|
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:I was desperately trying to find any kind of plans for this but all I got was a model: Avro tendered for the same contract, with the same 'convert a V-bomber' idea. The Avro Atlantic was a version of the Vulcan with a wider, taller fuselage and 6-abreast seating, all rear-facing Like the V-1000/VC-7 they were going to do a civilian model when the RAF programme was killed but no orders were placed. I think Handley-Page hawked around an airliner version of the Victor too, which would have been something!
|
#
¿
May 14, 2016 19:17
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 04:53 |
|
|
YF19pilot posted:This is starting to sound like that Top Gear episode where they tried to find the first car as we know it today; that is a car with the control configuration that all cars come with today, steering wheel, gas pedal, brake pedal, and electric starter. I think it ended up being something from the 30s or 40s, but even then I think they skipped some of the first cars that had electric starters because they used a pedal rather than turning the key. Actually I watched that episode on re-runs just today - they gave the nod to the Cadillac Type 53 (1916) and then (like the Brazilians and Santos-Dumont) 'revealed' that while the Cadillac may have been the first it was the British Austin Seven (1924) which made the modern control lay-out stick on a global scale because it was mass-produced and built under license around the world. Which completely overlooked the Dodge Model 30 (1914) which had the conventional control lay-out and an electric starter (albeit with a pedal switch rather than a key, but the Seven never had a starter key either) and was the one to really popularise the design; it sold more than the Austin in just five years on sale (the Seven was sold for 15), it just wasn't sold in Britain  But, like the 'first real aeroplane' argument, you can split hairs almost infinitely. The Cadillac, the Dodge and the Austin all had wheel-mounted throttle levers as well as an accelerator pedal and all had manual ignition timing adjustment levers too. These were considered just as vital to the process of making a car go as the wheel, clutch, brake and accelerator. So the first car that an average driver of 2016 could hop into and drive without any real trouble would probably be from the late 1940s (from a British perspective at least). None of which changes the fact that Karl Benz and his 1hp tiller-steered motorwagen was the first practical self-propelled internal-combustion powered motorised carriage. Saying that Santos-Dumont was the first to make an aeroplane is like saying that De Dion Bouton made the first car just because theirs had four wheels rather than three.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2016 20:00
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:
Immediately post-war the Antonov An-2 (first flew in 1947) used electric drive for its flaps and three-axis trim. Oleg Antonov was directly inspired by the Fi156 Storch's aerodynamic equipment so it would make sense if he also drew on elements of the Focke-Wulf for the controls. Like the Fw190 the An-2 used electric drive because it was cheaper, lighter and simpler than a dedicated hydraulic system - it uses pnuematics for the brakes so there are no fluid systems anywhere on the aircraft. I'm pretty sure I remember reading that the Saunders-Roe Princess was designed to use a fully electric-driven 'fly by wire' control system, but the one example which actually flew had conventional hydraulics.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2016 23:13
|
|
|
CharlesM posted:
PhotoKirk posted:Thank you. Those Was there any deeply nerdy explaination for why the TIE's had those radiators on each side, blocking most of the pilot's peripheral vision? I know the real answer is 'because they look cool' but I'm guessing there's a 40,000 word Wookipedia thesis explaining exactly what they're for. And if we're talking Schneider Trophy planes, the S4 is pretty but the winner has to be the one which never actually raced in the Trophy - the Macchi MC72:  It had two Fiat V12s working in tandem through a contra-rotating prop and with enough radiators strapped onto the plane and the boost cranked up it made 3100hp - good for 440mph in level flight. As for radiators - the oil tank is built into the nose skin so the whole thing is one big oil cooler and the centre and rear pairs of cooling surfaces on each float are for the oil. The forward float radiators and the ones built into the float struts and the wing surfaces are for the water. In the summer another water radiator was slung under the fuselage as well. So it's pretty much a 24-cylinder racing engine with radiators that also serve as lifting surfaces. It's a shame they didn't know about the Meredith Effect in 1931 as all that heat could have generated some useful thrust.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2017 13:48
|
|
|
Humbug posted:The rate of development was also pretty crazy. Just 8 years earlier than the all metal 1900hp Supermarine S6 I posted and 10 before the MC72, the winner was a Macchi M.7. A wooden biplane with about 260 hp and a top speed of about 120mph. It really was. Look at the Gloster Gladiator - one of the fastest biplanes ever built and a competitive front-line fighter when it first flew in 1934. By the time it entered squadron service three years later it was obsolete. Even the Hawker Hurricane became outmoded (as far as European war was concerned, at least) after 1940. The RAF essentially went through three fighter generations in three years: 1931 - Hawker Fury - biplane, wooden construction, open cockpit, twin machine guns, fixed undercarriage, 640hp, 200mph 1937 - Gloster Gladiator - biplane, wooden construction, closed cockpit, four machine guns, fixed undercarriage, 830hp 250mph early 1938 - Hawker Hurricane - monoplane, wooden construction, closed cockpit, eight machine guns, retractable undercarriage, 1000hp, 340mph late 1938 Supermarine Spitfire - monoplane, metal construction, closed cockpit, eight guns, retractable undercarriage, 1000hp, 360mph and then by the end of the war: 1945 - Hawker Sea Fury - monoplane, metal construction, closed cockpit, four cannons, retractable undercarriage, 2480hp, 460mph joat mon posted:If the Macchi MC72 is the winner that never raced, the Piaggio P.7 is the winner that never flew. Yes! 
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2017 16:00
|
|
|
MrYenko posted:Y-Wings are clearly the Defiant to the X-Wing's Spitfire. Wikipedia posted:Luftwaffe fighters suffered losses when "bouncing" flights of Defiants from the rear, apparently mistaking them for Hurricanes.[23] The German pilots were unaware of the Defiant's rear-firing armament and encountered concentrated defensive fire. If the Y-Wings had had rear-firing turrets they'd probably have actually reached the target. A Space-Defiant would have been a much better design for the trench run. If anything the Y-Wing is a Fairey Battle
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2017 16:22
|
|
|
david_a posted:What's the reason for the Snoopy nose on a lot of Connie's? Were those models that had radar? The Connie and the DC-6 could both be fitted with radar (TWA installed it in the Constellations from 1947) but I think the DC-7C was the first to offer it from the factory. The Grand Canyon disaster in 1956 resulted in on-board radar being legally required on all large airliners from 1962 but it was already becoming common by then - UA had committed to fitting it to their entire fleet in 1955 but had not got around to fitting it to the DC-7A involved in the crash.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 25, 2017 12:21
|
|
|
inkjet_lakes posted:Thanks, had no idea there were any in civil hands- the glazed rear & orange panels confused me, turns out it was the target tug variant. Another one for the 'aircraft I thought I'd never see' list! I saw the Bronco at the Duxford Air Festival yesterday; it was the first plane to display, it topped up with fuel and once the RAF Typhoon had cleared off it flew straight to a display it had been booked for in Belgium. First time I've seen a Bronco and I was really surprised how big they are; more like a B-25. I didn't know they had paratroop capability or that they could be chucked around the sky like that! Pretty cool
|
|
#
¿
May 29, 2017 11:34
|
|
|
catfry posted:Wasn't it introduced in 1939? It was supposed to be a frontline fighter. Yeah, the low-altitude combat in Spain played to the strengths of last-generation biplanes, which could out-climb and out-turn first-generation monoplane fighters like the Bf109 and the I-16. They could easily intercept the trimotor bombers and even the early tactical bombers like the He111 and the SB. The Italians learnt the same lesson from the success of the Fiat CR32 and kept developing biplane fighters on the assumption that what a monoplane gained in speed it lacked in agility. But as Comrade Gorbash said up-thread, it was a case of the ultimate development of the biplane meeting the first step in the development of the monoplane. The former had nowhere to go (the Gregor FBD-1 probably represented the ultimate 'high tech' for a biplane fighter and was still nowhere near good enough to match 1939-generation monoplanes) while the latter was still in the white heat of development. Wasn't the I-153 partly due to Soviet doctrine which foresaw I-153s being used to intercept bombers (where their superior climb rate was an advantage for interception and their restricted top speed didn't matter) and I-16s being used to deal with fighter escorts?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 19, 2017 12:50
|
|
|
PhotoKirk posted:I love the decision to try adding jet engines to a biplane. I already had a 'thing' for last-gen biplanes as the final gasp of a once-potent technology that sometimes managed to be effective against the odds (plus they tend to be very good-looking) but I'd never heard of the Jet-Chaika. It's perfect!  It's even better than the Fiat CR42 they fitted with the engine from a Bf109E, which had an estimated top speed of 323mph!
|
|
#
¿
Sep 19, 2017 14:14
|
|
|
My first flight (which I was too young to remember) was on a Monarch (RIP) Airbus A300 in early 1988: The first flight I can remember was in a Dan Air BAe 146 (double retro whammy!):  The only flight I've been able to get 'flight deck' time on was in about 1999 in the right-hand seat of the Isle of Scilly Skybus B-N Islander!
