SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
Yet another epiphany. I now have a vague idea of what NOT to do when considering an aircraft design.
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Hate those Janitrols!
Roger that! Concur. Nearly froze to death when one crapped out 10,000 feet over northern Maine one winters night with an OAT < -20° F. Why the Be99 relied on a Janitrol when all that bleed air was available is beyond me.Some of our members who are pilots or worked on aircraft may be familiar with this type of heater.
I agree that 20Lbs of weight isnt anything to make a fuss over, the heater certainly was though. Most fighters had the engine in front of the pilot, so a lot of heat came backwards from the engine and also many hot pipes for gun heaters, water and oil radiators went around the cockpit. How the guns and pilot were kept hot enough to work is a completely legitimate question to be asked. ( I know you know, it seems a mystery to others).I am not sure why all the fuss about the heater.
A similar device was used in thousands if not tens of thousands of Beechcraft, Cessna, Piper and other private/small business/air taxi aircraft.
A 20,000BTU unit for a Cessna 310 went 20.5 lbs. It was made by a subsidiary of the original company that made the heaters for the P-400s and all.
If 20-30lbs was make or break for the P-39 then It had other problems.
Some of our members who are pilots or worked on aircraft may be familiar with this type of heater.
"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.
No Airplane Flight Manual is meant to be a "Piloting for Dummies" course on learning to fly. It assumes a level of airmanship appropriate to the airplane in question, something the untrained "armchair pilot" is woefully unprepared for. What said imaginary aviator lacks is the context to functionally interpret the information presented. He doesn't know how much he doesn't know and thinks he knows all he needs to know.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.
Does loosing the nose armour shift Cog?Jees, only forty more pages to the big two double oh! Think we can make it?
Does loosing the nose armour shift Cog?
100% Wes!In my flight instructing days I encountered the occasional such individual, and after a couple of attempts to salvage their dreams, I would send them packing. People like that are a danger to everyone who shares an airplane or even shares a sky with them.
Jees, only forty more pages to the big two double oh! Think we can make it?
This thread might have more pages than the -39 had kills.
In the USAAF -This thread might have more pages than the -39 had kills.
As a teenager I was the ultimate nerdy, irritating, PITA and drove those truly in the know totally bonkers with my Martin Caidin level of informational certainty. I see a fellow traveler in our X-spurt friend here. It wasn't til I actually started flying and those crusty old Chief Petty Officers who instructed in the flying club took me down a peg, that I began to see the light.As a young kid I would love to get my hands on a flight manual and just drool all over it in hopes of becoming an expert on said airplane. There were many terms and references in these manuals that I glossed over and it wasn't until years later when I first took ground school how some of this data came together in my brain.
From what I gathered from reading "stuff" that was the start of things with operational combat pilots. Most pilots could state how much fuel they had when they landed because that was part of operations, to constantly update how the theory compared to the practice.V speeds, density altitude, basic weight and balance, engine performance charts are some things most people will not firmly grasp by reading flight manuals for high performance aircraft, be that from WW2 or today without some kind of basic education on said subject matter. It's been a few years since I've worked with primary students and even then I have found myself making errors in using performance charts, sometimes my students would point out my errors which I humbly accepted as a learning experience.
No Airplane Flight Manual is meant to be a "Piloting for Dummies" course on learning to fly. It assumes a level of airmanship appropriate to the airplane in question, something the untrained "armchair pilot" is woefully unprepared for. What said imaginary aviator lacks is the context to functionally interpret the information presented. He doesn't know how much he doesn't know and thinks he knows all he needs to know.
The European one had some. Not the African one. That shifted CoG to much after the coconots were installed.
I hope our friend is a good swimmer. I get the feeling he may need that skill if he were to go flying in his P39.Most pilots could state how much fuel they had when they landed because that was part of operations, to constantly update how the theory compared to the practice.
In the USAAF -
I've been trying to find out what the kill/ loss ratio the VVS had against the Luftwaffe with the P-39.
It's a mystery to me. I've read that the P-39 was the most successful American fighter (flown by any nation) of them all. I find that hard to believe, considering especially F6F had so many in 44-45. Another thing is that I don't really trust Soviet records myself, but who else do we ask, right?
Quite frankly, I'd trust LW records more than VVS from this era.