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Modern radios take up a lot less room than the old WW II radios. passenger is sitting in the old radio bay.Below I came across this picture of a P51 with a passenger facing rewards, so I think a lot of fighters had the room
The rear-viewI guess those rear view mirrors are kind of useless?
O.k I have just finished watching the History Channel 'Dogfights' again on Youtube
Now it has always amazed me how many times a fighter ace would take down poor 'Tail end Charlie' first
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AN/APS-13 tail warning radar was fitted to most late war USAAF fighters (later P-51D's, P-38L, P-47N, P-61, etc). As you said it wasn't viewed as that effective for day fighters. By the time of the Korean War it had been removed from F-51D's, and no such device was fitted to day fighter jets. The Soviets used tail warning radars on MiG-15's in Korea from 1952 and did feel it reduced losses to surprise attacks by F-86's.and IIRC from my father's stories i thought he said there was a kind of radar that would tell you if someone was behind you and ring a bell. but the range was narrow and short. most of the time it was turned off because of formation flying or by the time the bell rang you were dead meat anyways. i have no idea what models these were in besides a later D model or if i am recalling the story correctly. perhaps someone can confirm or dispel this.
As noted the position occupied by the passenger in the photo carried the radios and fuselage fuel tank in war time aircraft . What hasn't been mentioned is that when the fuselage tank had fuel in it the aircraft was restricted to straight and level flight or very gentle manouvers . If they had removed the tank and replaced it with an observer the pilot might have been warned he was about to be shotdown but wouldnt have been able to do a thing about it. perhaps not such a good idea.
Strictly speaking all normal take off and formation assemly flight procedures were ok with a full fuse tank - but it was SOP to burn it down to 25 gallons or less then switch to drop tanks
AN/APS-13 tail warning radar was fitted to most late war USAAF fighters (later P-51D's, P-38L, P-47N, P-61, etc). As you said it wasn't viewed as that effective for day fighters.
Joe
On a bright note however, the technology has given Soccer Mom's in their SUV's an increased sense of comfort while backing out of the driveway.
Was glancing through a very old copy of "Horrido" yesterday and stumbled across this interesting stat. "By 1945 the USAAC had 156,677 trained pilots. In the course of WW2 the USAAC suffered 17000 pilots KIA and 6442 WIA." I had never realised how many pilots were killed. That is a really high casualty rate. I wonder how many were captured. which would increase the casualty rate?
When you've added even more weight in the form of armament, armament mount, ammo drums/feeds and armour protection. Having not yet satisfactorily explained where the bulky WWII radio equipment and, in the case of the P-51, the fuselage fuel tank are going to go, I'd say we've got so much weight aft of the CoG it's going to need an interstate to get it off the ground and fly like a wounded turkey when it does....when does a rear observer become a rear gunner...