1939/40: ideal Italian fighter?

[pattle]

I don't want to leave the subject of Italian fighters but I have heard of cases where Soviet airmen were actually shot dead by commissars (or some other sadist rif raf) for losing their aircraft in battle. Maybe this is an urban myth but it is in character with the barbaric nature of Stalin's Russia.

 

[Dogwalker]

I'm not talking about the performances of these airplanes,

So what are you talking about? If you have an airframe that could go at +900 km/h without problems, how could you say that the formula has reached it's limits at an horizontal speed of about 600 km/h? It seems illogical.
It seems you have decided that the S7 family could'n be a viable fighter out of nothing.

And very often tests in the Experimental branches of Air Forces were in those times not the best way to judge a plane, lets think to the Ba 88, just to stay in Italy......

The tests showed all the problems of the Ba.88. So that it's production was stopped. It was resumed only for political decision.

Of course, if these machines had been produced in late '20 early '30 they would have been the world skies dominators.

The known performances of the SAI 207, climb rate included, would make it a top-class fighter in 1939-40. It was outdated in 1943, as a Bf109e was.

That some Soviet fighters had wooden wings do not necessarily imply that these fighters were "good" airplanes:

So Soviet fighters were bad airplanes, intended to be slaughtered in droves, cause they had wooden wings, when a little metal could have saved thousands of trained pilot's lives?
If you say so ...

It is well known with what respect the Red Army treated his soldiers.

Apart from the bias, that doesn't make sense. Since the Red Army was evil, all of it's equipement was bad? I guess you'd rather spend the winter 1941-42 dressed as a German.

 

[Elmas]

So what are you talking about? If you have an airframe that could go at +900 km/h without problems, how could you say that the formula has reached it's limits at an horizontal speed of about 600 km/h? It seems illogical.
..............

At the threshold of compressibility with a plane with wooden wings?
Not with my a*s inside.......

As I tried, in vain , tried to explain, an aeroplane in much much more than sheer speed.
That's all, Folks.

 

[Dogwalker]

At the threshold of compressibility with a plane with wooden wings?
Not with my a*s inside.......

I do not think there are much possibilities to have your a*s inside a plane in 1939/40. However, if the aircraft in question has done it, it has done.

I have not many doubts that, thanks to refined aerodynamic and thin wings, a S7 family aircraft can withstand compressibility better than other designs of the time.

Moreover, we are talking about aircrafts that, any material they were done, generally had fabric covered ailerons, and we are worried about plywood?

As I tried, in vain , tried to explain, an aeroplane in much much more than sheer speed.

It was "in vain" cause you failed to explain what this "much more" is. What prevent the "Ambrosini 7" series to be a fighter?

 

[Elmas]

It was "in vain" cause you failed to explain what this "much more" is. What prevent the "Ambrosini 7" series to be a fighter?

If you did not understand this by yourself it is very difficult that I can make you understand: but as I don't want to talk about Young's modulus, shear modulus or Bredt formula, and many, many other technical matters, I pose just two "minor" questions:

1 st - could in those days (about 1940), the Ambrosini factory to establish a serious quality control for the woods (Italian forests are not Russian forests) and for the glues used ( poor self-sufficient materials, "materiale autarchico" in italian) and, expecially in the bonding process, to guarantee to have thin wings perfectly built to resist to the stresses by the loads of a speed of 900 km/h?
I'm not talking of a single prototipe, perfectly built and lovingly mantained, I'm talking of numbers.

2nd - After one or two weeks of desert climate ( or even Sicily for this matter, more than 120 °F in summer....) or fog and ice in Northern Italy, G's, poor field maintenance, sand, rough landings, an enemy bullet maybe two, two or three sorties a day, was to be this wooden wing still in its original shape?

If your answers are yes, the Ambrosini 7 had passed just the first examination ( many other would have followed) to be graduated as "fighter".

 

[Dogwalker]

If you...

Interesting...

1 st - could in those days (about 1940), the Ambrosini factory to establish a serious quality control for the woods...

I am very sorry to have you to deal with concepts beyond your reach, but estabilish the quality of a piece of wood only watching and touching it is much simpler than estabilish the quality of a piece of light alloy. This way you can make a stradivarius back in the 17th century, while a hairline fracture in an alloy part is difficult to detect even today. In WWII I heard of several problems caused by defective batch of metal parts (even the fixing of the tail section of the Re.2005 was needed firstly cause the metal supplied to the factory was substandard), while I never heard of an accident caused by a defective batch of wood (and there were several wooden aircrafts in Italian inventory).
SAI 207's wing, as C.202 or any other aircraft wing, was not designed to go to +900 km/h, it was simply designed to whitstand a certain stress using a certain kind of material, so it stand a certain stress using that kind of material. It'doesn't need a supermaterial (as autarchic alloys used in metal fighters surely weren't) to do so. The wingspar of the 207 were made of plywood themself. There were nothing extraordinary in the material used.

After one or two weeks of desert climate...

Like that one in which stationed the wooden wings of the SM.79s? Or wet as the surface from which took off the CANT Z.506s (you know? Sea is a wet thing)? Do you think Russia is cold enough to test if a wooden wing can whitstand the ice of northern Italy (oh, forget, Soviet pilots were trained only for the joy to see them go to certain death in their wooden aircrafts)? Is there fog in England? As I said, wood was not extraordinary in Italian aircraft inventory of WWII. Strange as it may seems to you, wood was a known thing.

 

[Elmas]

Yes, let's go to a war with a Stradivarius in our hands, then......
Why not?
The violin used by Niccolò Paganini, not a Stradivarius but built by Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri (known as Guarneri "del Gesù") was, and is, called "il Cannone" (the Gun)........

Quality control.... strange words......

 

[Dogwalker]

Quality control.... strange words......

Inability to understand simple things... known habit...

 

[swampyankee]

A number of aircraft had significant wood in their structures; it was and remains an excellent structural material for aircraft.


Wood has its downsides, the primary one being that a wooden structure, especially within a wing, means that more of the wing's volume is lost to structural elements. There are also a different set of skills and technologies required for the construction of wooden, vs aluminum monocoque aircraft or aircraft with steel tube structure and a non-structural skin. One technology is adhesives. In the ww2-era the best wood adhesives were the urea-formaldehyde glues; these replaced casein-based adhesives. Anecdotally, and perhaps surprisingly, Germany seems to have had more problems with aviation glues than any other country; this was, I seem to remember reading, one of the causes of the failure of the Ta154.

 

[Dogwalker]

Wood has its downsides, the primary one being that a wooden structure, especially within a wing, means that more of the wing's volume is lost to structural elements.

Infact the SAI 207's wing had 5 spars and no space for internal wing tanks.

 

[Civettone]

Germany seems to have had more problems with aviation glues than any other country; this was, I seem to remember reading, one of the causes of the failure of the Ta154.

That is a myth. Glue problem was fixed, but the Ta 154 was a failed design. Later, the He 162 used the glue. Worked fine, but poor quality control led to problems.

Italian constructors were very good at using wood. So were the Americans: the wood used for the Mosquito was made in the US.
Kris

 

[Dogwalker]

One of the charateristics of the plywood covering, being it fabric covered, is the smoothness of the surface. That's particularly evident, for example, in the Mig-3, where there is a steep contrast between the roughly finished and riveted metal parts of the forward fuselage, and the absolutely smooth wooden parts of the aft fuselage and wings.

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