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2017 20:28
|
|
|
FrozenVent posted:So the Elon Musk of his day then? Zeppelin was even crowd-funded to get the LZ2 (literally) off the ground - the King of Wuttemburg liked the idea of an Air Ship so much that he organised a lottery in his kingdom which raised 124,000 DM for Zeppelin's work. edit: 'Zeppeling' is not a word, although now I think that the verb 'to Zeppel' should be used for all rigid airship travel.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 18, 2017 19:27
|
|
|
We Brits may have made some ugly military jets but we did turn out good-looking civils (mostly off the de Havilland drawing board): The Comet, the V-1000, the Trident, the HS-125, the VC-10, plus work on Concorde Even the 146 is well-proportioned with a good nose. The exception is the BAC 1-11, which is too fat and has the engines mounted too low (the F28 is much prettier).
|
|
#
¿
Nov 23, 2017 22:33
|
|
|
Gibfender posted:One of my favourite parts of going to Duxford is the row of 50s-70s British airliners they have on display: Yeah, the flight-line at Duxford is great. I have a 'thing' for the VC10 - I think it's one of the best-looking airliners (perhaps best-looking aircraft) ever made. Although the Britannia that's next to the VC10 at Duxford is a close runner. ' if you go to Brooklands you can go around the Sultan of Oman's personal VC10, which is 62 tons of marquetry wood, brown velour and gold lamé curtains and probably another four tons in Sony Trinitron TVs.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 24, 2017 14:38
|
|
|
slidebite posted:The same for No, we have the TSR-2 for that You come across the occasional bitter Comet or Trident enthusiast as well, because they were going to rule the world and then we gave all the secrets to  BOEING Brovine posted:I haven’t been to Duxford in years. Which is dumb, because it’s less than half an hour away. Thanks for reminding me to get my butt in gear and go! The 'it's just down the road, I can go any time' syndrome is a devil. I went to Duxford every couple of years when I lived in Portsmouth (3.5 hours)and the Shuttleworth Collection (similar) but never went to Brooklands (1 hour). Then I moved up to Peterborough (1 hour from Duxford) and in the seven years I've been here I've been to there once and never to the Shuttleworth. But I've been to Brooklands about half a dozen times.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 24, 2017 16:39
|
|
but the difference between the Lightning and Arrow is that the Arrow never made it to proper production and AFAIK Englishmen don't lament how a Mk.X version could have loving flown to the moon and back, and would still be an active top of the line aircraft today.
|
PT6A posted:I found this, will it do? I started scrolling along the progress bar at the point after the first landing, when it began reversing under power - due to an edit the preview window makes it look like the Dash 7 lands, power-reverses and takes-off backwards in the direction it came. There was a second when I thought "Uhhuh, I suppose it's a DHC-7, after all..." before reality kicked in.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2017 13:21
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:If anybody wants to infodump on the careers of the endless variants of the Lockheed Hudson, I'd appreciate it. Why not? I've always liked the Hudson because it's stubby and cute, yet strangely purposeful. And it's so clearly an airliner with bombs hanging off the bottom (they even left the windows in!).  Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra It began life as the Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra. This was the largest in Lockheed's trio of modern (all-metal, monoplane, retractable undercarriage, streamlined) airliners which consisted of the ten-passenger Model 10 Electra (first flown in 1934), the six-passenger Model 12 Electra Junior, and the 14-passenger Model 14, all designed by Lockheed but technically built and sold by its Vega commercial subsidiary for some reason. The Model 14 was to be Lockheed's answer to the successful Boeing 247 and the Douglas DC-2, being bigger than the former and faster than the latter. Unfortunately by the time the Model 14 made its first flight in 1937 the DC-3 had already been in service for over a year, which could carry almost twice as many people as the Super Electra at around half the cost-per-seat. Major orders by American airlines eluded the Model 14, but its size/speed/cost balance was better-suited to European operators which took the majority of the 114 examples built by Lockheed/Vega - Neville Chamberlain stood in front of a British Airways Super Electra while waving the Munich Agreement for the cameras. Another 120 were built under license in Japan. To try and drum up some interest for the struggling model Lockheed planned it out as a light patrol bomber, packing more powerful 1100-horsepower Wright Cyclone engines, a glazed nose for the bombardier, a single-pilot cockpit. Defensive armament consisted of twin .303s fixed in the nose and an open rear gun position just forward of the horizontal stabiliser with a single .303. A bomb bay built under the cabin floor carried 340kg (750lb) of bombs and it had a top cruising speed of just over 210mph.  Hudson Mk1 of the RAAF in pre-/early war livery. This aircraft was written off in 1942 in a crash following engine failure on takeoff. RAF & Commonwealth This attracted the wandering eye of the New York-based Anglo-French Purchasing Commission, formed by the two rearming European powers who needed military aircraft of all sorts NOW and so had formed a bureau Stateside to go to American manufacturers with a shopping list. The militarised Super Electra was a cheap and available modern light bomber with performance equal or superior to existing designs like the Bristol Blenheim or the Bloch M131. The Royal Air Force was particularly keen on the Lockheed to supplement and replace the Avro Anson, a converted feederliner which was the inadequate backbone of Coastal Command's maritime patrol force. The Anson only had the range and performance to perform coastal duties, while Coastal Command's other equipment was mainly long-range flying boats. The armed Super Electra could fly nearly 1800 miles while carrying double the Anson's bomb load. As a secondary idea the American aircraft would hopefully be superior to the already-obsolete Fairey Battle as a light day bomber. The only difference that the Air Ministry insisted on was replacing the open single-gun dorsal position with a Boulton-Paul enclosed turret with twin guns.  Hudson Mk2s of No. 223 Sqd, RAF in 'pose for the camera' formation over Northern Ireland in early 1941 The deal was signed in the autumn of 1938 and the first of 350 ordered Lockheed Hudsons (following RAF practice for naming land-based maritime patrol aircraft, it was named after a British seafarer - in this case Henry Hudson) was completed by Vega at Burbank that December and they arrived in the UK in February 1939 to start equipping Scotland-based Coastal Command squadrons. Due to the US's neutrality stance the aircraft were imported via Canada, being ferried to the Canadian border, their wings were removed, the aircraft wheeled across then reassembled and flown to an airfield where they were dismantled and sent to a port by road for shipping to the UK.  Hudson in Canada - a Mk1 of No. 11 Sqd, RCAF, patrolling the Atlantic from a base in Nova Scotia, mid-1940. During the 'Phoney War' of late 1939/early 1940 the Hudson was one of the most active RAF aircraft, patrolling the English Channel, the North Sea, the Western Approaches and the Iceland Gap to mark German shipping (keeping an especially close watch on U-Boat activity), escort convoys and perform coastal reconnaisance. They often came across German patrol aircraft and flying boats doing exactly the same thing. As such Hudsons scored quite a few 'firsts' - a Hudson was the first British aircraft to engage a German aircraft in WW2 (albeit inconclusively), the first Allied aircraft operating from the British Isles to down a German aircraft, the first Coastal Command aircraft to score a 'kill' and the first American-built aircraft to have combat success in WW2. RAF Hudsons performed both maritime and conventional ground bombing missions during the Norwegian Campaign and also operated against the advancing German army during the retreat to Dunkirk. Hudsons also attacked Kreigsmarine E-Boats attempting to disrupt the evacuation and were able to successfully tangle with German aircraft - Hudsons downed three Ju87 'Stukas' and three Bf109s over France. Hudson squadrons then resumed patrol duties, initially centered around the North Sea to prevent U-Boats passing along the British east coast and around Scotland and as top cover for shipping convoys.  A Hudson Mk1 (a late example fitted with constant-speed props) from No. 224 Sqd, RAF, over the Scottish coast in early 1940. QX-W would go missing on patrol off Norway later in the year. By this time the original Hudson Mk1 had been superceded by the near-identical Hudson Mk2 (which had constant-speed rather than two-speed variable pitch propellers) and in August 1940 the Hudson Mk3 arrived, with 1200hp Cyclone engines, a strengthened fuselage and much-improved defensive armament - there was now a retractable 'tail ramp' forming a ventral gun position with a single .303, while one cabin window on each side was removed to accomodate another .303 on a flexible mounting to cover the aircraft's vulnerable rear quarters. The Mk3 also boasted greater fuel capacity giving it a 2000 mile patrol range, plus the option of a Mk3LR long-range version with enlarged fuel tanks, with a range of over 2300 miles This allowed the Hudson's patrol activities to be greatly expanded, with six squadrons operating into the North Atlantic from the west coast and another being stationed in Iceland to try and close the 'air gap'. By the middle of 1942 an eighth RAF Hudson squadron would be flying from the other side of the ocean, stationed at NAS Quonset Point in Rhode Island before moving down to the Caribbean to cover the mid-Atlantic in the winter.  A rather war-weary Hudson Mk5, flying training duties from RAF Turnberry in Scotland in 1944. The definitive Hudson Mk5 and Mk5LR came on-stream in November 1940, with 1200hp P&W Twin Wasp engines. These had a bomb payload of 635kg (1400lbs). By the time these entered squadron service in early 1941 they were being fitted with ASR ground-searching radar and anti-shipping rocket launchers under the outer wings. For the sake of completeness the Mk4 was an Australian-developed Hudson Mk3 with lower-rated P&W engines. The Hudson Mk6 was a transport/training variant that was little more than the original Super Electra design with the glazed nose and a stripped cabin. These were widely used in North Africa and the Middle East, especially as air ambulances.  