Reluctant Poster
Tech Sergeant
- 1,591
- Dec 6, 2006
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Your missing the greatest achievement of Caiden's career:
Probably less imagination in that then in his aviation books.Your missing the greatest achievement of Caiden's career:
The private charging the machine gun nest on D Day (or any day) had more to complain about than any fighter pilot. I get tired of hearing how hard done by fighter pilots were. They were soldiers and soldiers have to do things that might not be good for them but are good for others on the team. If a Hurricane shoots down a 109 instead of a 111 that's a win for the Germans.
This is all hind sight in terms of what happened and technical development. In 1939/40 who had a s/e fighter with 1000mile range, or a competitive twin engine fighter. Who had commissioned one and for what?
If the Germans could choose any engine in service anywhere in 1939 which one would give them their fighter with 1000+ mile range?
That opening sequence was so cool, it seemed to promise something a lot more interesting than what the show usually delivered....
...
As for "Late war" fighters.
P-63A: Design work started before June 27, 1941 when the USAAF placed an order for two prototype XP-6s, this is after placing an order for 3 XP-39Es in Feb 1941 (XP-39E is P-39D fuselage with laminar flow wing)
La-7: Work started in the summer of 1943 but it was more of a product improved LA-5 than a new design and the La-5 dates from late 1941/early 1942 and is a re-engined Lagg-3.
Spitfire XIV: Much as I like the Griffon engined Spitfires it is a bit of stretch to call them "late war" even though that is when they were used. Again, an evolution aircraft rather than a new aircraft.
Yak-3U: Project canceled Oct, 1945. two 20mm cannon.
Yak-9U: Well, sort of, basic airframe and aerodynamics can be traced back to the Yak-1 (I-26) of 1939/40. the VK-107 actually dates from that era, it just took until 1944/45 to get some sort of reliability out of the engine. Russian accounts differ, One page will say problems solved another will say, it was capricious and frequently failed. While production of the engine was started in 1942 but problems were such that not only was production small in numbers during the war but production was stopped from Sept 1945 to Dec 1945 and again from April of 1946 to Oct of 1946. Plane carried one 20mm gun with 120 rounds and two 12,7mm guns with 200rpg. Not exactly first class armament in 1944/45.
Bf 109K: 7400 lbs A late war fighter? used late in the war but hardly a mid to late war design.
Here is the real crashThe opening film of the crash was real.
Caiden was a good writer; he just wasn't a good historian.
Just to clarify about the cannons on Lavochkin fighters:
La-5 - 220 rpg
La-5F - 200 rpg
La-5FN - 170 rpg
La-7 - 170/180 rpg 2xSHVAK cannons
La-7 - 170 rpg 3xB-20 cannons. Tests in 1944, serial production since summer 1945. B-20 was less reliable than SHVAK.
I'm not sure diving into all the differences between a Spit I vs. say a Spit XIV or 21 or postwar 24 (I never mentioned the XII I don't believe) would be worth the effort. Nobody seems to concede any of the points I make here even when they are decisively proven. I think there are obvious differences, there were a lot of incremental changes but they added up to a (IMO) completely different aircraft (by the F.21 it's new engine, new wing etc.). But obviously this conclusion is somewhat subjective and there is room to believe what you want.
The 21 had new wings and many other revisions, so much so that a new name was considered.
But earlier Griffon Spitfires didn't change that much compared to their Merlin counterparts.
Oh and I Ieft a few more early long ranged fighters off the list -
Ki-45 had a 1,200 mile range.
Potez 630 had a 930 mile range.
Mosquto (first flight 1940) had a 1,300 mile range
Martin Maryland 1,300 mile range
he A6M zero and Ki-43 both had a 1,000 mile range and I believe that was indeed part of the design requirement.
The Fairey Battle, though not successful, had a 1,000 mile range.
The Beaufighter (first flight 1939, first confirmed kill 1940) eventually had a 1,600 mile range and long range was also a design requirement for that aircraft.
The Dutch Fokker G.1 had almost a 940 mile range, and had development continued it probably would have exceeded 1,000 miles.
The Pe-3 (heavy fighter derivative of the Pe-2, developed in 1941) had a range of 930 miles
The P-38 lightning didn't get into production until 1941 but it's first flight was 1939. It achieved a 1,300 mile range.
