Unsalted tea was freely available in UK, this is how the P-39 was hobbled from the start.
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Unsalted tea was freely available in UK, this is how the P-39 was hobbled from the start.Yabut with how much tea aboard? The world wonders.
Is it entirely possible that those Stewart-Warner heaters were in fact, tea warmers?Yabut with how much tea aboard? The world wonders.
Is it entirely possible that those Stewart-Warner heaters were in fact, tea warmers?
If Galland could have a cigar lighter in his cockpit, than why not?
Unsalted tea was freely available in UK, this is how the P-39 was hobbled from the start.
Tea WARMER? Sacrilege…SACRILEGE I say!!! Her Majesty's Royal Air Force has specified water boilers in all long-range aircraft since, I believe, the 1920s for the making of said life-saving beverage. Warming up tea is just plain WRONG on SO many levels!!!
Excellent work Short. So the P-39C had 131lbs of armor plate/glass. I knew it had the armor glass front and back from AHT, but didn't know it also had some armor plate. The 37mm cannon appears a little light, in the later P-39s it is listed at 238/240lbs. Extra weight is probably in "misc. equipment, for guns" 74lbs. Later models list that as "armament provisions", which I think means gun mounts, chargers, heaters and ammunition boxes.The Manuals for the P-39C and P-38D-1 have some interesting details.
From the weight data page of the P-39C Manual and the weight and balance chart of the P-39D-1 manual, they do not have the same format.
Airplane......................................................................P-39C..........................................................P-39D-1 clean..........P-39D-1 with drop tank
weight empty.........................................................5016lbs*......................................................5599lbs.........................5599lbs
Tactical items
Guns
37mm..........................................................................205lbs........................................................-------................................
20mm..........................................................................-------.........................................................131lbs...............................
Two .50 cal.................................................................128lbs..........................................................139lbs.............................
two .30 cal..................................................................41.6lbs......................................................--------.............................
Four .30 cal.................................................................-------........................................................95lbs................................
Misc, equip, for guns..............................................74lbs.......................................................... 5lbs..................................
Photographic............................................................------..........................................................8lbs...................................
Oxygen.........................................................................20lbs..........................................................8lbs..................................
Pyrotechnics..............................................................------.........................................................10lbs.................................
Radio......................................................................included in empty weight..........................129lbs............................
Armor plate & Glass...............................................131lbs..........................................................248lbs..............................
Pilot...............................................................................160lbs..........................................................160lbs............................
oil.....................................................................................71lbs.............................................................88lbs............................
tactical weight empty................................................5667lbs.....................................................6618lbs...........................6618lbs
Fuel, internal............................................................624lbs (104 US gal).................................720lbs (120 US gal)
Full internal fuel......................................................1020lbs.........................................................720lbs
fuel external........................................................................................................................................----......................................450lbs
tank weight........................................................................................................................................-----........................................71lbs
extra oil.........................................................................35lbs............................................................-----.......................................included above in tank weight
ammunition.................................................................215lbs..........................................................421lbs..................................
Ballast weights............................................................-----...................................................................88lbs...............................70lbs7857lbs
Gross weight. .............................................................6684.5lbs....................................................7857lbs...............................8368lbs
The Manual for the P-39C is dated Feb 15th 1941 and there are some later revisions. The revision for the weight page is dated 3-20-41.
On page 21 of the manual paragraph, f.
Load factors, -- The design standards for all previous pursuit airplanes in the service have been for a design load (maximum expected load) of 8.0 positive and 4.0 negative load factors. This airplane is built for a design load of 7.5 positive and 3.75 negative load factors.
The top speed is calculated as 391mph at 15000ft, however there is an asterisk and the note below says that "temporary restrictions of engine operation prohibit the attainment of these values."
On the P-39D-1s there is very little explaination of the ballast weights, There are five 17.5 lb weights listed with locations of "Each 2 forward, 2 cent, 1 aft", But doesn't say where any of those locations are (all in gun bay or spread throughout the plane?) when carrying the drop tank or bomb one weight is taken out but so far it doesn't say which one.
