Recent content by IdahoRenegade

Related question. Israel was surrounded on 3 sides by enemies waging war against her. The country was tiny and in the original partition plan, insanely fragmented. There was no channel to provide protection and time to prepare for an incoming air strike. So I question-what did Israel have for an...

Thanks for the info. I'm curious-what was done to modify the aircraft for pure ground-attack? Thanks.

I like your thoughts.As you said, extreme range isn't necessary. Very high altitude probably not that important-the enemy didn't have a lot of high-altitude bombers. Ruggedness, very good firepower (for ground attack/CAS role) and a large bomb load is. I'd probably rule out liquid cooled engines...

I know Egypt had Spitfires and Short Stirlings. Beyond that I'm not sure.

Image it's early 1948. You are named to lead what will become the Israeli Air Force and defend your people from a genocide. Your land is surrounded by multiple violent Islamic states that want to deny you the right to exist, that want to exterminate all your people. You have no army, no armor...

Gee, thanks for making me feel old. Wasn't published until more than a decade after I started engineering school.

This is great data and blows away yet another misconception of mine (like so many have been since coming to this forum). Given the Thunderbolt's reputation for toughness I always assumed it was much more heavily armored than it's contempories.

Before you can pick the "greatest" fighter of the war, you need to define great. Best performing fighter that set the direction for post-war design and impacted fighter development for decades? ME-262 of course. But built in too low a number and too late in the war to have a major impact (and...

OK Bluto!

I has to look up the Weilan breach. I'd seen pictures, but never realized that the threads were stepped, rather than being a simple 1/3 segment interrupted thread. Amazing design, and after seeing it, I can't envision how the heck it was machined, especially at that time frame. Now I have...

Absolutely amazing project, I'm in awe at the dedication, commitment and skill involved in seeing it through. Equally impressive is just the level of complexity and amount of equipment in each of those turrets. I had a chance to crawl into a small part of a turret on the USS Alabama in Mobile...

Interesting and thanks for the correction-I thought I read of Spits flying out of Australia earlier. Given the level of knowledge on this board, I really have to learn to check and research before posting.

I think it was discussed on this board, but not positive where I read it. A major issue was Spit pilots tried to fight Zeros like they did '109s, in tight, maneuvering dogfights. Not a good thing to do against a Zero, especially once you bled speed. Fighting the way your enemy performs best...

All very true. The wing leading edge design was selected because it did something no other intercooler approach did-it added no drag. Later model (J and L) aircraft got significantly more powerful engines, and could run them at higher power levels longer while maintaining CAT. But with the...

How did Spits do against Zeros (or army fighters) when flying in Australia early in the war? As the other poster said though, each was the better tool in their respective locations. Spit was pretty useless in SWPA due to range limitations, Zeros didn't have the speed and high altitude...