Recent content by bf109xxl

From "Stalin's Falcons: Exposing the Myth of Soviet Aerial Superiority Over the Luftwaffe in WW2" by Dmitry Zubov, Air World, 2024. The book is mainly devoted to the realities of the development of Soviet aviation under the Stalinist regime, which left behind many myths. I've flipped through the...

Thnx. Seems that neither the layout of the cutouts on the instrument panel nor the presence of the additional landing gear warning light cannot be used as unambiguous indicators of the P-40 model.

With all due respect, a photo of the instrument panel of a clearly identified P-40F/L with the same compass location would be appreciated. Then the attribution of the panel to the P-40F/L model would be quite reasonable. I am not a P-40 expert, but so far I have never seen such a photo.

Drendel (p.57): Kinzey (p.40):

You can make inquiries about the restored P-40Es from photos in books by Drendel and Kinzey.

Rodeike found 69, Nowarra even less. 23 - according to reliable sources.

From "Focke-Wulf Fw 190 - Ta 182. Entwicklung. Technik. Einsatz" by Heinz Nowarra, Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart, 1988 (2.Auflage)

Sorry, but it is definitely P-40E. The layout of the instrument cutouts is completely consistent with the P-40E panel and completely inconsistent with the P-40F panel. The landing gear warning light was also installed on the P-40E (on a fraction - perhaps a small one - of the airplanes...

The date is wrong: the annual "Kieler Woche" (Kiel Week) event takes place in the last week in June. Ashigara passed through the Suez Canal on April 3, 1937, en route to Portsmouth to participate in the coronation parade of King George VI, then the cruiser was in Kiel from May 24 to 31.

T-37A with the hull manufactured at the Podolsk plant.

You may look for statistics of Ki.61 kamikaze attacks of armored ships. The results for the Bf.109 should be quite similar. However, I doubt that the angle-resolved data on penetration is available - the Japanese experiments were carried out under uncontrollable conditions.

The I-153 project (i.e., "I-15 modification 3") was approved in November 1937, and the first flight took place in August 1938; serial production did not begin until spring-summer 1939. The delay in serial production of the I-153, even for the Soviet system, is quite unusual and can be explained...

Well, they had some reason for that opinion. I know of at least one very expressive example (as well as a couple of less expressive ones) of the extremely unsuccessful use of a large heavy "bomber" engine in a fighter. Piston fighters seem to be more "sensitive" to specific parameters (e.g...

Bill Gunston's opinion from his book, "The development of Piston Aero Engines" (pp.171-172): Turning briefly to other wartime countries, I was fortunate to be able to look at almost all the Japanese engines, and formed the view, 'When you've seen one, you've seen them all.' Almost all were...

Yokosuka L3Y PS. Just kidding. :)