Recent content by Trilisser

But how well can they fight in real war when every soldier has been told that they are basically allowed to disobey every order they don't like? It is interesting to note that in an interview in the 1950s a certain Eisenhower stated that one thing he doesn't tolerate is disobedience.

Years ago Martin van Creveld (Israeli military historian) wasn't particularly impressed with Bundeswehr training and ethos. Today he is probably even less impressed. Based on encounters with some German youth, my expectations aren't great.

The DB 605A in Finnish service definitely had the TBO listed as 100 hrs and references indicate that not a single engine reached that figure during the war in Finnish service. And that with the Notleistung banned. Especially flight training killed the life of the DB. It was very fragile.

Excellent stuff!

Very interesting info! So it seems the trouble was concentrated on one specific part.

The DB 605A had a TBO of 100 hours. Any figures for the Jumo 205? Offhand I don't remember whether the 205 had pistons cooled with oil jets. Was water-injection ever tested with it? Should reduce temperatures in diesels too. The Fairbanks-Morse opposed-piston diesels seem to have worked very...

In many books it is claimed that Jumo 205 had reliability issues in the Do 18/Bv 138. But in none of the books so far I have seen detailed descriptions (to the minutes detail) and analysis of the supposed problems. Any really detailed info on this?

The Avweb article gives reasoning that is the exact opposite which have been observed with especially fully-synthetic oils optimized for high-performance diesels used in older petrol (car) engines: these cases have found the oils to be very "washing" which has caused the dirt in the old engines...

It would be interesting to test modern fully-synthetic oils in these engines, especially those intended for high-performance diesels in which the oil is under very harsh conditions not unlike in large aero engines. Someone will scream "they are not aviation approved", but the engine doesn't know it.

A few comments: 1. Where are the stories of "bad Typhoon wing" coming from? The Tempest has only marginally higher Critical Mach Number than the Typhoon (figures in Eric Brown's Testing for Combat) and according to Mason, a late production Typhoon with a 4-blade prop is only 15 mph slower at...

To avoid lead fouling, the engines should have been run at high power for a few minutes every now and then.

Coring may refer to "oil coring" which is simply that the oil congeals (due to very cold conditions; WW2 motor oils were a far cry from motor oils we have today available) in the radiator/tank causing oil supply failure=lubrication failure=engine failure.

It seems that precise rate-of-roll testing was not done in many countries at that time, including the Soviet Union. E.g. no accurate data seem to exist on the VL Myrsky while turn time data exists. It would be also interesting to compare data on rolling obtained with ailerons only to the...

The doc says that between December 1941 and May 1942 the Sabres averaged 340 hours between failures. That is much better than what the DB 605A ever achieved in Finnish service.

Also the P-61 had a critical rpm range to be avoided. The PN data suggests nothing out of order, but the maximum allowed cylinder head temps are substantially lower than those of the Hercules/Centaurus. In the Sea Fury the 5 minute limit is 310 deg C and the continuous is 300 deg C (both figures...