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Lets see a mission plan instead of theoretical.
Dan,
Do you have any sources used to get to your opinion?
Cheers,
Biff
The eternal dichotomy of aviation: robustitude, versatility, and maintainability vs power to weight ratio and fuel efficiency. In WW1 it was liquid cooled V8s vs air cooled rotaries, then next war, it was Allison vs Merlin then in early jet days, centrifugal vs axial flow. In general aviation, Lycoming vs Continental, and in the commuters, Pratt vs Garrett. And then when jet airliners got big, all of a sudden customers could get a smorgasbord of engine options on their Boeing, Lockheed, or McD. Having been a maintainer and a pilot, but never a bean counter, it's pretty obvious where my prejudices lie.Should one portion get damaged you can pull the motor, swap the appropriate section out, and put it back in the jet. A logisticians dream. The equivalent GE engine is one big motor. Should any internal part be damaged, out the motor comes and back to the nearest overhaul/ repair base
The Allison could go to 1500 hours before rebuild.
Few Merlin got past 500 hrs...
Widen the flight performance as they were still using and shipping the P40 to combat theaters to end of war.
Would have even been a better ground attack fighter than the P47.
As an aside, I've never flown a plane and I'm sure that is much more difficult but aside from the trim that is exactly how an overloaded 18 wheeler handles.BULLCRAP!! Clearly you've never flown a plane loaded out of limits aft. It wallows like a wounded pig, over reacts to every control input, won't trim up for level flight, and has to be "herded" by hand every inch of the way. And that was in a normally highly stable commuter airliner with 400 pounds of illegal undocumented cargo in the aft baggage compartment, for which the captain and I almost lost our licenses. Now try that in an at best neutrally stable overloaded fighter plane climbing in formation through the soupy skies over the UK, and you've got a recipe for disaster. There's a reason they didn't do it back then.
DON'T LET PAT303 ANYWHERE NEAR A REAL AIRPLANE!!
No, only used on Vc Trop in late 42.
BULLCRAP!! Clearly you've never flown a plane loaded out of limits aft. It wallows like a wounded pig, over reacts to every control input, won't trim up for level flight, and has to be "herded" by hand every inch of the way. And that was in a normally highly stable commuter airliner with 400 pounds of illegal undocumented cargo in the aft baggage compartment, for which the captain and I almost lost our licenses. Now try that in an at best neutrally stable overloaded fighter plane climbing in formation through the soupy skies over the UK, and you've got a recipe for disaster. There's a reason they didn't do it back then.
DON'T LET PAT303 ANYWHERE NEAR A REAL AIRPLANE!!
As an aside, I've never flown a plane and I'm sure that is much more difficult but aside from the trim that is exactly how an overloaded 18 wheeler handles.
I'm aware of that; so, I presume, is p303. That's why I took his statement to advocate another tank even further aft. It was the comment: "Who cares where the extra fuel is, there's plenty of room in the rear fuselage" that set me off. Fallout from many a battle with UPS drivers when I had to refuse additional packages in my freighter, even though there was visible empty space in the way-back fuselage compartment. Non-pilots seem to have a hard time comprehending CG as an item of worship.
Cheers,
Wes
Explanation accepted. My apologies for the sharp retort. Your frivolous sounding comment hit a sore spot, given the experiences I've had and the funerals I've been to. Are we good now?You jumped to conclusions, when I said it doesn't matter where it is I didn't mean way back aft or the tail.
Widen the flight performance as they were still using and shipping the P40 to combat theaters to end of war.
Would have even been a better ground attack fighter than the P47.
Explanation accepted. My apologies for the sharp retort. Your frivolous sounding comment hit a sore spot, given the experiences I've had and the funerals I've been to. Are we good now?
Cheers,
Wes
Your on, man! You find your way to Vermont, and I'll find the beef and brew. Vermont has more breweries per capita than any other state in the US. Something for every taste you can imagine.standing around a BBQ drinking beer
The argument is the Spit could not fly escort missions, my argument is just because it did doesn't mean it couldn't. Sydney Cotton had no issues fitting extra fuel in his PR spits like the under seat 20G tank, if the Spit was given to men like him, men that found solutions to problems instead of excuses the Spit could have had modifications to greatly improve it's range, the Mk111 was a good example of what improvements could have been done to the basic design, but there was a war to be won.
As a former HV fitter and driver I agree, not the best idea but at least in a plane by the time you get settled at 25,000ft the rear upper tank is gone and as per this report http://www.spitfireperformance.com/Spitfire_IX_ML-186_Handling.pdf the handling is back to normal. I'm not arguing about whether the Spit could be an escort plane, it could never be a P51 but it's range could be easily tripled with the technology Supermarine had at the time.
The argument is the Spit could not fly escort missions, my argument is just because it did doesn't mean it couldn't. Sydney Cotton had no issues fitting extra fuel in his PR spits like the under seat 20G tank, if the Spit was given to men like him, men that found solutions to problems instead of excuses the Spit could have had modifications to greatly improve it's range,
Not sure where WWII falls, but in my days attached to the jet fighter community, maneuvers were anything other than S&L that was more or less right side up and less than 2-3 Gs, such as joining up, tanking, flying the landing pattern break, etc. Acrobatics was anything more strenuous or spectacular than that.Apparently acrobatics and maneuvers are not the same thing. Not sure where straight and level falls
Widen the flight performance as they were still using and shipping the P40 to combat theaters to end of war.
Would have even been a better ground attack fighter than the P47.[/QUOTEh
Have to disagree just a bit. As much as I think the p40 was a good plane and under rated in general I can't think of anything the p47 cant do better in relation to ground attack. It's tougher, it can lift more, has more fire power, it's faster( more difficult to intercept), and I believe the later models had a greater range as well.
To be fair I did think of one area where the p40 has it on the p47 and alot of other planes for that matter in ground attack or in general. That is the p40s ability to operate well from shorter unimprooved airstrips.Widen the flight performance as they were still using and shipping the P40 to combat theaters to end of war.
Would have even been a better ground attack fighter than the P47.