The F2A Buffalo (operational 1940) had a range of 965 miles which is in the ball park.
I think our colleague who introduced the Fairey Battle into the discussion should have written Fairey Fulmar. IIRC the Miles M20 had a 1200 mile range. So the Brits did have them.You are grasping at straws. Ki-45 was a fighter. We all know Mosquito was a fighter among it's many other roles, and not just at night either. The Potez 630 was a heavy fighter which was also used as a bomber. The Maryland was basically a bomber, and never really developed as dedicated fighter but like many high performance bombers it was used as a fighter on more than one occasion, there was even an Ace who flew one. I included it as an example because obviously if it had been given uprated engines and a few heavy guns (and stripped out some of the bomber bits like one of the crewmen) it could have been a fighter. You know as well as I do that many of these aircraft were used in both bomber and fighter roles as well as for other purposes. And if the single-engined Fairey Battle could fly 1,000 miles with an early mark Merlin engine, so could a fighter with the same powerplant.
More to the point, in bringing up that list, I was answering a very specific question: who could make a fighter that could fly 1,000 miles ("with what engine") in 1939/40. I pointed out multiple fighters. You are trying to pick at a couple from the list and spin it into a completely different context - i.e. quality. This is a typical tactic in these debates (why it is even a debate I really have no idea, because I know you know better).
And no, I'm sorry, but I know for a fact that you are incorrect when you claim that fighters couldn't safely fly at relatively low cruise speeds over land that they did over sea. You have have tried to bring that up before. But it was done for years in the Western Desert, in China and Burma, and in Russia too. Only the cripplingly slow aircraft like the Blenheim which apparently had a cruise speed around 100 mph were called into question over cruise speed. The typical tactic was to use the most economical speed until they got close, and then speed up when they were close to the target area, but in the MTO in 1940, 41 and 42, and even into 1943 they flew slow during bomber escort. Just like Bf 109s escorting Stukas into Britain.
I specifically didn't include any aircraft which I knew had an actual range of substantially less than 1000 miles (like the Tomahawk).
And actually homeboy, the F-111 was a ten year earlier design (1964 vs. 1974) but F-111s and F-16s flew operationally at the same time. I saw them both flying when I was in the service at Ramstein airbase in Frankfurt in 1985. They used F-111s to bomb Libya the same year. The contrast in size was quite startling, that is what made me think of it. The F-111 had to take off on afterburner. It was impressive but also conveyed the impression that something wasn't quite right. The F-16 by comparison was effortless. I can't believe they designed something that beautiful in the 70's.
Mirage III or MiG 21 were short ranged interceptors. The F4 Phantom was a heavy fighter. That was my point. Kind of like comparing a P-38 with a Bf 109. The F4 may have had more capabilities in some respects and carried more ordinance, but a MiG 21 was no push over for F4 pilots, as we well know, or for that matter an archaic MiG 17 or 19. (It didn't help that a lot of the ordinance on the early F4s didn't work all that well...)
I admit the thought of the Battle as a fighter, did bring a smile to my face.I think our colleague who introduced the Fairey Battle into the discussion should have written Fairey Fulmar. IIRC the Miles M20 had a 1200 mile range. So the Brits did have them.
I think our colleague who introduced the Fairey Battle into the discussion should have written Fairey Fulmar. IIRC the Miles M20 had a 1200 mile range. So the Brits did have them.
The Griffon Spits are very different birds from the original Spitfire. Even between say the Spit I and the Spit IX or VIII, the changes are substantial. It's a lot of little things, but I would say when you add up all the changes, it's quite significant. Certainly the performance and capabilities changed enormously between a Spit I and a Spit VIII.
But there is some subjectivity in that, so feel free to look at it however you like. It doesn't change the overall point.
The opening film of the crash was real.
Caiden was a good writer; he just wasn't a good historian.
OK, I'll bite. How?Fighter pilots are a bunch of whiners!
Ask me how I know...
Cheers,
Biff
Just to clarify about the cannons on Lavochkin fighters:
La-5 - 220 rpg
La-5F - 200 rpg
La-5FN - 170 rpg
La-7 - 170/180 rpg 2xSHVAK cannons
La-7 - 170 rpg 3xB-20 cannons. Tests in 1944, serial production since summer 1945. B-20 was less reliable than SHVAK.