Recent content by Demetrious

Recently I've had reason to look into the gritty mechanical details of high-displacement aero engines in general and the Allison V-1710 in particular. All sources broadly agree that the V-1710 (excluding a few late-war models) generated its maximum power around 3,000 RPM, that it utilized a...

No, the problem with the original comparison- in the post that launched this thread, five years ago- was that it was always bunk. The Spitfire XIV had a Griffon engine- a more advanced powerplant. The P-51D was still using the Merlin. That's why there was 8,000 + P-51Ds made and less then...

Spitfire vs. Zero is an interesting discussion; since the Spit is just about the closest match for the Zero you're going to find. The Spit is an amazing turner, but the Zero is nigh insane in the turn (the figures I remember for flat sustained turning performance is 18 seconds for a 360 in the...

All I meant by that was that the armorers had sufficient time to service the weapons, instead of having to get the same plane into the air again in six hours. Pressure is always present in a war. This not only contradicts everything I have heard about the Hispano's tight tolerances, but...

Precisely. Just because most of your pilots won't necessarily need it doesn't mean you pass up the best option going. All I'm suggesting is that the difficulties of the "lesser" armaments have perhaps been... exaggerated. Mostly for weight savings (some of which could be traded for more...

That's also late war, with a lot more time to work out the kinks in the system, and they weren't flying as much "under pressure" for high turnaround times on aircraft, like during the BoB. The Oldsmobile 20mm cannon mounted on early P-39s worked fine, though it's ballistics put it firmly in...

It's telling that when I came to the forums today to make this topic, I found yet another thread that had been derailed into the age-old cannon vs. MG argument. And as usual, all the same arguments are given their spin- rate of fire, destructive power, etc, etc. And eventually, as they always...

Kind of. I can't seem to find the original page where a sailor who served under her spelled out what happened in that harbor, but you can kind of piece it together from official sources like this (the Times article that's all over:) So the prop did break. I doubt you can do that simply by...

Damn close to identical, yes. The P-40B was the Army designation, and the Hawk-81A was the Curtiss-Wright factory designation. There IS one difference to be noted- the company that provided the engines for the Hawk-81As that equipped the Flying Tigers were for some reason overpowered, which...

I figured as much. Meh! Oh, I'm not after anything that's still classified. I was just recently wondering about the F-4 versus the MiG-21, performance-wise. I wasn't surprised to see that the difference in power/weight was only slightly in the MiGs favor, but it'd be nice to know how they...

I suppose you're right. I'm probably not going to find this data in any "compilation" or "big book of fighter planes." Do you just have to hunt those down one-by-one, or is there a few good sites on the 'net to try first?

The Thompson was indeed an expensive weapon to produce, but by the time WWII rolled around, it had been in production as a police-issue firearm, so quality took precedence over unit-cost. The M3 Grease Gun was the US's answer to the need for a cheap, mass-producible SMG, like England, Germany...

(I don't know if this is the best board for this, so if you think it should be moved, please feel free.) Ever since I started studying the comparative performance of aircraft in earnest, I've been routinely frustrated by the total lack of some of the most basic performance data in nearly any...

Depending on the age of the aircraft- and what it was used for over it's service life- I'd blame the aircraft. 60 years of airframe stress doesn't improve reliability any. I can't for the life of me remember who said this- a famous pilot, if I recall- but the gist of it was, "If I had the...

No. She actually trashed the props. What happened was, they were still steaming out of harbor, and she turned to her bridge crew and told them to "get us the f*** out of here" and promptly ordered 30 knots of speed- while still in the harbor. Well, you know what happens of you floor the gas...