Unarmed transport-variant Hudson Mk6 of No. 267 Sqd, RAF, flying from Libya to a forward landing ground in the Western Desert, c.1942. The start of Lend-Lease in mid-1941 allowed much more rapid shipment of Hudsons, and in greater numbers, as they could now be ferried direct from Calfornia via Canada and the North Atlantic, with the only work at the UK end being to install the Boulton-Paul turrets and some RAF-spec gear such as radios and other equipment. Hudsons could now be supplied to the Commonwealth air forces; while some RAAF and RNZAF squadrons had operated Hudsons in the Far East since 1940, it was in 1942 that the numbers of Hudsons in these forces began to really increase, with RCAF Hudson squadrons operating from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia playing a vital part in closing the 'air gap' from the other side of the Atlantic. Hudsons occasionally performed in conventional ground-bombing missions, such as three squadrons being fielded as part of the 1000-bomber raid on Bremen in June 1942. Occasional use had been made of the Hudson as a conventional bomber but it was far too slow and weakly-armed and suffered high casualty rates. Its saving grace was that it was incredibly agile for a relatively large aircraft and had a very strong structure (albeit unarmoured) that could withstand a lot of damage. It was only effective to boost numbers in a large force such as at Bremen, which could overwhelm the air defences around the target.  Mk2s of 206 Sqd, RAF, in late 1940. Like many Hudson squadrons, 206 would convert to a four-engined aircraft with a greater range and payload, relegating the Hudson to secondary theatres. In 206's case the replacement was the B-17. From 1943 Hudsons were gradually replaced by more useful long-range patrol aircraft such as Consolidated Liberators, PBY Catalinas and Short Sunderlands, with relatively few remaining in Atlantic service by 1945. Some Hudsons (mostly Mk3s but some Mk5s) were converted into Hudson SAR spec for Search and Resuce missions. These were unarmed other than for the fixed forward-firing guns and carried liferafts and a complete solid-hull lifeboat under the fuselage which could be dropped to downed airmen or wrecked sailors. One of the last RAF squadrons to operate the Hudson was No. 161, the Special Duties squadron tasked with inserting and retrieving secret agents in occupied Europe. No. 161 operated Mk3 and Mk5 Hudsons due to their load-carrying and short-field capability, plus their greater range against the more popular Westland Lysander.  Although the Super Electra had a two-pilot cockpit, the Hudson (and its military variants) had only one flying position. This was down to RAF practice of bombers only having a single pilot but also because of the need to provide access to the nose position for the bombardier - on civilian aircraft the nose formed a baggage hold with external doors. The pilot had to also be his co-pilot, flight engineer and gunner. Fortunately all Hudsons had a Sperry Gyropilot to ease the workload during long over-ocean patrols, and without it the aircraft had a reputation for being stable and docile to fly. British and Commonwealth Hudsons also operated in the Far East, with aircraft being cascaded from the UK in late 1941 when their intended secondary role as light day bombers did not emerge. RAF and RAAF Hudsons operated against Japanese shipping and ground forces during the Malayan campaign, the invasion of Burma and the invasion of the Dutch East Indies. British Hudsons patrolled the Bay of Bengal from India while RAAF and RNZAF squadrons operated against (and then from) New Guinea and Guadacanal and then provided top-cover during the early phase of the 'island hopping'. RNZAF Hudsons also operated from and around New Zealand itself, protecting convoys and searching out long-range TypeIX U-boats. RAF, RAAF and RNZAF squadrons in the Far East generally replaced their Hudsons with Venturas from late 1942/early 1943.  South with Endurance - a Mk3A over the ice-bound waters of New Zealand in 1942. This Hudson, of No. 4 Sqd, RNZAF, was one of two Hudsons which went missing in the Pacific during a flight from Fiji in 1944. Having just been replaced by Venturas, seven Hudsons were to be flown to NZ for dispersal. Bad weather caused the formation to break up, with two aircraft and 14 men never being seen again. USA The American air services had shown little interest in the Hudson and had even less use for it while America remained neutral. With the start of Lend-Lease the Hudson had to enter US service, at least on paper, as all the Hudsons sent to the UK from late 1941 were technically American-operated aircraft being lent to an ally. Since the USAAF had responsibility for land-based maritime patrol aircraft, it was the Army which took on the Hudsons, designating them the A-28 for the new P&W-powered Mk5 and the A-29 for the Wright-powered Mk3s then still in production (which became the Mk3A in British service due to slight technical differences with the 'American' aircraft).  A USAAF flight crew board their A-29 for a training exercise. Possibly an aircraft of the 75th Bombardment Squadron, 42nd Bombardment Group. In which case the A-29 is flying from Portland, OR The A-28 remained very much a paperwork exercise, with virtually none actually being taken into USAAF service. However over 150 A-29s were furnished to operational standard and equipped three Bombardment Groups (two on the east coast and one on the west). Of these only one, the 13th Bombardment Group, flying from Langley Field VA, used the A-29 on active duty, becoming the first American unit to destroy a U-Boat in the process in July 1942. The A-29 was broadly to the same specification as the Hudson Mk3 but because the Boulton-Paul turret was British equipment the USAAF aircraft were fitted with the original open dorsal position, now fitted with a single .50-cal. Both the A-28 and the A-29 were also produced in -28A and -29A specification, which fitted the cabin (largely untrimmed and empty on a Hudson) with the fixing for basic seating to make the aircraft convertible into the transport/paratroop role if required. There was also the AT-18, which was the advanced training variant. The USAAF ordered 300 of these - 217 as gunnery trainers with an open dorsal gun position mounting twin .50-cals, and 83 as unarmed navigational trainers, which were also used for paradrop training.  A USAAF AT-18A, the unarmed training variant of the A-29. Somewhere over America, c. 1942. Some details suggest that this AT-18 began life as a Commonwealth-spec Hudson before being 'recruited' into the Army prior to delivery. In November 1942 the A-29 was removed from front-line service in the USAAF but 24 aircraft were converted into A-29Bs as photographic and survey aircraft for producing maps. Flown by the 1st Photographic Group the A-29Bs operated all over the North and South American continents during the 1940s.  A flight of A-29s over Mount Mckinley, Alaska, during a patrol flight in February 1942.  One of the few photos of a USN PBO-1, here flown by patrol squadron VP-82 from NAS Argentia in early 1942. The squadron converted to the PBO in October 1941, just months after switching to PBYs from the older Consolidated P2Y. Taking into account the 'signing off' of the different variants of the PBY flown by the squadron, VP-82 set a Navy record for the highest number of aircraft conversions in the shortest time, as well as becoming the first USN squadron to operate land-based patrol aircraft. The aforementioned situation where the USAAF was responsible for maritime patrol led to some disagreement with the US Navy (to put it mildly), especially when American shipping losses off the East Coast began to mount. As a result of this a batch of 20 A-29s originally ordered as Hudson Mk3s for the RAF were sent to the USN in October 1941 to become the PBO-1, forming a single patrol squadron which then operated as two units from NAS Quonset Point, RI and NAS Argentia in Newfoundland. These made the first sinkings of a German naval vessel by the US Navy in WW2 before the squadron was disbanded in mid-1942 and replaced by units operating dedicated long-range patrol aircraft. The notable feature here was that the US Navy was able to acquire some Boulton-Paul enclosed turrets for the PBOs.  Lockheed advert, rather optimistically portraying a USAAF A-29 in the 'sub-smashing' role, even if the text only refers to RAF Coastal Command! Ventura/B-34/B-37/Harpoon Recall that Lockheed found the Model 14 rather small when up against the DC-3? This was solved by a thorough redesign which produced the Model 18 Lodestar, first flying in 1939. Although essentially to the same lay-out as the original Model 14/Hudson, the Model 18 was a completely different aircraft, with nearly twice the wing area and twin 2000-horsepower P&W Double Wasp engines also giving it nearly double the payload of the Super Electra. When given the same bomber conversion as the Model 14 (although Lockheed removed the cabin windows on this one) this put the Lockheed in the medium bomber category with almost exactly the same stats as a B-25 Mitchell.  Even while the Hudson was still limbering up the British liked the look of its bigger sister and ordered nearly 325 bomber versions off the drawing board in February 1940, although flight testing and Hudson production meant that they did not start arriving until the middle of 1941. Unusually the RAF did not assign the new aircraft its own name, instead adopting Vega's own marketing name, the Ventura.The RAF hoped that here they would have the readily-available modern day-bomber that they needed and that the Hudson was already clearly not. By the end of 1940 the British order book stood at over 670 Venturas.  A Ventura Mk1 of No. 21 Sqd, RAF, standing at its dispersal point at RAF Bodney in the autumn of 1942. The Ventura was very similar to the conversion done to turn the Super Electra into the Hudson, with a glazed nose, an internal bomb bay under the cabin floor and a rear dorsal turret. The armament pattern was also similar but improved, with twin .303s fixed in the nose, two in the dorsal turret (still a Boulton-Paul on RAF aircraft), two in the ventral position (now a fixed and enclosed cupola rather than an open ramp) and, most importantly, two in a flexible mounting in the nose cone. The bomb load was 1140kg (2500lbs). The first three Ventura squadrons commenced operations in the end of 1942, (one from each of the RAF, RNZAF and RAAF) for medium-range bombing raids in the Low Countries and north-western Germany. 