So, you have no understanding of the structure of the P-39.
So either read up on it or please go to a different topic.
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Nothing supported the drive shaft between the engine and gearbox except the carrier bearing assembly that was situated at the 60" mark, where the two shafts joined.
I'm beginning to wonder if you do.
I'm pointing out that .30 caliber proof armor is minimum armor, no aircraft I'm aware of carried a smaller caliber weapon, while almost any axis aircraft you would meet ( with the exception of the Ki-43 early in the war) had additional guns that were bigger than .30 cal.
So just what good did the armor do?
What Larry Bell did IMO was create a aircraft that was so different from other aircraft it was dangerous.
Right at the end of a combat mission when the ammo is low or out, and the pilots flying skills aren't the best because he's probably dog tired.
Most aircraft handle the best at the end of the flight, if there's no battle damage, lower total weight, lower stalling speed, etc.
But in the P-39's case that's when it's most sensitive, with close to aft CG.
Pull that turn to final a little too tight, or rough, and you'll end up in a stall/spin that'll take more altitude to recover from than you've got.
Most aircraft destroyed in combat in the WW2 era would get no investigation under most conditions.
The pilot, if he survived, sometimes might have a clue. His squadron friends might see it, but are likely too busy with the mission, or their own survival , to really concentrate on exactly what happened.
And even if they could find a secure crash site, no one had the time to do a complete forensic investigation on a smoking hole in the ground, like modern crash investigations .
I feel like this is a waste of time trying to have a adult conversation with someone who evidently has no knowledge beyond what he reads, and has no real experience with anything mechanical.
The P40 had a firewall between the propulsion compartment and the rest of the airframe, as front engine planes generally do. They are made of stainless steel, ruggedly constructed to take the stresses of the engine mounts bolted to them, and generally do their job well, keeping engine related fluids and risks out of the rest of the plane. Anyone who's had grease under their fingernails from working on airplanes knows this.
In all the drawings and photos I've seen of P39s in service, being maintained, or under construction, there doesn't seem to be any sort of a solid secure firewall between the engine compartment and the cockpit, and the radiator and oil cooler plumbing run right under the pilot's feet. The engine mounts appear to be supported by the lower fuselage "backbone" beams rather than cantilevered from a firewall in the usual manner. This means that cockpit and engine compartment form a cocoon that will confine and contain any escaped hot fluids, frying the pilot. Not my favorite way to go.
You and your smartass comments are growing tiresome.So, you have no understanding of the structure of the P-39.
So either read up on it or please go to a different topic.
A couple of the attachments people put up on this thread refused to open on my Android, but I haven't seen anything contradicting what I posted. Explain yourself.So you didn't bother to read the design analysis I posted hear.
Sorry for your loss.
Yes I really do wonder. Half of them went to the Soviets where they won the war and the other half were used as trainers here.
Yup, we in the west just couldn't come up with a theater of operations suited to the Airacobra's rather limited advantages, so we made trainers out of them.The P-39 and P-63 did go to war, it's just that the war they seemed to be good at fighting wasn't the war that the US or Commonwealth were fighting.
He probably has a front wheel drive and will miss your point entirely.Perhaps you should go look under your car for a rudimentary idea of what the grownups are talking about here, or find a topic better suited to your limited abilities.
The Royal Australia Navy wanted to buy helicopters, and then drowned them in specifications to the extent that they were incapable of entering service.
I have read a few books on the Stirling, and there is no clear answer however most point to the Air Ministry using it to limit the all up weight. Which is rather ironic, considering the plethora of mandatory requirements which drove the weight so high in the finished product.
The commuter airline I worked for had a couple Short SD30s. They were real ground lovers, too. You could tell they were designed and built by shipyard people. The front office was more like a ship's bridge than an airplane's cockpit. Crews called it "the wheelhouse".Short didn't foresee that the wing's angle of incidence was too shallow, which meant it would have had an inordinately long take off run fully loaded
The commuter airline I worked for had a couple Short SD30s.
Damn...didn't think about that.He probably has a front wheel drive and will miss your point entirely.
Agree that the Hellcat was a carrier plane and the P-30 was a land based plane. But like most of my assertions this graph is based solely on facts. Nothing but facts from sources like wwiiaircraftperformance.org and AHT. Official tests conducted by the Navy and Wright Field. The P-39N outperformed the F6F by a substantial margin. This is not an assumption but a fact.P39 Expert,
Okay, the P39 versus F6F comparison is really not that good.
