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The aluminum skin/shear panel/riveted airframe was the best compromise - but rivets were an amazingly high component of weight (and cost).
Could you give an example of a plane that was made this way?
Wood was probably the best up front but it was difficult to maintain and repair in the field and the environment could play havoc as well. In essence, expect a "throwaway" airplane with a maximum airframe life of around 500 hours as the norm. Proof of that is the Mosquito which pretty quickly disappeared after the war.
By all accounts the M.20 worked fine and I think that American (Hughes/Fairchild) Duramold Plywood would have made for a refinement of the design. Plus I think I would have added retractable landing gear and made it compatible with a power egg from both the V-1710 and the V-1650 (even if I had to put a weight in the tail to re-center the 200lb weight difference).The wood laminate is excellent strength to weight ratio (like aluminum) and trades off bonding/glue for drill/rivet construction. The wood weighs more than the aluminum, the glue/bonding less than rivets.
Over 1000 mossies were built post war.
Many of the aircraft that disappeared after the war were scrapped because their operators didn't need them and they cost money to maintain and operate.Most planes pretty quickly disappeared after the war, metal and wood alike, most AC that served post war were built post war or towards the end. Over 1000 mossies were built post war.
How many hours on the airframe does that equate to? Sorties mean squat for maintenance purposes unless you're tracking cycles on the landing gear for take offs and landings or engine starts and shut downs, more common with turbo-prop aircraft. As far as I know neither was required to be tracked on the Mossie.A mossie IX holds the record for most sorties flown by any bomber during ww2 so what ever its airframe life was it was suffient for the task.
By all accounts the M.20 worked fine and I think that American (Hughes/Fairchild) Duramold Plywood would have made for a refinement of the design. Plus I think I would have added retractable landing gear and made it compatible with a power egg from both the V-1710 and the V-1650 (even if I had to put a weight in the tail to re-center the 200lb weight difference).
After I posted that I remembered the Fw 109 Dora had a little spacer to recenter it after the switch to the Junkers engine.I would prefer stretching fuselage and playing with extra fuel capacity aft of cockpit to offset extra engine weight than adding ballast. Should give you more to play with re: pitch stability and would not be an issue with parasite drag - particularly aft of the wing.
De Havilland persisted with wood products and a bonding technique utilising "Redux Adhesive"...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redux_(adhesive)
Anyone know if the Sea Hornet experienced wood problems similar to the Mosquito? The Sea hornet had the same criss-cross wood technique applied to the fuselage as the Mosquito but used redux...
(Clay, have you had a look at the wooden French Caudron and Italian Ambrossini lightweight fighters of WWII?)
I think that's a bad idea. The Mosquito would fare no better vs single engine fighters then the Me-410 did.I just realized that if we had been building some kind of Mosquito clone under license here, maybe with 6x.50 in the nose, we could have had a long-range escort in 1942!
I think that fighting with some cover fire from B-17s is different from flying close escort to Ju-88s. Agree on the other points though. I always thought that they should never have appoved the airacobra and should have had Bell building P-38s under license.I think that's a bad idea. The Mosquito would fare no better vs single engine fighters then the Me-410 did.
If the U.S. Army Air Corps want to get serious about a long range bomber escort during 1942 then they should power the P-38 with Packard built Merlin engines. For that matter nothing prevents the P-51 from being powered with this engine during 1942.
All very true - then add in operational and combat damage, field modifications and normal wear and tear. Basically many WW2 aircraft were "throw away" items."Properly Constructed" aircraft did not last that long during the war either. The average life expectancy of a P-51, EXCLUDING COMBAT LOSSES was a meree 10 months. Most WWII planes should be viewed as consumer items, so the cheaper the construction the better.
If the Mossie had an airframe life of 500 hours, that I think is typically about 10 months of regular flying....so the difference in life expectancy of a Mosquito, and a P-51 is basically zero.
This is not so much a comment about maintenance, as to airframe life
Most things are, in war.All very true - then add in operational and combat damage, field modifications and normal wear and tear. Basically many WW2 aircraft were "throw away" items.
Yep, for the most part.Most things are, in war.