47 Venturas took part in a low-level raid against the Phillips radio factory in Eindhoven and although the target was severely damaged losses were high - nine aircraft lost, 37 significantly damaged and only one not requiring repair.  Another Ventura of No. 21 Sqd, RAF, seen in its intended but ill-advised role as a day bomber. Here the target is the steel works at Ijmuiden in the The Netherlands, which was subject to two raids by twelve Venturas in February 1943. This was one of the last times the Ventura was used by 21 Sqd before they (happily) switched to the Mosquito. A switch to medium-level operations improved things but despite its uprated armament (and the introduction of the more powerful Ventura Mk2) the Ventura was still too slow and too poorly-armed for effective daylight raids. One RNZAF raid led to a 100% casualty rate. Although (like the Hudson) it was agile for its size in the air it was (unlike the Hudson) a tricky prospect at low speeds, especially at take-off as it had marginal reserves of lift, a tricky stall and a strong torque swing. These were all the more pronounced on the Mk2, which could theoretically lift a 1360kg (3000lb) bomb load. The Ventura was unpopular with pilots and crews, being nicknamed 'The Pig' (on account of its sluggish performance and prominent nose) and many units resented being sent on dangerous raids in what was a clearly inappropriate aircraft. The DH Mosquito Mk4, entering squadron service in the spring of 1942, was superior to the Lockheed in every way, being able to carry a heavier load a greater distance and at a speed and altitude that made it much harder to intercept. By September 1943 the Ventura had been replaced by the Mosquito in Bomber Command.  A Ventura of No. 464 Sqd, RAAF, over the squadron's base in Norfolk, England. This squadron (and possibly this aircraft) was one of the ones which took part in the infamous Phillips factory raid. It was the squadron's first operational assignment, in which it lost three aircraft and their crews. The aircraft (and many of those still arriving from Lockheed) were diverted to Coastal Command where it replaced the Hudson in four squadrons but they were in turn phased out by the end of 1944.  A Mk2 Ventura doing what the type was always better-suited to - maritime patrol away from the skies of Western Europe. In this case the location is the Straights of Gibraltar, although the Rock has been rather crudely painted out under the tail of the Lockheed to obscure its distinctive shape. The RCAF fielded 286 Venturas in five squadrons operating from Canada in the anti-submarine role, while the RAAF took 75 for use in New Guinea. 140 Venturas were used by the RNZAF in the Far East, being used effectively in the bomber role over the Solomon Islands. The South African Air Force made very good use of the 169 Venturas they were sent, with six squadrons flying maritime patrol around the Cape before four were redeployed to the Mediterranean. One of these units successfully used the Ventura in its intended bomber role during the liberation of Yugoslavia.  Another portrait of a No. 464 Sqd, RAAF Ventura at RAF Feltwell. The angle shows off the enclosed ventral gun position at the rear and the addition of a nose gun on the flexible mounting. Reluctant to take on nearly 700 essentially obsolete aircraft the British were able to divert a lot of the outstanding orders to the USA once Lend-Lease kicked in. Of the final batch of 200 Venturas only 66 actually made it onto the RAF's books, with the remainder being taken up by the USAAF as the B-34 Lexington. Despite the designation none of the B-34s actually served as bombers- 57 were used as bomber trainers, 28 as gunnery trainers, 16 as target tugs and 13 as navigation trainers. Other diverted Venturas did reach combat service in the USAAF, with two bombardment groups briefly operating the type on maritime patrol from the Atlantic coast until the end of 1942.  A USAAF B-34 Lexington, apparently unarmed but with a glazed nose, so most likely to be a bomb trainer. The USAAF had also ordered its own batches of the Ventura, with 550 being procured in August 1941, originally as the O-56 to serve as armed observation aircraft with .30s in the fixed nose and waist positions and .50s in the flexible nose, ventral and dorsal positions. Before production began the USAAF realised that what they were building was really a medium bomber and redesignated it the B-37, mainly due to its Wright Cyclone engines instead of the P&Ws in the Lexington. Of the 550 ordered only 18 B-37s were built before the order was cancelled in favour of P-38s and to free up Ventura production for the USN. The few B-37s were used for the same training duties as the B-34s.  A nice action shot of a T-6 Texan making a mock attack run on an 'armed' B-34. Although far from glamorous, and not at all what Lockheed had envisaged for the type, B-34s provided these highly important training experiences and saw out their service as 'clockwork mice' for budding fighter pilots to practice on. The bickering between the USAAF and USN over who was responsible for anti-submarine duties was resolved in the Navy's favour in the spring of 1942, leaving the USN in need of a land-based maritime patrol aircraft. Just as the RAF had taken on the Hudson, the Navy immediately beat a path to Burbank and ordered (in a number of batches) 1600 Venturas to its own specification.  Looking quite factory fresh, other that some odd mottling on the rear fuselage (or is it rather extravagant art?), a VP-1 Ventura of USN bomber squadron VB-135 is on the ground at NAS Whidbey Island near Seattle, WA in the summer of 1943. The PV-1, with 2000hp Double Wasps and a capacity for over 4.5 tons of fuel if you include optional bomb-bay tanks and droptanks, entered service in February 1943. It had a range of just over 1800 miles and could carry 1360kg (3000lb) of bombs or six depth charges or a single torpedo. It was also equipped with ASD-1 ground-searching radar. Standard armament consisted of two .50s fixed in the nose, two .50s in the dorsal turret (now an enclosed Sperry) and twin .30s in the ventral cupola. A 'gun pack' of three .50s mounted under the chin was developed later, with such aircraft being rebuilt with a solid nose. All PV-1s also carried cameras for reconnaisance work.  The first operational squadron, VP-135, headed off to the Aleutians, which would soon host a total of four Ventura squadrons, flying strikes against Japanese island bases as well as general patrol and anti-shipping duties. Because they were equipped with radar PV-1s would often be used as 'pathfinders' ahead of formations of larger bombers. The USN found the PV-1 useful but the prospect of tougher work in the Pacific meant that there was room for improvement. The PV-2 Harpoon, first flown in December 1943, incorporated major changes to the Ventura design. The USN had, like the RAF, found the aircraft short of lift and so the PV-2 had 20% more wing area, allowing both improved takeoff performance and an increase in the bomb load to 1800kg (4000lb), plus underwing rocket mounts which could also take up to 1000lb of external ordinance. All PV-2s had a solid nose and three fixed forward-firing .50 cal guns.  Decent period photos of Harpoons are hard to find due to their small numbers and rather disrupted careers. This one shows the slightly reprofiled nose and cockpit windows. The initial USN order was for 500 PV-2s, placed in June 1943. Deliveries began in March 1944. Early production PV-2s suffered from weak wings, which tended to distort under heavy load and fracture the integrated 'wet wing' fuel tanks. While this was sorted out (which required the design and production of a third new wing with a shorter span) the existing PV-2 fleet was retained on training purposes with the troublesome tanks sealed off. By the end of 1944 only 69 PV-2s had been delivered and the order was recast for 908 PV-2Ds, equipped with eight .50 guns, intended for supporting ground forces in the Pacific island campaign and with one eye on an amphibious landing of Japan. When the war came to end this order was cancelled after only 35 PV-2Ds had been delivered. Only one squadron used the type in full operations, in the Aleutians. The last PV-2 was withdrawn from service in 1948 after the type was passed to USN Reserve units, mostly for training and SAR roles. Honourable mention must also go to the transport versions of the basic Lockheed Lodestar. Impressed civilian aircraft were operated by the USAAF as the C-56 (Wright engines) or C-57 (P&W engines) while new-build aircraft were the C-60 (USAAF) or R5O (USN) BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Dec 14, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2017 21:58
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:Thanks dude! This is a pro-post. slothrop posted:Awesome Hudson/Ventura write up! Thanks for that, I always enjoy a good effort post Thanks guys! I've re-read it with fresh eyes and corrected some typos and other errors, plus added captions and switched some of the photos around a bit.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 14, 2017 16:04
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:
Majestic was sold to Australia while still in-build. So this will be HMCS Magnificent, of the same class. Canada had originally negotiated the lease-with-option-of-purchase of the older Colossus-class carrier Warrior but she was built for Pacific service and had virtually no internal heating system, which made things rather uncomfortable on a ship based at Halifax. She was returned in 1948 when her lease expired and 'Maggie' became the RCN's only carrier. Warrior was used by the RN in the Far East before (still without heating) she was sold to Argentina, where she kept freezing sailors until 1971.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 24, 2017 22:22
|
|
|
vessbot posted:Responding to checklists without looking at the item, and instead just going by your memory of doing the action. It's extremely common, from the student pilot level to the airlines. Disappointing. I'm sure that was one of the factors in the Air Florida crash in DC? They didn't have the anti-ice systems on, because years of flying in temperate conditions in the Gulf/Caribbean/South meant that they just breezed over the 'Engine Anti-Ice...AS NEEDED' bit of the checklist by mental habit because they'd hardly every needed it. The CVR recorded them saying it but they immediately passed on to the next item with no pause to check or operate any of the switches. The 'focussing on a perceived fault to the exclusion of the bigger picture' is like a less lethal example of EAL Flight 401, where the entire crew became so focussed on finding out whether the nose gear was down and locked (it was, but a $0.30c bulb had blown) that they flew the plane into the Everglades without noticing.