It appears that a lot of the weight on the P-39C in the misc equip for guns catagory was either lumped in with guns themselves or put in another catagory. The guns did not get heavier in later aircraft.
The D-1 (for export) was a virtual copy of the P-400 with the 20mm cannon. 7850lbs gross weight was just too heavy to be a competitive fighter considering contemporary Spitfire V weighed 6600lbs and 109F weighed 6000lbs and both had more powerful engines. Delete the extra armor plate 117lbs, 30cals with ammo 355lbs and the radio 129lbs (I believe that was the IFF radio which wouldn't be needed in NG in 1942) and it weighs 7250lbs. I think it would have made a big difference in performance, especially in climb.
Take out any instrument or device that wasnt in the Wright flyer, obviously not needed.Since when has logic had any place in the thread. Personally I like the idea of taking out the radio. I am so confident that this would have not gone down well in the combat units
Your so right and there plenty of room to drop in the merlin 61, no armour to remove, no IFF to worry about. By the logic of the thread I reckon your on to a winner.Take out any instrument or device that wasnt in the Wright flyer, obviously not needed.
Why do you care? Why do you feel compelled to reply to my every post? ALL this has been posted on here lots of times, hence the groundhog theme.Why do you have the fascination with comparing the weight of the P-39 with two aircraft that were fundamentally lighter?
Why do you compare the P-39 to two, at that time, purely ETO fighters when you talk about its use in New Guinea for one moment in time?
Why do you think the IFF is a) not needed and b) weighs 130lbs? I thought the weight thing was dispelled a 100 pages ago. Also, what other US aircraft are in the region at that time, and did they have IFF?
Why do you think the extra 100-odd pounds of armour plate was not necessary? I know you have a bug up your arse about the nose armour and believing it unnecessary and that other aircraft didn't have that - mainly because other aircraft didn't have a remote gearbox and weren't nearly as tricky to prevent the CoG getting too far rearwards.
If you remove the wing guns will you have enough firepower and rate of fire to get hits on enemy aircraft? Considering that the enemy is more manoeuvrable and the P-39 hasn't much endurance.
The Spitfire had 6 guns - 2 x 20mm and 4 x 0.303".
The Bf 109 had 3 guns - 1 x 20mm (or 15mm) and 2 x 7.92mm. The F-4 could be fitted with an additional 2 x 20mm in under wing gondalas. The Bf 109 F1/2 with 3 guns was considered to have a light armament.
Yet, you propose a similar armament for the P-39 - albeit with heavier secondary weapons (the 0.5" mgs, considering that the aircraft was built around having a cannon firing through the hub, the cannon would surely be its primary weapon?).
Hmmm. "Neither type (MkII Spitfires and Hurricanes) promised to be a satisfactory aircraft at over 25000'." And "the 109E with a 550lb bomb had a ceiling of 25000' at most." "Generally only squadrons that were already airborne had a chance to close with the enemy (at 30000')." "The function of these squadrons was not to intercept as soon as possible but to cover those squadrons from London who were still gaining height." Sounds to me like the British fighters had a very hard time over 25000' and the bomb carrying 109Es could not get over 25000'. Lots of talk about ordering the British fighters to 30000' but also very hard for them to get there. This was all only during the last month of the BoB (October).Hi
The RAF wrote an internal Secret report narrative on the BoB, this was reprinted by CASS in 2000 as 'The Battle of Britain' by T C G James, the following pages may be of interest:
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Mike
Me too, I wasnt aware how many planes were coming in at 30,000ft until some recent posts, it was a real headache for Dowding Park and everyone in London.With that said this was a highly educational thread for me. Especially the simple explanation of C.O.G. issues using paper airplanes.
Why? - BEACUSE IT THE ENEMY, LOL! And during that part of the war, aside from destroying the UK's ability to wage war, Hitler wanted to diminish the British people's determination to fight. Lobbing bombs over a large population area, especially at night was the perfect way to do thisWhy would the British even worry about 109Es at those heights? The 109E bombers couldn't hit anything with any accuracy from that altitude so they were doing minimal if any damage. The LW was just trying to lure the British up to those heights for combat. The goal of the British interceptors was to destroy enemy bombers, not chase after fighters.