Recent content by red admiral

No, hence the RM17SM standard rather than a mark. Would likely have been Merlin 150 series. The RM17SM was in the same family as the Merlin 130s on the dH Hornet, but with a different supercharger giving more power at altitude. The 130s were tuned more for low altitude. Service rating would have...

The later Merlins around the RM17SM standard were being rated up to 3150rpm which helped increase power a little bit, but the main reason was the increase in boost to 35lb with the addition of ADI. Lovesey describes a later 3-speed design with a reshaped intake that would've increased power by...

What's not true? The high power settings for period German engines are invariably with the additional of MW-50 injection. This provides much more of an advantage than simply increasing the octane rating of the fuel. Not to mention that the German octane ratings weren't that much different from...

That's just because it had the radar signature of a small moon to begin with. Putting the weapons in the CFTs and adding a bit of RAM gives a useful decrease in signature, but it's still going to be worse than more modern aircraft like F/A-18, Rafale, Typhoon... Characterising it as a "stealthy"...

It's overly harsh to compare early-war RN ships with late-war USN ones. The choice of not having dual purpose guns on the destroyers was a fairly simple one of cost. Dual purpose guns cost more and need bigger ships which again cost more. The difference is not insignificant. The actual...

See report here especially para 3. The limitation to 500kcas isn't structural but rather aerodynamic due to Mach effects. 500kcas at 6500ft corresponds to 630mph or Mach 0.85, so there is plenty of scope for the Meteor to dive to higher speeds from level flight. Given that the limiting Mach for...

Your logic is fairly sound but not reflect the reality of the situation. The nacelles on the Meteor, even though of increased diameter actually gave less drag than the underslung nacelles on the Me262. Why, it's a matter of location. The underslung arrangement gives strange flow patterns around...

From memory, there were only three technical staff at Power Jets. 500 engineers working on the 004 is quite a lot. Pratt and Whitney's ~40,000 would also include technicians and fitters.

It's a bit optimistic to say that the Me 262 was particularly ahead in aerodynamics. It might look it, but in practice it's not. There's a nice report on ww2aircraftperformance.org which gives the drag for the various parts of both Meteor and Me 262. The lower drag of the Me 262 is pretty much...

It's worth pointing out that even unsuccessful programs that don't lead to hardware, increase the subject knowledge and experience in the field. This gives better results further down the line.

I'm not sure that's really a good list apart from TSR2. EAP was an extremely cost effective demonstrator program and worked out pretty well. SRAAM -> ASRAAM Skyflash 2 -> Meteor HMS Bristol -> Sea Dart and Type 42s My point is more that Taranis is a demonstrator program, not a...

Depends on what you mean about it getting past the spending cuts. It's a technology demonstrator rather than a prototype aircraft. It would be extremely unlikely for the flight test program not to carry on after having spent money and time designing and building the thing.

I noticed that as well, but engine failure was the MoD story. I think the high sink rate was from a combination of being almost fully fuelled and armed, and trying not to crash into the passenger jet.

Emergency landing after engine failure shortly after takeoff. The pilot put it down hard to avoid crashing into a passenger aircraft on the runway, causing the undercarriage to fail, then ejects when the fire starts to get bad.

What nonsense. Torsion bar suspension had already been around for years, and in use with Russian tanks for years before the T-44. A "modified" form as in a completely different weapon. No it wasn't. It was an entirely new design developed by the Franco-German team having access to...