|
|
#
¿
May 17, 2018 00:10
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:OK, came across another weird ferry story involving the Fw 190. There was then the further insanity of the attempts to get von Greim and Reitsch back out of Berlin - six more Fi-156 Storches are dispatched with two-dozen escorting fighters (Bf109Gs, 109Ks and Fw190s, it seems) but they were hassled by Soviet fighters and AA fire. Two of the Storches crashed and none managed to land on what is now the 17 Juni Strasse. The next day a different tactic is chosen, with a single Arado Ar 96 (two-seater advanced trainer) dashing it at roof-top level, landing near the Brandenburg Gate and skimming back to Gatow. Reitsch again had to fold herself into the fuselage locker while von Greim is in the rear seat. I have a book with picture showing a very damaged Fi156 (broken windows, blown tyres, control surfaces riddled with bullet holes and, strangely enough, folded wings) on a Berlin street with the Brandenburg Gate just visible over the remains of the buildings in the background, being inspected by Soviet troops. The caption says that although it could not be confirmed, it was very likely the one which Reitsch landed with the injured von Greim.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2018 00:35
|
|
|
PainterofCrap posted:This photo: you must scan & post it.  No scanner, but here's a photo of a photo. It's been about 10 years since I cracked open this book so I clearly misremembered some things - the Stoch is much more damaged (it seems to have been on fire), it's clearly not near the Brandenburg Gate but it is in the Tiergarten (that's the Victory Column in the background) and it's being checked out by a British soldier, not Soviet. The strange thing is that I've never seen this picture anywhere else, and this book (B. Johnson's Classic Aircraft, published by Channel 4 of all people) is a fairly light, if pretty accurate and wide-ranging, general aviation history. It dedicates a few pages to the Storch in a chapter than also covers the Lysander and the PR Spitfires. Given that, with the rescue of Mussolini, the flight into Berlin is one of the Storch's more famous exploits you'd think the photo would be more widely-published - none of my Storch-specific books have it. If it wasn't so obviously taken in the Tiergarten it would almost make me doubt its authenticity. As far as I can make out, the Storch is here: https://zoom.earth/#52.515062,13.352554,19z,sat You can see from the picture that you're looking at the statue on the column's back, and apparently it faces west. The neoclassical building is a gatehouse or lodge on the edge of the traffic circle around the column, which is still there. The thing that intrigues me is that it's hardly in a convenient spot for getting to the bunker at the other end of 17 Juni Strasse and south of the Brandenburg Gate - two kilometers that in April 1945, would not have been a walk in the park (literally!). Surely you'd ideally want to land at the other end of the street, nearer the gate? The Storch could certainly do it. So perhaps the Fi156 in the photo is von Greim/Reitsch's Storch, which was damaged and had to be put down ASAP. Or perhaps it's one of the ones from the attempt the next day, put out of action by Soviet AA and which put down over a mile short of its objective? Nebakenezzer posted:I'm glad to hear the pilot who flew in the Ar 96 also flew out; the book I was reading mentioned that it was the same pilot who flew the transport Fw 190 earlier, but didn't mention that he got out of Berlin. I've also read that the unidentified pilot was one of the survivors of the doomed Storch flight the previous day. He had a dangerously exciting end to the war! BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Jun 8, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2018 15:09
|
|
|
simplefish posted:With all this talk of CG, I feel someone more knowledgeable than me about aerodynamics should make an effort post on the Whitley bomber Flaps were a new feature for production aircraft in the 1930s. Moreover, while the idea of 'the flap' was understood and unpatented, many of the specific ways of attaching and controlling them were patented by specific manufacturers (Handley-Page, Junkers and Lockheed had their own 'house' designs of flaps). Using flaps on a large bomber meant learning how to design and incorporate flaps in the first place and then either coming up with a new way of attaching and controlling them (especially if you wanted to do something more effective than a plain or split flap) or license the design from someone else. The same went for the various means of doing retractable undercarriage - Grumman inherited the distinctive hand-cranked 'wheel tuck' undercarriage from Loening while Curtiss licensed the P-36/P-40's rotating undercarriage from Boeing, which received a royalty payment on every Warhawk built. In the Whitley's case Armstrong-Whitworth were up against Air Ministry requirements caught in a transitional age. The Whitley (and the H-P Hampden) were the first 'modern' RAF bombers (monoplanes, retractable undercarriage, all-metal, high-speed) but they had to operate from relatively small and unsurfaced airfields most of which dated back to WW1. These new aircraft were much heavier and carried much more munitions (7000lbs for the Whitley and 4000lbs for the Hampden, against 2500lbs for the H-P Heyford, the last of the biplane bombers) and needed much more ground run for takeoff and landing. So the Air Ministry specified that the new bombers had to be able to operate from the same amount of ground as the Heyford. A lot of effort was expended giving these new aircraft similar take-off/landing speeds as the outgoing biplanes. Handley-Page had their leading-edge slats and had previously licensed the Junkers trailing flap. But A-W had no propriortory flap design and initially lacked the time and resources to work them into the design. The solution was to fit the main wing with an upwards incidence angle of 8.5 degrees, giving a huge amount of lift at low speed but requiring the Whitley to fly nose-down when at cruising speed. The odd appearance was heightened because the nose of the aircraft was itself 'drooped' down slightly from the rest of the fuselage to improve the visibility from both the cockpit and the bomb aiming position. In the event split flaps were fitted to the wing between the flight of the prototype and the start of production but the raked wing remained. By the time the Whitley was entering squadron service the RAF was already expanding its existing airfields and building new ones with long concrete runways, making the short-field abilities of the Whitley, Wellington and Hampden superfluous. By the time the next generation of heavies was in design (Stirling, Manchester/Lancaster and Halifax) not only did they have long runways to operate from but the aviation industry as a whole had the knowledge and means to easily incorporate un-patented plain and split flaps. Apparently the B-52 has a similar aerodynamic setup on account of its tandem undercarriage meaning that it can't properly rotate on takeoff (the wheelsets are either side of the centre of gravity, so it can't 'pivot') so the wings are set at a higher than ususal angle. This allows it to take off at very low amounts of rotation but result in it flying slightly nose-down.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2018 16:06
|
|
|
If you wanted a loco engine with aeronautical (insanity) heritage, you could try a Napier Deltic - 5384 cu. inches of 18-cylinder, 36-piston, three-crank, two-stroke madness good for 2500hp (if you were willing to rebuilt it after 15 minutes) or 1900hp at 1700rpm for a 1000-hour service life. It was developed as a marine engine for use in RN torpedo, fast attack and minesweeping boats but was descended from the Napier Culverin, which was an aero-diesel project using a two-stroke, opposed-piston layout and was really just a licensed copy of the Junkers Jumo 205 (Napier obtained the license pre-1939...). The Deltic was essentially three Culverins joined at the cranks, although the cylinder stroke and bore were increased as well. Most famously it was used in the British Railways Class 55 express locomotives - each loco had two Deltics derated to 1650hp at 1500rpm (so that's now 36 cylinders and 72 pistons) making 3300hp in 1955. Their official top speed was 100mph but in the early 1980s when the class was being withdrawn the BR service depots fiddled with the motor field transition gear, packed the motors with resin (so they could never be serviced but wouldn't overheat or flash over at high speeds), tweaked open the governors and the drivers were willing to run them hard. Class 55s were clocked at over 128mph on sections of the East Coast Main Line. And they were LOUD like you wouldn't believe. On calm summer nights in flat country like the Cambridgeshire Fens or the Vale of York you could hear a Class 55 at full chat for 20 minutes - 10 minutes as it approached, 10 minutes as it went away. That's a sound radius of over 20 miles. It's a sound almost impossible to get across on video because, like a straight-pipe turbojet or a fighter on afterburner, it's one of those sounds that vibrates through your feet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW8DwsrsbFQ&t=148s (the loco here is only running on one engine, too). You couldn't get a Deltic into their air - although it was famously powerful and low in weight it still weighed 8730lbs for 1900hp. A Napier Sabre weighed 2360lbs for 2850hp and an R-R Griffon is 1980lbs for 2035hp. Your only hope would be to recreate the E185 'Compound Deltic' prototype, where Napier took their Naiad turboprop (itself capable of 1500hp) and coupled it into the output shaft of a Deltic while also feeding the diesel section compressed air. That monster made 5300hp while weighing 9800lbs. Still a fatty (it weighs a third more than the Kuznetsov NK-12 which produces three times the power) but it's about the same ratio as the Jumo 205 which did actually fly
