Whats your Favourite Aircraft?

[dave hard]

My understanding of the success of the Lancaster was that they started off by deciding how big the bomb bay was going to be, and then designed the rest of the plane around that.

 

but I am open to correction.....

 

Caterham 21 VHPD - one of the few

[Eric McLoughlin]

I think you're correct. Of course, the Lanc started life as the twin engined Manchester, which was a disaster. The Vulture engines of the Manchester were just too complex and unreliable. The secret of the Lanc's big bomb bay was the positioning of the wing spar. Instead of didviding the bomb bay in two, as in the Halifax and Stirling, the spar passed above the bomb bay, leaving it unobstructed. The spar instead became an obstacle for the crew to negotiate because it passed therough the upper fuselage. I'm sure many Lanc crew members died because they could not negotiate the wing spar when trying to bail out of a crashing aircraft.

[scooby dooby doo]

That explains why you don't see it anymore then ☹️

 

I guess aesthetics are going to lose to practicality any day of the week...

 

But I still love the Victor's looks

 

(I I should have a smiley or to in my reply to FH - so they are: *smile* )

 

HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU

[Eric McLoughlin]

Hoopy - I presume you're still refering to jet engines buried in wings.

 

Another factor is the sheer size of modern turbofan engines. Old Ghost, Sapphire and Avon engines were quite slim and fitted reasonably well into the wing root (and puny - the four Ghosts on the De Havilland Comet 1only developed 4,400 lb of thrust each). Have you ever seen the engines on a Boeing 777? These Pratt & Whitney PW4047s or Rolls Royce Trents each develop up to 90,000 lb thrust ? The engine cowl has the same diameter as a Boeing 737 fuselage. In theory you could fit six abreast seating into the engine! The ONLY place for engines like these is under the wing.

 

I agree about the Victor. In many ways it was superior to the Vulcan. It could fly higher and faster for a start (a Victor even went supersonic once). The fact that it was the last V-Bomber in RAF service speaks for itself.

[KevSull Too]

Tut tut tut Eric, all that talk and not a wibble in sight!

 

😬You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same. 😬

 

[FH]

KevSull, some of us manage to communicate without resorting to wibbling all the time y'know It isn't a prerequisite of gang membership AFAIK 😬

 

FH

[Eric McLoughlin]

I can tell you an interesting story about a "wibble" but it deserves a thread all its own.

[Morls]

"Wibble"

 

Was it in common useage prior to the first publication of the 'Roger Irrellevant' cartoon in Viz?

 

I also liked Tinribs.

 

 

 

Mark

 

☹️ My Caterham Silver Jubilee No. 7 is for sale ☹️

[Boonie Hound]

Crumbs FH - do I have to learn these rules? I'm just getting my head around home economics. 🤔

 

Is there a legal definition for wibble 🤔

[Eric McLoughlin]

I can trace the ancestory pf "Wibble" to at least 1968/69.

[Morls]

Well

Intended

B*llocks

Blathered

Liberally

Everywhere

 

🤔

 

Whitby's

Incredible

Bald

Bookreading

Librarian's

Earwax

 

🤔

 

Woolworths

Inconceivably

Big

Bottomed

Little

Elephants

 

🤔

 

Women

Impressed

By

Blokes

Licking

Eggplants

 

🤔

 

 

Mark

 

☹️ My Caterham Silver Jubilee No. 7 is for sale ☹️

[WindyMiller]

Eric, I was only suggesting that the bombers often get a raw deal compared to the Spitfire, my gramps also really rated Wellingtons (with well known designer) said they just kept on flying with all manner of damage.

I've read one of the books on 617, and the dams obviously featured as the reason for formation but it too, heavily praised the two earthquake bombs. Get them close and they would undermine bridges, by creating massive underground disturbance. Guess who again!

It's probably interlectual snobbery, and I do not mean to take anything away from the men on the ground, but IMHO there were a few very clever people who made more different than they are recognised for.

Radar- why the spitfires were so good

Station X at bletchley- knowing what the germans were doing and the first computer!

to name only two.

( gets off high horse and waits for flak)

Andy

[Eric McLoughlin]

The Spit does seem to attract a lot of the credit - especially regarding the Battle of Britain. As Windy says, radar, or RDF as it was called at the time, was Britain's main asset in the BoB. However, as far as destroying enemy aircraft was concerned, Hurricanes accounted for more German aircraft than all the other defences (including Spitfire) put together. Another little known fact about the Battle of Britain is that the RAF lost more bomber aircrew in that period than they did fighter pilots - and that was before the Bomber Offensive against Germany had even begun. Most of the Bomber Command losses were as a direct result of the attacks on German invasion barges etc which were parked up in French ports awaiting the signal for "operation Sealion" to commence. The main aircraft type used in these attacks were Bristol Blenheim and some of these missions were almost suicidal. I discovered not that long ago that the former BBC soccer comentator Kenneth Wolstenhome (he of "They think it's all over" fame) was an ex-Blenheim pilot. He was lucky to have got through the war because most of them did not.

