P 51 Mustang vs Mosquito? (1 Viewer)

Mosquito or p51


  • Total voters
    17

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

I suppose you could look at it that way. The physicists among us may take umbrage, as it isn't an exact analogy, but yes air gets rammed in the front, it acquires additional energy thru heating, and is ejected at higher velocity thru the tailpipe. And it doesn't acquire useful thrust until the ram velocity achieves a certain threshold.
I would say the thrust was very small maybe enough to compensate for the inlet drag, basically a ramjet where the exhaust gasses were heated by a radiator, the best exponent of the meredith effect also had the most advance inlet design
 
The Meridth effect was simple in theory, getting some sort of benefit wasn't that hard. Getting a lot of benefit was.

sccp_0808_03_z%2Bp51_mustang%2Bp51_mustang_net_thrust_diagram.jpg

There is an awful lot going on.
The Mustang used a large radiator in area. The drag of a radiator is proportional to the speed of the air flowing through it.
IF you can reduce the speed of the air flowing through the radiator to 1/2 the normal airspeed the drag is 1/4 of the full speed drag.
The large, expanding air duct slowed the airspeed before the air went through the radiator matrix. This reduced the drag. The heated, expanded (higher speed?) air stream was then confined and the speed of the airstream increase further until it exited.
With the rather modest amount of heat warming the air stream (compared to actually burning fuel in the airstream) the shape/contours?change in cross section have to be carefully planed in order to get any real benefit. Too rapid an increase in cross section or too abrupt an angle increase in the duct the wall and could result in a disrupted airflow before the airstream even gets to the radiator creating excessive drag. If the airflow doesn't hit the radiator at a relatively even airspeed ( core of radiator isn't seeing much higher speed than the edges) then you don't get the advantage of the bigger radiator/slower speed through the matrix.
Getting the airflow speed through the radiator matrix right so the air picks up the most heat with the least drag takes a bit of work too.
Speed too fast and you not only have higher drag, you may not get as high a heat transfer. Speed too slow and you may have not enough engine cooling going on and may not be able to get the airflow back up to the needed speed to generate any thrust ( getting the thrust to actually exceed the drag is the goal (it may not have been achieved) generating a few pounds of thrust (single digit HP) isn't much good if the drag is measured in tens of pounds (or tens of HP) or hundreds.
The Spitfire ducts weren't long enough and the Mosquito's weren't either.
 
The Spitfire ducts weren't long enough and the Mosquito's weren't either.

I don't think that is correct.

The Spitfire's ducts had too large an opening and too large an exit (at least on the XIV onwards) and only had a two position (IIRC) exit flap.

Its the expansion of the divergent duct (the inlet) and contraction of the convergent duct (the outlet) that matters. I don't know if the Mosquito's had sufficient or not, but its radiator had a totally different shape than the Mustang's, being thin and wide, which means that the length of the duct is, likely, less important.
 
This supposed to be the Mosquito's radiator set up.
Mosquito.jpg

It is not the length itself that is the problem but if there isn't sufficient length for a proper expansion and contraction of the duct area/cross section. Too abrupt a change in cross section will cause drag or more drag than the more gradual change.
 
The divergent duct is, arguably, more gradual than that in the P-51.

The convergent duct may be, but the P-51's isn't exactly gradual either, and both have the issue where the outlet is at the bottom, so the duct is less gradual on one side than the other.
 
The Mosquito could have had a much better system to exploit the meredith effect however it involved removing the wing spar, it seems to be the best compromise in the space available.
 
The only advantage the Mosquito Night Fighter had was the ability to find the Mustang and night - and continue to track. Big advantage but its only advantage in an air fight.
 
My father disparaged my choices there also. During WWII he rode it down once behind enemy lines rather than bail, and three times belly landed with really bad battle damage.

No, the reference to Chuter was also to NeoconShooter and Shooter8..
What. was the thinking there, is it safer to belly land than bail out?
 
What. was the thinking there, is it safer to belly land than bail out?

Depends on the aircraft, the pilot, and the circumstances. On some aircraft (think Lightning, think Airacobra ), the prospect of getting out of the cockpit without getting hit by the tail was dubious at best. Others weren't so bad. Some aircraft could be gracefully slid onto their belly with relative ease; others were pretty tricky. I know from experience some pilots can transition easily from touching down smoothly with an elevated sightline to doing the same thing with a sightline much closer to the runway. Try checking out a B-52 pilot in his brand new Mooney 201! And the consequences of getting wrong what will probably be your first, last, and only belly landing are not pleasant.
 
Depends on the aircraft, the pilot, and the circumstances. On some aircraft (think Lightning, think Airacobra ), the prospect of getting out of the cockpit without getting hit by the tail was dubious at best. Others weren't so bad. Some aircraft could be gracefully slid onto their belly with relative ease; others were pretty tricky. I know from experience some pilots can transition easily from touching down smoothly with an elevated sightline to doing the same thing with a sightline much closer to the runway. Try checking out a B-52 pilot in his brand new Mooney 201! And the consequences of getting wrong what will probably be your first, last, and only belly landing are not pleasant.
I was asking because it was dd's father and so they may have discussed it
 
What. was the thinking there, is it safer to belly land than bail out?
My father made four 'safe' Belly landings - all flak related. When I was contemplating Airborne, he reminded me that "no sane person jumps out of a perfectly flying airplane - and wasn't sure what it would take to get him out of a 'bad flying airplane'. His four were Manston, St. Etiene, FR, Steeple Morden and Steeple Morden. All except the France 'visit' were repaired despite heavy flak damage.

I think the obvious 'go now' sign would be a fire or about to lose something 'important'
 
My father made four 'safe' Belly landings - all flak related. When I was contemplating Airborne, he reminded me that "no sane person jumps out of a perfectly flying airplane - and wasn't sure what it would take to get him out of a 'bad flying airplane'. His four were Manston, St. Etiene, FR, Steeple Morden and Steeple Morden. All except the France 'visit' were repaired despite heavy flak damage.

I think the obvious 'go now' sign would be a fire or about to lose something 'important'

Great that he saved the plane and it was returned to service!
Was it the same plane each time? (with the exception of St. Etiene)
Was the radiator assembly ripped off each time?
Was the flak encountered while strafing?
 
Great that he saved the plane and it was returned to service!
Was it the same plane each time? (with the exception of St. Etiene)
Was the radiator assembly ripped off each time?
Was the flak encountered while strafing?
No, four separate Mustangs.

WRBbar 44-13591 returned as WRO. 44-13950 WRF was destroyed on the ground by the rest of 354FS Red flight when Priest landed to pick him up. WRBbar 44-14799 returned as YFH (358FS). WRBbar 44-72253 returned as WRL

All flak, all while strafing or glide bombing
 
My father made four 'safe' Belly landings - all flak related. When I was contemplating Airborne, he reminded me that "no sane person jumps out of a perfectly flying airplane - and wasn't sure what it would take to get him out of a 'bad flying airplane'. His four were Manston, St. Etiene, FR, Steeple Morden and Steeple Morden. All except the France 'visit' were repaired despite heavy flak damage.

I think the obvious 'go now' sign would be a fire or about to lose something 'important'
Thanks dd, obviously a belly landing wasnt considered that risky and he saved most of the planes.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back