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2018 12:06
|
|
|
Carth Dookie posted:I never thought I'd pop a boner over machinery, but here we are. Something like this - http://www.dieselduck.info/historical/01%20diesel%20engine/Doxford/works.htm but much cleaner and more efficient.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2018 13:24
|
|
|
ManifunkDestiny posted:Seriously, it's always kinda mystified me how some planes are glorified/become national symbols of an era while others, in the same class, are completely ignored. Things like how the Lancaster is The British Bomber of WW2 while the Halifax is just completely ignored, or how the B-17 is the iconic American bomber while more Liberators were built. Interesting how our mythmaking happens. I've always been fascinated by the P-40 because it was kinda the reverse - even during WW2 it got laden with a whole lot of negative reputation, from the pilots outwards, that its combat record never really deserved. Mostly because it existed in the same strange limbo as the Hurricane as the 'first of the new gen' fighter. The Hawker used up its development potential by the middle of 1941 and had to be redeployed to ground attack or secondary theatres. The P-40 had enough room to remain a 'first rate second rate' aircraft right through to 1945. A lot of the pilots in the squadrons that took the first P-40s in 1940 found it something of a disappointment - it was faster in a straight line than the P-36 but was heavier for the same power, didn't climb as well and didn't have quite the same viceless handling. Plus it clearly looked like what it was, a 1935-vintage Hawk 75 with an underdeveloped Allison V12 on the front. Even if that did give it a  shark nose. Then the P-40 was the US (and much of the rest of the Allies) primary fighter during the 1940-1942 phase when things weren't going well. The P-40 didn't win any victories and even its most famous exploits with the AVG in China and Burma were really just valiant rearguard actions. And yet the records show that squadrons with the 'obsolete' and 'sluggish' P-40 turned in some of the best kill ratios of any fighter units in history. Even some of the AVG pilots didn't like the P-40 - amazingly many of the ex-USN fliers wanted to use the Brewster Buffalo (as used by the RAF 67 Squadron the Flying Tigers shared an airfield with) that a mock dogfight was organised to prove the point in the Curtiss' favour. But the P-40 was never in the limelight. By the time the war was turning in the Allies' favour it had been displaced by the more impressive, technologically superior and simply sexier P-38, P-47 and P-51. Even the later Kittyhawk variants, still putting in good performances in Italy and C-B-I, were considered obsolete second-rate aircraft. The P-40's lack of high altitude performance is a granted, but it also got landed with a reputation as a slow and ponderous fighter which couldn't dogfight. The reality was that it couldn't dogfight with a Zero or a Hayabusa. But no Allied fighter could match those aircraft in a turning fight. The F4F or the F6F couldn't. The P-38 certainly couldn't and neither could the P-51. All needed to use different high-energy and group fighting tactics, just as the P-40 did to exploit its strengths but none get landed with the same stigma.The P-40's reputation also suffered when the RAF declared it obsolete for European service in 1941 - but in Africa, the Middle East and the Eastern Front, where combat took place at low altitudes the P-40 turned in very good performances against the Bf109 and the Folgore.  It actually seems that some of the narrative that the P-40 was an obsolete junker was semi-encouraged officially because it made the good-but-not-good-enough performances of the forces operating it seem all the more plucky and down to determined grit and skill by the pilots. There's also the related psychological factor of how a squadron's confidence in the aircraft plays a huge part in its combat record, and even the squadron's casualty rates. And that has almost no relation to how objectively good/bad the aircraft is. Some DAF squadrons adored the Hurricane and hated the Tomahawk IIBs that replaced it - they saw their combat records plunge, which only confirmed their feelings. Others loved the idea of getting a tough six-gunned all-metal American fighter with a sexy shark nose and saw their performance leap when they converted. You can track two different squadrons in the same theatre getting the same cycle of replacement aircraft with completely out-of-phase combat records and opinions - one will be convinced that Fighter A is an outmoded deathtrap that is virtually a death sentence and is destroying morale, while the other will adore Fighter A but thinks the same of Fighter B and sees their kill rate drop by 40 per cent and their accident and casualty rate climb by a third when they're forced to operate it.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2018 23:51
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:
It's a former Supermarine Walrus hull: 
|
|
#
¿
Jan 29, 2019 16:58
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:Ah, thanks. Pretty sure that's a Navion with the optional wing-tip tanks. The giveaway being the tail surfaces scaled straight down from those of the P-51 to appeal to post-war wannabe fighter pilots.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 30, 2019 14:53
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:Thanks. Have a comet? Gratefully received. For all the stupid, mis-managed, badly-conceived and arrogantly-proposed projects the British aircraft industry produced in the post-war period, we could make a great-looking plane. The Comet 4 is one of the best. I await the Fairey Gannets, Handley Page Victors, Short Skyvans and De Havilland Sea Vixens in response, of course, but the Vickers Super VC10 puts the account in a lot of credit by itself 
|
|
#
¿
Jan 30, 2019 19:15
|
|
|
Nerobro posted:So the V1710 doesn't have offset bores? ... No wonder they wear out. Humph. Both the Merlin and the V-1710 have reduction gearboxes to step down the RPM of the engine to something that allows a practically-sized and -pitched propeller. Merlins used a simple spur gear for the reduction (a small cog on the end of the engine crank and a big cog on the propeller shaft) and those built for 'reverse rotation' had an intermediate reduction gear cog so the prop turned the other way while the engine itself turned the usual way and everything else was identical. The Allison had a more unusual design because it was designed from scratch as a 'universal' engine and when it was first mooted it seemed that its main application would be as a power unit for USN rigid airships. So the basic 'power core' of the V-1710 could be coupled to almost all the pick-n-mix variants of direct drive or reduction gearing (via spur gear or epicyclic) or with drive going to remote-placed propeller(s), as it would in an Akron/Macon-style airship or even with one fuselage-mounted engine driving two props via geared shafts, one each in a wing of a medium bomber. There were also modular fittings for induction (naturally-aspirated, supercharger, turbocharger, turbocharger and supercharger or turbo-compound), engine-driven gun synchronisation and other ancillaries. With the engine's airship role in mind there was also provision for the engine to be directly reversible by physically altering the camshaft timing. When it came to building up V-1710s for reverse rotation, all that needed to happen was that the crankshaft was installed 'backwards', replace one of the reduction gears with a 'blank' so the camshaft turned the correct way and add an extra gear into a blank bossing to drive the neccessary ancillary parts in the correct direction. You had to swap over a few of the ignition leads on one of the cylinder banks but not the other - the timing still worked out fine.The oil and coolant pumps worked perfectly happily running 'backwards'. All V-1710s could be adapted to run in either direction assuming you had a stock of the two gears you needed to add for reverse rotation. Of course since this was something that required getting the crank out of the engine this wasn't something you could easily do in the field (although it would be possible) but it was more of a means of standardising the parts needed across the variants of the engine and speeding production. If you go to http://www.enginehistory.org/Piston/Allison/V-1710Details/index.html you can see the different gear arrangements for LH and RH rotation - the key pair of gears are the two labelled 'H' and 'K' - H has to be swapped for one with a blank centre and K has to be moved. BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Feb 4, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2019 16:06
