5 and a service ceiling near 60,000 feet while rate-of-climb was estimated to be 51,000 feet-per-minute.
As for armament, and like other F.155 entrants, the Type 559 was set to carry a pair of air-to-air missiles, these to become either the "Red Hebe" beam-riding weapon or the "Blue Jay" Mk.4 heat-seeker. As the wing tips of the mainplanes were taken up by the vertical tail fins, this meant that the missiles would be seated against the fuselage atop wingstub-like protrusions. The supports were added near midships along the dorsal facing of the fuselage to complete the aircraft's look (this physical feature was also used in the English Electric Lighting fighter).
With the end of the F.155/F.155T requirement following the defense review of 1957, hopes for the Type 559 ended as well.
Content ©MilitaryFactory.com; No Reproduction Permitted.