Recent content by cherry blossom

If you look at the Sakai's big brother, the Ha-5 or Ha-41 or Ha-109, you might see the same bore as a 14N but a slightly shorter stroke. However, they may both be parallel developments from the Bristol Jupiter.

We are going into alternate history rather than looking at technology but might one see a big change as early as July 1940. After Italy's declaration of war, the Mediterranean was closed to British merchant ships. Without that, attacking the Vichy fleet had the downside that the Mediterranean...

There was a highly critical RAF report on the performance of Hurricanes repaired after significant damage which I dimly remember quoted a maximum speed of 304 mph but that was repaired aircraft.

I agree with the main thrust of Dronescapes' posts that Whittle was very badly treated by the British officials. The RLM also made serious errors with the Jumo 004, which was designed as a cheap and dirty axial design but was redesigned as the 004B rather than being used. However, the French...

Good point by SR6 about the loss of power with altitude but if we are seriously in what if territory, we could fit a R-2800 supercharger, like the DB603 supercharger in late DB605s and the Vulture as the first stage of the Merlin 60, and add water injection. As we are only adding air rather than...

A divine healer in a church called out, "Anyone with special needs who wants to be prayed for, come forward to the front." With that, Henry got in line and when it was his turn the Pastor asked, "Henry, what do you want me to pray for you?" Henry replied, "Pastor, I need you to pray for help...

Doesn't the FFVS J 22 have a 14 cylinder engine?

Fully agree that there would be a great deal of work to be done especially on the cooling system but the Ki-61-II has a performance not too different from a Spitfire V with about the same power, so I would suspect that going to a Merlin 60 series would give performance similar to a Spitfire IX...

A millionaire goes to church to make a confession. The priest asks him: "What is your sin, my son?" "Father, I am too greedy." "Greed indeed is a grave sin. Here's what I want you to do… when you leave the church, you must give $100 to the very first person you see." "What?! $100 to a...

A couple met on Corfu and fell in love. They were discussing how they would continue their relationship after their holidays were over. "It's only fair to warn you, Linda," the man said. "I'm a golf nut. I live...eat...sleep...and breathe golf." "Well,..." the girl said, "Since you're being...

I found this at @cholling For years I've been hearing that "One day AI will be smarter than humans and we'll all be doomed." "Nonsense," I said. "AI is very stupid, and not getting noticeably smarter." And I was right. But I didn't think about the fact that there were two ways that prophecy...

After the young girls that Jeffrey Epstein supplied to his famous party guests had entertained them, Epstein would interview the girls to see if she has any dirt on the guest that could be used to entrap them. One of the girls entertained Bill Gates. When asked what she had found out, she...

The Japanese Navy used A5Ms and the A6M2 in China. Their initial opponents included Gloster Gladiators and later the I-15. Might they have developed boom and zoom tactics against these opponents and possibly continued to use them against American opponents.

I am coming very late to this thread but there was some discussion of how the Enigma system of using a reflector introduced a weakness. The advantage was cost as you do not have to have a mechanism with a switch between encode and decode. Similarly the pawl and ratchet mechanism limited the...

Author Len Deighton has died at 97. Members of this forum may have read his WW2 aviation novels and Fighter on the Battle of Britain. One obituary is at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2026/03/17/len-deighton-spy-thriller-harry-palmer-died-obituary/