Reluctant Poster
Staff Sergeant
- 1,472
- Dec 6, 2006
The problem with the Stirling was its enormous fuselage. An empty Stirling weighted 4,000 lb more than an empty Lancaster.
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The problem with the Stirling was its enormous fuselage. An empty Stirling weighted 4,000 lb more than an empty Lancaster.I could be wrong but the Stirling dated from the era of very short RAF airfields, even for bombers which lead to that whole catapult the Manchester scheme.
Flying boats were built because they had, in theory, nearly unlimited runway lengths in order to get up to take-off speed.
The Poor Stirling may have been caught by timing and changing operational environments.
Couldn't get out of the pea patch RAF airfields during early development and was replaced by aircraft that needed much larger airfields. Stirlings capabilities did increase with the larger airfields (higher gross weight) but it was too late to change the basic airframe. Getting both production lines bombed sure didn't help early deployment either so there was little opertunity for it to make a name for itself before the Halifax and Lancaster showed up.
1st thousand bomber raid on Germany 30/31st of May 1942.
88 Stirling heavy bombers
131 Halifax heavy bombers
73 Lancaster heavy bombers
46 Manchester medium bombers
Plus all the other odds and sods.
Had the Factories not been bombed (or hit?) dozens or scores more Stirlings may have been available at that point in time and the Stirling may have had at least a few weeks/months in the limelight and not been competing with aircraft that were around two years newer?
I think the Sterling was designed when the RAF didn't know quite what it wanted. IIRC one of the design parameters was that it could be broken into three and carried by rail, quite why you would want to do that is a total mystery to me.The problem with the Stirling was its enormous fuselage. An empty Stirling weighted 4,000 lb more than an empty Lancaster.
Oddly enough, in the P-39N pilot's manual (dated February 1943), they seemed to be under the impression that the front armor was needed...
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I think it was a half baked idea of sending Stirlings by ship and rail to outposts of empire to bomb things, carry supplies and act as a transport.I think the Sterling was designed when the RAF didn't know quite what it wanted. IIRC one of the design parameters was that it could be broken into three and carried by rail, quite why you would want to do that is a total mystery to me.
It did make it quite a good freighter and troop transport
You are accusing Shorts / Gouge of getting the angle of incidence wrong. That is what I don't agree with.
P39 - can I ask for your views on this
You morons?
Who are you calling a moron?
Knock it off with the insults.
The Spitfire evolved throughout the war because the airframe had development growth, so did the Me109, FW190, P47 and especially the P51, the P39 had zero growth potential because the planes design was fundamentally flawed, you can sugar coat it as much as you want but everyone involved with running the air war new it, why waste time and effort on it when better designs were already in service?.
Larry Bell and boys sure screwed up when they went to all the trouble to design and build the P-63 when all they had to do was tweak the P-39 (take the armor out of the nose and move the radio),
My-oh-my, we're getting passionate about this topic! I'm pretty sure nobody on this forum "hates" any aircraft. We are all interested in learning more about aviation and to explore the reasons why things happened.
Personally, I find it frustrating that the P-39 seems to crop up in every bluddy thread on this forum...and it's the same people having the same arguments on all the threads. Nobody's pre-existing perspectives are getting swayed by arguments in either direction. There's a lot of transmitting but not a lot of receiving going on.
Frankly, it's getting boring.
I never said the P-39 was a world beater.
Sorry you think your post is an insult to me, as is obvious by your tone.
The P-39 was better than the P-40, as evidenced by the follow on, the P-63 which was as much like the P-39 as the P-51H was like the P-51A; the P-40 ended production in 1944 with nothing to follow on.
The P-39 was good enough. So was the P-40. Just like the M4 Sherman.
You all have some fetish against the plane.
You attack anyone who says anything good about it, to the point of making things like 'whipping drive shafts' up.
I think that's sad.
The P-63 was the result of tweeting the P-39.
Inertia reel shoulder straps. They existed, but there seemed to be shortage of intracranial light bulbs in the aviation world. "Duhh! Why didn't I think of that!"Make a gunsight that can be taken out of the way for a forced landing, how many pilots were put out of action for a long time by hitting their heads on them?
Yep, they tweaked a whole new wing, tweaked the wings location on the fuselage, tweaked about 2 feet of extra fuselage length, tweaked the wheelbase and tread.
In fact just about everything on the P-63 was bigger ( Larger horizontal stabilizer area, larger vertical stabilizer area, larger propeller, etc etc etc)
It just sort of looks like the P-39.
BTW the Army ordered two XP-63 prototypes in June of 1941.
Took a lot of words to say that.
If you were really bored, you'd have skipped to a different topic.
Nice bit of passive-aggression though.
Guys (in general), Adler dealt with the situation. I suggest all of you leave it behind. I'll close this thread if I see it happen again before any more have to be put in the "cooler".It's hard to skip the thread given that there's nothing in the title to suggest it contained the same P-39 arguments that have discussed ad nauseam in at least 2 other different threads. I actually have an interest in the topic of discussing designs that could have been improved, I just don't want to see the same arguments here that already have existing type-specific threads.
Pretty rich to be accusing me of passive aggression when you proclaim anyone who criticizes the P-39 as being a "hater", not to mention your active aggression of calling other forum members "morons".
I think it was a half baked idea of sending Stirlings by ship and rail to outposts of empire to bomb things, carry supplies and act as a transport.
I think the Sterling was designed when the RAF didn't know quite what it wanted. IIRC one of the design parameters was that it could be broken into three and carried by rail, quite why you would want to do that is a total mystery to me.
It did make it quite a good freighter and troop transport