A. The P39 wasn't carrier capable, wasn't able to carry the bomb load, nor did it make as many aces as did the F6F.
B. Range?
C. Grumman was known for making great flying planes. Did the F6F have any problems qualifying on the carrier, did the guys complain about it biting them in any manner similar to what the P39 experienced? The F6F was a large plane due to performance requirements as well as carrier operations imposed weight penalties.
Guys have spent a LARGE amount of time on here trying to show you where you are making assumptions that are not correct, or coming to conclusions based on incomplete or incorrect data.
Your ability to ignore facts, or information you don't agree with is TREMENDOUS.
Good luck.
V/R,
Biff
Regarding post 912: Hi P-39 Expert.
The F6F flew 66,530 action sorties for the Navy, claimed 5,163 enemy aircraft shot down, and had 2,461 combat losses, only 270 of which were to enemy aircraft. That averages out to one kill every 13 action sorties. It was the first USN fighter to be able to outclimb the A6M Zero and almost turn with one. It was VERY forgiving and was called the Ace-maker. The kill to loss ratio was 19.12 : 1 for air-to-air and 2.09 : 1 overall if you figure in ALL losses, which is not generally done. Hellcat was a great plane, the best Navy fighter in WWII.
The P-39 flew zero action sorties, had no kills, and no losses in US Navy service. And the Hellcat had no stats in Army service. What is your point?
In USAAF service, it flew 30,547 combat sorties, had 14 air kills and 18 ground kills claimed, had handling quirks that made it a plane nobody wanted to fly in combat. It was nicknamed the Peashooter by pilots becasue of its ineffectivness in combat. It had 107 combat losses, but the USAAF doesn't tell us how many were air-to-air and how manby were ground. I can't tell you if the losses were air-to-air or total. That averages out to one kill every 955 combat sorties if you use the total and 1 kill every 2,182 sorties if you take air-to-air kills. The kill to loss ratio was .13 : 1 for air kill and .30 : 1 for all kills. I don't know the makeup of the losses. P-39s main use was early in the war when all the US had in combat were P-39s, P-40s and Wildcats. All three of these planes were grossly overweight, fault of the AAF and Navy, not the designers.
When I compare 1 kill every 13 sorties to 1 kill every 955 sorties or 1 kill every 2,182 sorties for air kills (for overall kill-to-loss ratio), and 19.12 : 1 for air kill to 0.13 : 1 for air kills, I have a definite preference for which airplane I'd choose to fly in combat. It ain't exactly a tough choice. Give me the Ace-maker every time. Hellcat was the best navy carrier fighter, but didn't see combat until September 1943, after most of the well trained Japanese pilots had been killed by those early overweight fighters. Hellcat never faced the Japanese first team. I'm not taking anything away from the Hellcat, just proving that the P-39N outperformed the Hellcat by a substantial margin. Do you disagree with the performance graph figures?
If you can't see a huge difference in that combat performance, you are blind and fail to realize it. That performance was over the entire population of F6Fs in US service and the vast majority of the USAAF P-39s in Pacific service, which is where we mostly used them. So, both are pretty valid statistical comparisons for airplanes in US service in the Pacific. If you can find the numbers for the P-39 in Soviet service that are from a primary source and not some Russian forum with no references to sources, please share them. I can't find them myself to date.
The Soviet Union fought a low-altitude war and had no restrictions on engine boost. That allowed them to get good performance from the P-39 in a very low-altitude environment that happened to be right where at the P-39's strangth was. The U.S.A. didn't fight in a low-altitude environment that favored the P-39 and didn't get the performance from the P-39 that the Russian got because we flew by a very different book that was effective in the war WE fought. The vast majority of the P-39s used by the Russians were P-39N/Q models (same plane without wing guns) which were vastly superior to the early D/K/L models. These were not low altitude planes at all with ceilings over 38000ft and the equal of their Luftwaffe opponents at any altitude.
Note: This spin test was conducted with CG well forward (28.8% MAC) of the aft limit (31% MAC) that would be approached by a combat equipped P39 with ammunition expended.P-39Q
service ceiling: 34,900 (100fpm)
absolute ceiling: 35,700 (0fpm)
spin tests, Report on Spin Tests, P-39Q (wwiiaircraftperformance.org)
Agree that the Hellcat was a carrier plane and the P-30 was a land based plane. But like most of my assertions this graph is based solely on facts. Nothing but facts from sources like wwiiaircraftperformance.org and AHT. Official tests conducted by the Navy and Wright Field. The P-39N outperformed the F6F by a substantial margin. This is not an assumption but a fact.
Why can't you, like most on this board, just admit that you had not seen the P-39 performance tests on wwiiaircraftperformance.org?