Groundhog Thread Part Deux - P-39 Fantasy and Fetish - The Never Ending Story (Mods take no responsibility for head against wall injuries sustained)

[special ed]

"Expert" reminds me of the German entry in the movie "The magnificent men in their flying machines." In case no one saw or remembers, "There is nothing a German officer can't do. All he needs is the manual."

 

[GrauGeist]

Waiting for the point where the British are blamed for the engine being mounted mid-ship.
Because it's obvious that the Bell product would have been far superior with the engine mounted in the nose (without nose armor, of course).

 

[SaparotRob]

That whole line of reason is ridiculous. Britain was at war. I'm sure Britain wanted competent aircraft, not legal gyrations to get out of a contract it didn't sign. They "inherited" these planes from the French. If the P-39 or P-400 worked the RAF would have been delighted.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The whole theory that the Brits deliberately added a gas heater to help increase the P-400's weight so they could get out of the contract is so ridiculous. Anyone who's worked in procurement, or any person with a ha'pen'orth of common sense who looks at the timeline of actual events, would recognize that it's nonsense...and yet here we are with the same conspiracy theory still being trotted out.

And it was well documented that Lockheed had conflict with the British over the castrated P-38s, Lockheed took the issue to legal arbitration, if this was remotely true I'm sure Bell "could have" taken the same path.

 

[GregP]

I am reminded of a classic quote, "When you're up to your ass in alligators, its tough to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp."

I'm trying to remember that it ain't the P-39's fault that we've been through this ordeal.

 

[SaparotRob]

It really is a beautiful airplane. Too bad it wasn't better. As I learned from this thread, there was no room in the airframe for improvements.

 

[buffnut453]

I actually like the P-39...have done ever since I was a wee one and saw an article by Ray Rimell about building the Monogram 1/48 kit. I just HAD to get hold of that kit. It was so cool, with the ability to leave panels off to display the engine and gun bay, and leave the cockpit door open.

That said, there are a great many aircraft that I really, REALLY like but which weren't great performers: Buffalo, Skua, Whirlwind, Vildebeest, Wellesley, Lysander, A-17, Defiant, Blenheim, P-66, P-35, P-36, Fokker D-XXI, CW-21 etc etc. I'm just objective about their relative strengths and weaknesses. For me, the more interesting part is the courage of the crews who flew them.

 

[SaparotRob]

Just as an aside, could there have been an engine, post war, that could have been mounted in the P-39 airframe that would give it claimed performance? Not talking Reno Racers.
I was even thinking of the jet engine that the Bee-Dee 5 had.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I actually like the P-39...have done ever since I was a wee one and saw an article by Ray Rimell about building the Monogram 1/48 kit. I just HAD to get hold of that kit. It was so cool, with the ability to leave panels off to display the engine and gun bay, and leave the cockpit door open.

That said, there are a great many aircraft that I really, REALLY like but which weren't great performers: Buffalo, Skua, Whirlwind, Vildebeest, Wellesley, Lysander, A-17, Defiant, Blenheim, P-66, P-35, P-36, Fokker D-XXI, CW-21 etc etc. I'm just objective about their relative strengths and weaknesses. For me, the more interesting part is the courage of the crews who flew them.

Same feelings - always thought it was a great looking airplane despite it's limitations. I will say I've learned a lot about this aircraft during these discussions, even our "Expert" brought up things I didn't know about production configurations and aircraft assembly.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

"Expert" reminds me of the German entry in the movie "The magnificent men in their flying machines." In case no one saw or remembers, "There is nothing a German officer can't do. All he needs is the manual."

I find this to be the most dangerous thing when you find folks with limited or no flight training reading flight manuals and trying to interpret items that require introductory training to fully understand. Maintenance and assembly manuals are easier unless you're doing things like weight and balance, magneto timing, or computing bend allowance or rivet spacing during repairs. It has to be noted that some of these WW2 flight manuals lack some information, have typo errors and even have aircraft specific information omitted.