[scooby dooby doo]

ah ❗

 

yes, they were all turbojets then weren't they 🤔 A modern turbofan has a bypass ration of well over 10 doesn't it 🤔 Hence its got a HUGE diameter. Happy now - cos thats a vERY good reason to stick them on pods.

 

HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU

[WindyMiller]

Agree with you Eric on the Blenheims, on the two flight sims I have, both of which are supposed to be fairly realistic, they are shockingly easy to shoot down!!!!(Baron von Windy flies again)

Wasn't the Hurricane's high kill rate down to good tactics, putting the agile Spits vs fighters and the stable gun platformed Hurricanes to rip lumps out of the bigger bombers?

Andy

[Eric McLoughlin]

In all respects the Mk 1 Spitfire was superior to the Mark 1 Hurricane (the two versions of each aircraft in RAF service in the summer/autumn of 1940). There were just more Hurricanes in service at the time. The Hurricane was developed only slightly during the war and was obsolete by 1943 - although it did give a good account for itself in North Africa and the Far East as a ground attack aircraft. The Spitfire was developed dramatically throughout the war. For example, the 1939 Mk1 had a Rolls Royce Merlin of 1,000 hp and a top speed of just under 350 mph. The 1945 Mk 24 had a 2,500 Rolls Royce Griffon and a top speed of 450 mph. The Spitfire was developed further into the Spiteful and Seafang but the new generation of jet fighters such as the Vampire and Seahawk showed that jets were the way forward.

[Alex Birtwisle]

Supersonic Victor? I bet the crew wet themselves!

 

Afew P-51d pilots reported odd handling of their planes in steep dives (some planes were lost too apparently) - this was later discovered to be the effects of the aircraft nearing the sound barrier. I am in touch with one of the Mustang pilots and one of the ground crew who flew in the 361st Fighter group out of Bottisham in 1944 ... they have some interesting tales to tell!

 

 

 

 

S713UMY

1.8K Viper Blue

 

[Eric McLoughlin]

There are rumours that some Spitfires may have gone supersonic in dives. Because of its thin wing, the Spitfire was capable of high Mach numbers, over 0.9. A number of aircraft in WW2 were able to get close to the speed of sound in dives. Both the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and Lockheed P-38 Lightning were very fast when descending vertically at full power. The Germans even had a plan to build a manned version of the V2 rocket. That would have meant manned flight of over 4,000 mph by about 1947, if they'd been able to continue the project.

[Boonie Hound]

Eric I have also heard that about the Spits. Am I right in thinking thay had alot of trouble pulling out of the dives - something to do with the tail and not working at that speed. Sorry that's about as accurate as I get as engineering and science are all magic to me and nobody is going to be able to convince me otherwise.

 

That goes for you too Windy

[Eric McLoughlin]

One of the things that happens as a plane approaches the speed of sound is that the centre of lift migrates back towards the rear of the aircraft. If you can imagine the centre of lift as being like the fulcrum of a see saw, the force that the elevators on the tailplane need to exert to bring the nose up from a dive gets greater and greater. All properly designed supersonic aircraft have all moving tailplanes rather than separate elevators - with the exception of delta winged aircraft of course. This fact was understood by 1945 and that is why the first successful supersonic aircraft, the Bell X-1 of 1946, had an all moving tailplane.

[scooby dooby doo]

Haven't DC8-72s gone supersonic in slight dives on test flights 🤔

 

HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU

[Eric McLoughlin]

The DC-8 70 Series were re-engined DC-8 60s (they had their old technology Pratt & Whitney JT3D Turbofans replaced by more modern General Electric/SNECMA CFM-56s. The DC-8 that went supersonic was way back at the beginning of the DC-8 history ie late 1950s early 1960s. I think it might have been a Trans Canada Airlines (since re-named Air Canada of course) on a test flight. Thta would have been a Series 40 with Rolls Royce Conway by-pass engines. Series 10, 20 and 30 DC-8s had Pratt and Whitney JT3 Turbojets (really smokey too, especially when using water injection for added boost on take off). Series 50s and 60s had JT3D Turbofans.

[scooby dooby doo]

hmm... I'm going to have to work hard to catch you out Eric

 

HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU

[Eric McLoughlin]

i was one of those kids that pored over every detail in my "Observer" aircraft books. I still have them stashed away so if someone wants to know the shaft horsepower output of the Rolls Royce Darts on a Vickers Viscount Series 810, I'm the man.

[WindyMiller]

Apparently the all moving tail plane was a british invention, which we passed over to the U.S. and then we shelved our own attempts. Do you know any more Eric? Which plane or project it was?

Andy