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Especially if it was a message that was dictated to somebody who typed it, or it was transmitted over either a wireless or telephone system.I wonder if the origin of the 370 was when Bristol was asked how fast the Beaufighter would be and they said 317 (not 370) and it just went downhill from there. I have seen things like this happen several times during my time in industry.
That explains a lot, I was surprised where they got that number from (I thought they just made it up).This happened in 1940 or 41 when the P-40x was being tested and it was reported that it had reached 660 mph in the dive test - but it was actually 660 ft/sec which was 460 mph at the altitude it was reported to have achieved that speed.
OkayAs I said, if could remember where I'd read it, I would have posted more information. At least I'm not going mad as Simon T remembers something similar!
Cleanup was very, very important. The French were able to get much more speed out of the M.S.406 with aerodynamic refinements, a new radiator, and jet-effect exhausts. The resulting M.S.410 never went into service in meaningful numbers and conversions never really got off the ground.Of course aircraft designers would use models in wind tunnels to test our the aerodynamics of it, it would be a bit late in the day to test the design after it was built, except for clearing up problems that arose later.
I had two cousins, Shelby and Shirley, both guys. Used to wonder how they felt.@DarrenW , & @pbehn
I actually don't have a specific source (and I could be wrong), but I remember hearing something like this before. From what I remember, Supermarine didn't seem to be affected because they got most of their research data on race-planes they built and didn't listen to claims that a thick wing was desirable at high speeds. If I recall a Canadian guy named Beverly Shenstone (I'd have hated to be a guy with the name Beverly...) who also noted that Supermarine's data was correct.
From what I remember the full-scale wind-tunnel the British used had serious problems owing to turbulence forming within the tunnel, which appeared to obscure turbulence produced on aircraft models placed in the tunnel: While I assume they'd gotten the hang of correcting for the turbulence figures with various correction factors until they ended up in speed regimes where compressibility started to factor in more and more, and they hadn't developed the ability to correct for those properly.
I remember this led to a number of erroneous assumptions in aircraft designs: Namely the misguided belief that thick wings would work fine at high subsonic speeds, the Beaufighter would manage 370 mph, and the Typhoon would be able to pull off 460 mph.
I'm curious when this wind-tunnel was put into existence, when this problem was resolved and, why it took so long to resolve it?
Airframes, drgondog, S Shortround6 , wuzak
Someone would have to read the Hawker files to find a definitive answer on the specifics of Camm`s aerodynamics thinking. But I think its very clear that
the main reason for the failure to attain it was not wing section error. If Hawker are lying to Professor Potsan at the Air Ministry about that fact
in 1943, it is quite a brave lie - as anyone requesting the wing data with a slide rule and the basic data of the aircraft concerned could have shown it
to be nonsense!
Those dimensions are with inches of the size of the production aircraft. Height is different, but that might be due to different ways of measuring height, or landing gear changes.Regarding the size originally envisaged I dont know, but I suspect from reading the file that this early speed esimate was little more than a rough
figure Hawker proposed based on the hoped for Sabre power in an updated fighter of approximate Spitfire/Hurricane size using more modern
design techniques. I think this was proposed before the air ministry specification was issued, and hence I think it is little more than Camm
saying "I can make a plane that goes that fast with that engine and has some guns".
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Oh yes of course, I was being stupid and just glanced at it and thought it was the powerplant size in inches, didnt notice it was actually feet !Those dimensions are with inches of the size of the production aircraft. Height is different, but that might be due to different ways of measuring height, or landing gear changes.