Best Fighter III

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the lancaster kicks ass said:
that's true of most german engineering, very advanced and couldn't be produced in large numbers...........
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The Zero is a very good example of a plane that was difficult to mass produce. It required a lot of hand craftsmenship. In the whole war, only about 11,000 were produced in the two largest aircraft factories in Japan.

The P-38 was also difficult to mass-produce. The P-51 on the otherhand, was relatively easy.

=S=

Lunatic
 

well as of yet you've not said anything to make me believe it was a good aircraft..............
 

He has a good point. What made it so good?
 
Well I dont have enough time for the full loon, but heres a brief description.

The Piaggio P.108 was Italy's only Heavy Bomber, and a marvellous one at that. First developed in 1939 the P.108 had technology similar to that of the B-29 although this was 5 years earlier. It had 8 12.7mm machine guns: 1 in the nose, 2 on the top, 2 waist position, 1 in the tail an 1 in each outer engine nacelle, which were remotely controlled. It had a respectable payload of 7,714lbs. It was powered by 4 Piaggio 1350hp engines and the plane proved to have good flight characteristics. The controls were a little difficult to understand however and this caused several crashes, one of which killed Benito Mussolinis son, Bruno. Flown by a crew of 6, the P.108 is most famous for its successful night bombing attacks on Gibraltar in 1942. The P.108 had 4 versions. The P.108 was a 1 off prototype with a 102mm cannon in place of the bomb bay for attacking shipping, and this was captured by the luftwaffe. The P.108B was the most numourous version, and was the Bomber Varient. The P.108C was the civilian version and then there was the P.108T, the military transport version, of which 12 were built, all captured by the Luftwaffe. In total, 163 P.108 were built.
 
The P-38 was difficult to mass-produce but that is because Lockheed was told to expect an order for NO MORE than 60 of the type! Then WWII happens and the US needs modern fighters NOW! All things considered, its impressive that a little over 10,000 were built (especially since a second sight wasn't openned until the very end of the war).
 

I agree with you it was impressive!

However I don't think that being told only 60 would be ordered was any reason not to make the plane more easily manufactured. There are just certain features of a planes design that it is foolish to make difficult to produce, such as rounded wingtips instead of squared off tips. On the Ta152, production must have been a nightmare - the wings were twisted, which would have made sheetmetal work extremely difficult.

=S=

Lunatic
 
RG_Lunatic said:
On the Ta152, production must have been a nightmare - the wings were twisted, which would have made sheetmetal work extremely difficult.
Click to expand...

Do you mean washout?

Why would it be any more difficult than the 190 wing of which ~20,000 were built?

Most, if not, all a/c have some degree of washout.
 
Krazi, 33,000 -109s were built. Admittedly, that does count the HA-112s of the Spanish Air Force.

The Spitfire was another aircraft that was difficult to build, eliptical wings!
 
plan_D said:
Krazi, 33,000 -109s were built. Admittedly, that does count the HA-112s of the Spanish Air Force.
!
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Actually it was closer to 35-36,000 109s for war time production. The 33k number is for German construction. The Hungarians also built 109s.
 
Nope, my sources still say 33,000 including pre-war and post-war production by the Spanish Air Force. The HA-112 'Buchon' so on, and so forth.
 
The wings of the P-38 weren't the difficult part, the engine nacelles were. But again, it was being built to a set of specs that was considered virtually impossible. Lockheed had to make compromises (like every designer) to get the performance demanded.
 

On the TA, the inner part of the wing has signficantly more angle of attack than the outer part of the wing. It's a fairly smooth transition starting about 1/4 out from the wing root until the last few feet of the wingtip. The wing is "twisted", and this is a fairly unique design feature. The purpose was to maintain some effective airflow over the control surfaces through a stall, allowing some roll control in a fall through stall at the end of a climb. FW190A's, D's, and the TA152C did not have this wing design.

=S=

Lunatic
 
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