Most agile four engined aircraft ww2?

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As I saw the plane in my time stationed at Carswell, there's no way I'd want that plane to fly again. It looked so rotten even from a mile away on White Settlement Road that I wouldn't trust t to hold together, even after a years-long rebuild.
 
drgondog said:
I grew up to the thunder of B-36 and C-124 and will never forget the sound or sight of six turning and four burning running up on the active. The last generation will never have a clue.
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I've never heard this myself, but I "liked" your post because even hearing 7BW doing a MITO exercise with eight -52s and four -135s was a sinus-clearing event, mouse-ears be damned.
 
Thumpalumpacus said:
I've never heard this myself, but I "liked" your post because even hearing 7BW doing a MITO exercise with eight -52s and four -135s was a sinus-clearing event, mouse-ears be damned.
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Your best chance of hearing a B-36 in it's full operational range, would be the movie "Strategic Air Command" (starring Jimmy Stewart).
While it's not the same as the real deal, it does have excellent sights and sounds.
 
GrauGeist said:
Your best chance of hearing a B-36 in it's full operational range, would be the movie "Strategic Air Command" (starring Jimmy Stewart).
While it's not the same as the real deal, it does have excellent sights and sounds.
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I've seen the movie, yeah. I've also played gigs and listened back to those recordings, and believe me when I say it's not the same thing, as you yourself point out. Very much how I imagine the difference between "flying" a sim and flying an airplane. Watching that movie, you're hearing the speakers, not the engines. And more to the point, you aren't feeling the engines.
 
However, you can tell that the sound of those engines in some of the sequences, was overdriving the analog audio input.

And I *may* have turned the volume up on my theater system for that immersion.
Pretty sure my neighbors were sharing in the experience of six turning and four burning, too!
 

Shortround6 said:
You just need bigger speakers and more amps........................................
And tolerant neighbors
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My god, you heathens. Y'all need to experience the roar of fifty simple watts here with your ears, and you'll understand what I'm saying. You will know when you're in the presence!

Recording and playback doesn't capture the experience, because of input compression and speaker limitations. I write this as someone who's owned a home studio for a while, and plays and records loud guitar (on occasion).

The word of the day is dynamics. That's how your ears know if your neighbor is cranking his stereo or if he's hosting a gig, even without looking. His stereo will be more compressed than the live sound. The exact same thing is true of aircraft noises vs recorded aircraft noises. If I parked a truck on the street out of your front door and blasted the sound of an F-4 taking off, you would sure as hell know it was not the real thing.
 
I didn't have a studio system, but the 15in woofer (4 cubic ft enclosure ) had it's own 200 watt amp. The main amp was good for 105 watts a side (conservative) the main speakers had 12in wolfers. (JBL 4313B's)

Small stuff and not really good for ear bleeding sound, but it defiantly rattled windows and you felt it in your chest.

Got rid of the sub woofer, amp and cross-over many years ago as chances to turn it up were few and far between.
 

The speakers impose a limit all their own. What's the largest fanblade or turbine you've seen in an airplane? I can guarantee you with those sizes involved, the amplitude is larger than what a speaker can pump. It's physics. A speaker is neither as small as the throat of songbird, nor as large as a jet's turbine. That right there will tell you which is real and which is being played back.
 
All of this technical talk brings me back to 1961 when a couple of friends invited me to see/hear another friends new sound system. Sterophonic was the new thing and the fellow was setting up a band. It was after dark at the old house he rented in an old neighborhood. Inside there was the ampsetup, turntable and four large speakers, about 2 1/2 X 4 feet. He sat us in the middle of the room to listen to the demo record with the "train running through the house". Then he brought out two more large speakers which he put on the ends of the front porch outside. With all the windows open, the system up, he selected the track on the demo record of a DC-4 take off. Dust fell from the ceiling, walls shook and people's lights came on all up & down the street with people outside looking up into the sky. The fact that it was a mile or so from the airport helped. The fellow told us he couldn't do this demo often as it caused complaints to the airport management.
 
I know I'm disinterring an old comment from 6 months ago. But this series of assertions got me thinking.