 

[buffnut453]

Same feelings - always thought it was a great looking airplane despite it's limitations. I will say I've learned a lot about this aircraft during these discussions, even our "Expert" brought up things I didn't know about production configurations and aircraft assembly.

Agree, although I learned more from the likes of SR6 and others who actually provided data to back up their claims. I have learned a lot more about the P-39, though. The most striking thing for me was the sheer number of variants for a relatively modest production run, and how frequently fuel and armour requirements seemed to flip-flop between variants.

 

[pbehn]

I learned a lot about heaters.

 

[pbehn]

Just as an aside, could there have been an engine, post war, that could have been mounted in the P-39 airframe that would give it claimed performance? Not talking Reno Racers.
I was even thinking of the jet engine that the Bee-Dee 5 had.

Well the Kingcobra did late in the war, if the P-39 was designed around a two stage Merlin it would have done what was claimed, but that was its problem. The P-51A/ Mustang MkII did what was claimed but werent called the P-410.

 

[buffnut453]

I learned a lot about heaters.

Me too! Glad to be of assistance.

 

[swampyankee]

I find this to be the most dangerous thing when you find folks with limited or no flight training reading flight manuals and trying to interpret items that require introductory training to fully understand. Maintenance and assembly manuals are easier unless you're doing things like weight and balance, magneto timing, or computing bend allowance or rivet spacing during repairs. It has to be noted that some of these WW2 flight manuals lack some information and even have aircraft specific information omitted.

I loved the duel over the septic pond.

 

[33k in the air]

Comment of the year;

"I'm not a pilot but I have read the pilot manuals."

But he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

But he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

If I could I would give you bacon as well!

 

[pbehn]

I find this to be the most dangerous thing when you find folks with limited or no flight training reading flight manuals and trying to interpret items that require introductory training to fully understand. Maintenance and assembly manuals are easier unless you're doing things like weight and balance, magneto timing, or computing bend allowance or rivet spacing during repairs. It has to be noted that some of these WW2 flight manuals lack some information, have typo errors and even have aircraft specific information omitted.

I found the whole wording of the manual very odd, it is written as if speaking to a P-39 owner, not a trainee pilot or a pilot in a military force. Every pilot who is actually approved to fly the thing will have had to pass tests in all the basic theory that it states.

Then the conspiracy theorist in me gets to work and I wonder if mistakes and anomalies in the manual were put there to make trainee pilots really think about what they were doing.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

[...] If you have to be correct on every subject just because you are a pilot then the rest of us should just give up? Bill can compute his own crazy flight plan. I have computed numerous flight plans on here for the P-39 and the P-47 and the information comes straight from the manuals.

I think the difference is that when real pilots here produce real flight plans and said real flight plan doesn't work, their ass is in the plane's seat and not a computer-desk chair.

It really is a beautiful airplane. Too bad it wasn't better. As I learned from this thread, there was no room in the airframe for improvements.

I had no idea exactly how cramped that airframe was before reading this thread. Only after learning that did I see how the engine's placement was precisely the factor that prevented it from being suitable to modifications to extend its usefulness.

Soviet (and to a lesser extent, American) pilots made good use of the airplane -- but that was in spite of its flaws, not because of its superiorities.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I found the whole wording of the manual very odd, it is written as if speaking to a P-39 owner, not a trainee pilot or a pilot in a military force. Every pilot who is actually approved to fly the thing will have had to pass tests in all the basic theory that it states.

Then the conspiracy theorist in me gets to work and I wonder if mistakes and anomalies in the manual were put there to make trainee pilots really think about what they were doing.

To a point!

I have found that many WW2 manuals are written in this manner, perhaps to accommodate those who had zero aviation experience when they first enlisted or were drafted. After WW2 the whole format changed (and as you probably know) were given a document number followed by a -1, so in today's world the flight manuals is known as the "dash one" (-1).

When I was training to fly the L29 we used a flight manual from the Nigerian AF that was written in -1 format. It made things pretty simple when compared to the original Czech manuals, obviously the translation was much better