|
|
|
Ola posted:Based on his other T-6 videos, and zero experience, I think it's that it's very docile when everything is right, but lets you know very early when things aren't quite right. The gear/flap mechanism is a bit complex and it will float or bounce quite badly if you don't nail the landing speed. But perhaps things happen quite a bit slower than fighter speed, so you get a taste of how bad things can be without your head just being instantly bitten off. Yeah, my understanding is that it's this. While you want your early-stage trainers (J-3 Cub for primary, Stearman/Valiant for basic) to be rock steady, docile and almost self-rescuing so that kack-handed flying by inexperienced students won't crash the plane and kill the cadet and instructor, by the time you get to advanced training you need something that actually shows up errors and needs correct technique and flying by the book. You also need to start introducing students to the ways that a 1000+hp fighter can bite. So the T-6 falls into the 'easy to fly, difficult to fly well' category. The control response/weights were deliberately designed to mimic fighter aircraft, apart from the elevator power which was kept fairly low so cadets wouldn't pull the tail off by over-controlling during high-G aerobatics. Start getting a T-6 outside of its zone, or using the wrong techniques and procedures, and it will be very obvious to both the student and the instructor that you're messing up, but you won't endanger the aircraft.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2019 16:10
|
|
|
Inacio posted:Those are some cool loving photos. They really are ewe2 posted:If someone has flown this type, how do they handle, are they twitchy or forgiving? By all accounts the SE5 is one of the better-handling Allied fighters. Certainly more predictable, stable and less vicious than the Camel and many of the other rotary-engined aircraft and it lacked any aerodynamic quirks like the RE8 and its nasty spin/stall behaviour. It was developed at a point in the war when the knowledge of aerodynamics and which control systems did/didn't work was rapidly improving, and there was an effective dialogue between operational squadrons and the designers at the Royal Aircraft Factory as well a new ethos at the RAF about designing aircraft which considered the skills/training/survivability of the pilots rather than just producing 'a good fighter' on paper and expecting the fly-boys to deal with whatever handling or performance issues arose. Apparently the SE5 is very unusual for its time in that it can genuinely be flown hands-off which is something of a boon, especially when you're standing up to change the drums in the top-mounted Lewis gun! It was also much more structurally sturdy than earlier fighters, giving pilots greater confidence to throw it about in aerobatics, push its limits in terms of airspeed and Gs and making it better at shrugging off rough landings. Fake edit: Rather than trying to recall stuff from memory and hearsay, have it from the horse's mouth: http://thevintageaviator.co.nz/projects/se-5a-reproduction/flying-se5a "Compared to other Great War fighters it is rugged, reliable and very stable, and an excellent gun platform allowing an accurate shot from a greater distance. If I were comparing it to a more modern aircraft I would have to relate it to a 1950s era Great Lakes trainer, the SE5a certainly doesn’t feel like a ninety year-old design."
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2019 01:44
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:On bad flights: Ferry Command used to fly PBY Catalina to Britain, via Bermuda. Bermuda BTW is about 1000 km (600 miles) off the US coast. Even so, flying a Catalina from Bermuda to Wales took aprox. 29 hours Catalinas were also used on the Indian Ocean Service, established by a joint effort between QANTAS and the RAAF to re-establish an air line between Australia and the rest of the Empire which had been cut by the Japanese invasion of Malaya and the conquest of Singapore. Faced with nearly 3500 miles of over-ocean flying, the Catalinas flew direct and non-stop across the eastern Indian Ocean between Perth and Ceylon/Sri Lanka. You'll probably notice that this puts them right nearby large parts of the East Indies then well-supplied with Japanese fighter aircraft. The Catalinas had to maintain radio silence the entire way and could not use any form of radio navigation - it was all done by astro-nav- and they could not receive en-route weather reports. The trip was the longest scheduled over-ocean air leg in the world at the time. It was timetabled to take 29 hours but unfavourable winds and weather could extend that to over 32 hours. In order to carry enough fuel to make the trip the Catalains had to be largely stripped of their interiors. They only carried three passengers and no more than 150lbs of high-priority mail. The Catalinas carried so much fuel on take-off that if one of the engines failed during the first 10 hours of the flight the aircraft wouldn't be able to stay aloft, but that never happened. By the end of 1944 the service was able to use B-24s which could carry five times the payload and shave 10 hours off the trip. Platystemon posted:I didn’t know anything came that close to the Double Sunrise. You got a certificate to prove it on the QANTAS flights: 
BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Feb 27, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2019 16:29
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:"Proper" cabins for passengers, but these were bunks and a chair on the R100/R101. R100 had the walls made of fabric, and I think you got a curtain for privacy A little room for your bag/steamer trunk. No need for a class structure as all tickets were *crazy* expensive. Hindenberg had a 2:1 ratio for crew to passengers. Photos/accomodation plans of the R100/R101 are here if you want to see them: http://www.airshipsonline.com/airships/interior/R100Interior.htm They did a really clever job of making the public spaces look like the saloon from an ocean liner, but with the bare minimum of weight. All the 'wood' was fabric or duralumin printed/painted to look like wood, or was the thinnest sheet of ply with wire stitching/bracing.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2019 21:50
|
|
|
MrYenko posted:Everything I’ve ever seen about the Defiant as an airplane is positive. It was pleasant to fly, reliable, etc. it was just an awful idea tactically. It wasn't even an awful idea tactically - it was really outdone by strategic problems, in that Britain never thought that the Luftwaffe would be flying from airfields in France and thus bombers on missions over the British Isles would have single-seat fighter escort. The Defiant was one of those ideas that made perfect sense right up to the moment came to actually deploy it. It was conceived in 1935 when the RAF was still operating Gauntlets and Furys in its front-line squadrons, with the Gladiator only just coming into service. The Bf109 had flown but had not yet entered service and the same went for the P-36 and the Hurricane. With the exception of the I-16, the state of the art for fighters was a biplane with a top speed of about 220mph and two, or maybe four, rifle-calibre machines guns. The Spitfire had yet to make its first flight. But twin-engined bomber technology had, briefly, outstripped fighter design. Bombers could carry more powerful engines and were deemed better-suited to more aerodynamic all-metal monoplane forms. In 1935 the He111 was entering Luftwaffe squadron service and the Do17 and Ju88 were in the prototype stage. These bombers could out-run front-line fighters in level flight and, even if interceptors could catch the bombers it was widely thought that, with closing speeds of nearly 400mph, it would be impossible for a pilot to do lethal damage to a bomber with the weaponry carried. The Defiant offered the solution - four guns in a powered turret, offering the prospect of zero-deflection, no-allowance shooting (so the gunner wouldn't have to allow for either the horizontal or vertical deflection to the target) and those guns were movable, allowing a Defiant to maintain fire on its target as it passed and to manoeuver into the best position to avoid the bomber's defensive armament - the Defiant could loiter under the belly and fire its guns forward and up in a no-allowance shot, while a conventional fighter with fixed forward-facing guns, especially with marginal speed over the bomber, had no choice but to dive on the target from above and behind, putting it in the direct line of the dorsal/tail guns. When it could operate as intended the Defiant performed very well in its intended role, but those instances were very few and far between and the aircraft was lethally vulnerable to faster, more agile single-seaters (once the attackers realised the Defiant's arc of fire and how to distinguish its silhouette from the Hurricane).