"There is little call for agility in aircraft requiring four engines. Four engined aircraft would mostly be bombers, cargo, or patrol aircraft for which stability rather than agility is a virtue"

Really? Hmmm. Manoeuvrability is clearly going to be a factor of size, power to weight, wing-loading etc - and obviously providing a stable bomb platform is important (though providing a stable GUN platform for an attacking fighter is just as much an asset if not taken to excess). But its also a clear indicator in an age of crude auto-pilots and unpowered controls of structural integrity, control harmony, power reserves and likely ease of flying when overloaded, damaged, one or more engines out, or with some tyro pilot with a lack of experience behind the yoke on his first few missions. Being able to make the plane do what you want seems a pretty fundamental thing - something which flies like a brick isn;lt going to give you. A plane which is pleasant to fly is probably going to be easier and less tiring to fly, whilst also instilling confidence.

I would imagine that whilst speed and an altitude are probably the most important key performance assets into getting to and from Dodge unholed, what comes next for a four engined bomber? Probably bombload, so, presuming you have a reasonable bombsight, you don't have to come back and subject yourself to the danger of doing it again if the target isn't destroyed first time round.

But from there, things surely get more nuanced? Your assertion conjures up images of massed, tight formations of bombers doggedly ploughing towards their destinations, making simple, coordinated turns along the route. However, for many nations and bombing operations, this was *not* the tactic or doctrine employed.

For Bomber Command, whilst seeking more speed, altitude and bombload was always going to be a priority, its absolutely clear that manoeuvrability was of huge, huge importance. Tight turns, the ability to rapidly change course and altitude were key to evasion - as illustrated in the earlier post which shows the cork-screw manoeuvre. And again, as pointed out previously, restricted maneuverability put early marks of the Halifax at an extreme disadvantage and higher loss rate, because of their handling and aerodynamic problems.

All that anecdotal evidence and favourable comment from the pilots of the time shows something - as do the combat reports. The first priority of any pilot under attack was to keep his aircraft. crew safe and his mission on track - and it seems there are multiple examples of the manoeuvrability of their aircraft being critical to achieving that - especially when under attack from German night fighters. It extended beyond the pure bombers too - the Short Sunderland was a famously surprisingly agile aircraft which will also go a long way to explaining its surprising success in avoiding destruction by interceptors. And when it comes to landing aircraft on short or damaged runways, avoiding terrain in unpleasant weather, other aircraft (whether friendly or not!) - surely they are all situations in which you want your aircraft to be as manoeuvrable as possible, whether its a fighter or a 4-engined bomber, transport or airliner?

Its a doctrine the British continued after WW2. Their immediate post war V Bombers were all manoeuvrable - especially the Vulcan which at altitude could turn inside almost all other aircraft even at the end of its career.
 
A buddy of mine had a collection of Altec "Voice of the Cinema" speakers. He was a location sound mixer in the movie business. They Came in matt black plywood cabinets. Those were pretty loud. He collected them 30 years ago when nobody wanted such things.

Jim
 

Altec speakers are something else. Fender used them in 100w Twin Reverbs, two 12" Altecs, in an amp that was designed to forestall harmonic distortion. They will deafen you (at least temporarily) without ear-protection, no doubt. They were the premiere hi-repro speakers of their era and are not to be messed with.

JBLs as well had the capability to reproduce high freqs at SPLs that would cut you, without flubbing out. Highly valued by country players who wanted zero-point-zero speaker distortion and giving you 100w clean RMS with full freq range.

Plug a Strat or Tele into either one, and be careful of the ice-pick coming your way.

I saw Omar and the Howlers at the old Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth in 1992, sitting right in front of the stage. Omar Dykes was playing a Strat through a Super Reverb (4x12 Altecs) at high volume. My ears literally rang for three days. It was murderous. Hi-def speakers are not to be sneezed at.
 
I don't know how you would judge their agility, but USN VPB-102 few up-gunned, but otherwise stripped down PB4Y-1s on "fighter escort" missions in the Pacific. Don't know how successful they were in the role, but even without modifications, they were pretty aggressive in going after Japanese seaplanes and twin engine land based reconnaissance aircraft.
 
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