|
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2019 15:43
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:Okay I admit I was just repeating what was under the picture on reddit FuturePastNow posted:Probably modified for testing new turboprops. Or something. It's RAAF aircraft RF403, a Lincoln which was (as Nebakenezzer said) adapted for tests of the British Blue Danube free-fall fission bomb. The Lincoln was used to test-drop various designs of bomb casing/fin from high altitudes (up to 34,000 feet), which required souping-up the Lincoln by fitting Armstrong-Siddeley Python turboprops (as used in thread-favourite the Westland Wyvern) in the outboard engine locations while keeping the standard Merlin 85s inboard After the tests the Lincoln was used the ferry the real live Blue Danube from Adelaide (where the bombs arrived on a ship from Britain) to the weapons testing range at Woomera, where it was dropped by a Vickers Valiant...because why not use an experimental aircraft to carry nuclear weapons? BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 17:22 on May 18, 2019 |
|
#
¿
May 18, 2019 17:17
|
|
|
Went to a D-Day 75 event over the weekend at the former naval air station HMS Daedalus on the south coast of England. During D-Day this was the busiest Allied airfield in the world, being the centre of the ground-support operations. Spitfires, Seafires, P-51s and Typhoons flew over 400 individual sorties across the Channel in 24 hours. The weather was, unfortunately, very similar to the actual D-Day - F5 winds (18knots gusting 25+) at 45 degrees to the runway and heavy rain showers sweeping over the field every 15-20 minutes. So virtually all the flying displays/fly-pasts were cancelled. There were some aircraft on the ground to see, though, either airfield residents or visitors, some of which reflected Daedalus post-war history.  Cirrus Vision  SA/BAe Bulldog  DHC-1 Chipmunk  C182 amphibian - not that interesting in itself but we don't get many floatplanes here!  Auster AOP6  Inevitably, the only warbird that could cope with the weather was a C-47! That's All, Brother was the lead-ship of an 800-aircraft formation which delivered the initial paratroop drop over Normandy. It's recently been restored by the CAF and is over here for a European tour.  A B47, a C-47 and a guy's bald head.  Apologies for the terrible digital-zoom pic  Crowds gather to worship at the altar of the Gooney Bird...   Later, a P-51D, Tall in the Saddle, managed to drop in in a gap in the weather. She's a 'Red Tail' but rather late for D-Day, not arriving in Europe until February 1945 and operating in Italy rather than France.  Daedalus is now 'Solent Airport' and is home to Britten-Norman's production facility, so there were a few Islanders of various specs around.  B-N Defender-4000 with Seamaster marine surveillance radar. What a schnoz!  Fleet Air Arm public relations team were there with a Westland Lynx and the front half of a Sea Harrier. Of course on the following day, when I wasn't there, it was perfect flying conditions so there were Spitfires, Hurricanes, P-51s, Gazelles, Lynxs, WW1 replicas and all sorts flying about! BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Jun 10, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Jun 10, 2019 17:51
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:So the first transatlantic flight is going to reach its centennial on June 14th - 15th. I've been reading a book on the flight as I didn't know a great deal about it. The Vickers Vimy Alcock and Brown flew generated non-engine electricity by a little wind generator. First question: why? Did the Rolls-Royce Eagle engines not have an alternator? I don't get why they'd have two different electrical systems. Electrical systems (for anything except engine ignition, which would be provided by the magnetos) was virtually unheard of for aircraft in 1919, especially for military aircraft (or, in Alcock and Brown's case, mil-surplus) like the Vimy. So no, the Eagle at that time didn't have a drive for a dynamo (alternator technology suitable for use on automotive and aero engines was about four decades in the future). The magnetos only generate the spark needed for the ignition - 12,000+ volts for a fraction of a second to fire the spark plugs. They really produce electrical energy rather than electrical current. Nebakenezzer posted:Second: here is a list of Brown's navigation equipment. I understand what some of these are (like charts and a sextant, obviously) but some of the others are a little obscure to me: Mercantor's chart with two overlays for shooting current sun and stars, Naval sextant with special extra deep grooves for easy reading with vibration, a six inch drift bearing plate (?), an artificial split level horizon (?) [apparently different from a gyro artificial horizon], a baker navigation machine (?), an Appleyard [great brand name] course and distance calculator (?), transverse tables for dead reckoning calculation, and aircraft compass. "Mercantor's [sic - old-skool way of spelling Mercator] chart with two overlays for shooting current sun and stars" - These would have been paper or acetate sheets on which Brown (or someone) would have drawn Sumner Lines. These are lines along which the aircraft must be if whichever astronomical body is at the calculated angle of altitude at the calculated time. Brown would have drawn a series of these pre-calculated lines for the sun and more for a few (probably half a dozen, maybe up to ten) major navigational stars. This was simply doing as much of the maths beforehand and would allow Brown to quickly interpolate any readings that fell between his pre-drawn lines. "Naval sextant with special extra deep grooves" - Not sure about this one. It's either refering to the shape of the sextant's handle (which was rather like a pistol grip) so it wasn't joggled about when in use, to the engraved markings on the instrument itself so they're more easily visible when your eyeballs are being pummelled by vibration and slipstream, or to the actual teeth on the sextant's vernier so that the arm doesn't get jogged out of position. "six-inch drift bearing plate" - I think this is what is more normally called a Wind-Gauge Bearing Plate in RAF terminology. It was a kind of circular slide rule which was mounted in the aircraft's slipstream and used to calculate drift - the effect of the winds aloft on the aircraft's course and movement in the air. Looking at the cockpit layout of the Vimy, I'm not sure how Brown would have used it. I think it would have to have been mounted on the fuselage behind the cockpit and Brown would have had to stand and face backwards to adjust and read it. Hardly the most dangerous thing he would do during the flight, I suppose! This was a smaller, manual, simplified version of a machine originally developed by the Royal Navy in the 1900s for calculating the wind effect of shells over long ranges and incorporated into the first Dreyer Fire Control Table. "artificial split level horizon" - I'm pretty sure this is a typo for 'spirit level' horizon - just a bubble in a chamber of liquid. Later RAF-pattern sextants included an in-built bubble chamber so the navigator would know when the instrument was perfectly level, since they wouldn't always be shooting to the actual horizon. "Baker navigation machine" - I can find tantalising references to this but they're all in RAF documents which assume you know what one is! It seems to have been an early form of manually-operated moving map display, with the map for the entire trip printed on it and then wound from one roller to the other as the plane progressed. There are references to it being used both to track star/sun movements and to carry the running navigational plot of the plane's actual course (which is how we would think of a 'moving map' today). "Appleyard course and distance calculator" - an early, British-developed version of the Dalton E6B dead reckoning calculator still used by pilots today. Another sort of circular slide rule. Appleyard was the RFC officer who developed it. "transverse tables for dead reckoning calculation" - This should be "traverse tables". They're pre-printed tables to take the work out of doing trigonometric calculations for dead reckoning. They let you quickly work out how your latitude and longitude has changed from your last known position, even if in between your departure point and the DR position you're trying to work out you've been heading in several different directions at various different speeds. It really is incredible. I'm in awe of people who can do good astro-nav on boats. I can get fairly decent results if I'm taking sightings on land and I take a lot of time both taking the sight and doing the calculations (or cheating and using modern pre-done look-up tables...) and I've tried it at sea and I can get it to the 'we're somewhere south of England but north of France' region which would be vaguely reassuring if all the GPS went down in fog in the Channel. But to do accurate, mission-critical navigation in a Vickers Vimy, in freezing cloud and with snapshot sightings taken in a matter of seconds and then reduced to positions working in the cockpit on your knees is crazy. Nebakenezzer posted:Third: So I totally forgot the first flight across the Atlantic was a competition started by the Daily Mail with a 10,000 pound reward. I'm reading a book from the 1950s on the flight, and it has a...story about one of the other entrants, the Martinside Raymor. [A single wing version of the Martinsyde (if you believe wikipedia) Buzzard biplane]. It should be 'Martinsyde' - the company was a collaboration between Henry Martin and George Handasyde.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2019 20:45
|
|
|
Platystemon posted:You’re right about the typo, but the device is slightly more complicated than that. Thanks for this - really interesting! My limited knowledge of astro-nav is ground-based, so I assumed it was just a bubble-level. Never thought it would literally be an artificial horizon. I am even more boggled that Brown (or anyone else) was able to use such a thing in an open cockpit over the Atlantic at night!
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2019 23:12
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 04:53 |
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:A bad name, not quite on the level of Blackburn Blackburn Not quite so redundant when you consider that 'fighter' wasn't widely the term for a aircraft designed mostly for air-to-air combat until the late stages of WW1, and the RAF in particular didn't start using the term until the 1920s. Until then they were 'scouts'. The USAAF didn't stop calling them 'pursuit aircraft' until the 1940s. Bristol (and the Air Ministry) saw the Brisfit as something different. Bristol had already produced the Scout (1913-1916), which was Britain's first recognisably modern fighter (in the sense of the term as we know it) - a single-seater with a tractor layout and forward-firing armament, even if synchronisation gear was yet to be invented. The Scout was, well, a scout - designed to be fast and agile for quick reconnaissance dashes, shooting down enemy observation planes and tangling with opposing scout aircraft. The Fighter was a bigger, heavier, less-agile but better-armed multi-role machine designed to be able to deal with scouts by dint of packing armament both front and rear and what was, for its size, a strong turn of speed. It was also capable of bombing, spotting and longer-range reconnaissance missions. So in 1916 calling your aircraft 'Fighter' was just a good pugilistic name to give your big, powerful, heavily-armed machine. Although the Royal Aircraft Factory also distinguished between 'Fighters, Experimental' which were two-seater pusher-layout aircraft like the FE2 and 'Scouts, Experimental' which were single-seater tractor-layout machines like the SE5. It just happens that a few years later when it became clear that the role of 'scouts' in modern military aviation was really destroying (or fighting!) other scouts everyone decided to call them fighters too, leaving the Bristol looking rather unimaginatively named.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2019 21:57
|
|