Most innovative aircraft of WW2 ?

drgondog said:

Wuzak - dumbass factor on my part as I jumped in late in the thread.

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Not a problem....hasn't stopped others suggesting jet and rocket powered planes.

I still say the The Caproni-Campini CC.2 I posted way back. Not a Jet, yet not a conventional prop driven aircraft.. I hybred of the two.

parsifal said:

A technicality, I will freely admit, but the Me 262 was not the worlds first operational jet fighter. It was the worlds first operational jet aircraft, but hitler forbade its designation as a fighter until the following october. by that time the worlds operational jet fighter, the meteors of 616 sqn, had been operational for some three months"...

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With all due respects, I disagree...

Erprobungskommando 262 was put into service on 19 April 44 and the first action against an enemy aircraft happened on 26 July 44...right about the time that the RAF 616 Sqdn was taking delivery of thier Meteors...

As far as innovation goes, I think that WWII was more of a transitional/perfection period than anything. Most of the innovations in flight had been either tried in WWI, or during the years that followed, so it's going to be pretty hard to nail down any single piston powered aircraft that was truly unique in that respect.

Readie, to be honest, I don't have a candidate for the most innovative aircraft of the war as far as piston powered machines go. The war took all the ideas that had been in development beforehand and accelerated the process of evolution from decades down to years.

However, if I had to choose any single innovation that was developed during the war, I'd be hard pressed to choose between the ejection seat and the radar absorbing technique that the Horton brothers were working with. Both of which were ahead of thier time and are very much in use globally to this day.

I like the idea of categorising by era, ie. early war, late war and so on. Basically because there's just too many to choose from

Every time I read the development of an aircraft type it's only been rarely and notable when it wasn't innovative. Those guys were cluey man, back in the days when it was all so new. Often just regular joes because all the qualified disciplines involved had barely been invented, you were having auto mechanics and hobbyists doing the job of modern aeronautical engineers in some cases and getting by on merit.

I like the airacobra for its innovation and reform, conservative ideals have little place in warfare or engineering. But it did have a design flaw of being a little too innovative, it didn't fly like other planes and I think this was the biggest reason it lacked popularity for a fighter mount, the Russians certainly did just fine on that score so it was no engineering failure...it was an ergonomic one.
It's unsettling to fly if you're used to regular trainers, the cockpit moves like a seesaw in manoeuvres because of where it is to balance the plane with the engine fitment. They couldn't rely on cannon weight and ammunition with that because the ammo when used would make it unstable (this was the problem with the P-80A). So the cockpit is firmly placed like a see saw in relation to centre of lift so that it's a really unsettling aircraft to BFM with. Very easy to misjudge.
I also believe this was related to its spin reputation, again the Russians had no such problem. But you see they leapt from clapped biplanes to poorly tooled attempts at a fighter slapped together in a tractor factory so basically had no problem with jumping in a P-39 and starting over from scratch on flight training. Americans not so much, they get nice trainers, good training in nicely built machines and get used to classical, stable gun platforms with good moves and a bit of power. That's like throwing a footy jock onto a ballet stage with the P-39, and of course it's the plane's fault.

As for late innovations, I'm with the Ta-152C zerstörer, people think of it in dora terms but they weren't, they were meant to replace the intended role of the Me-210/410 with the Do335 as a more conservative alternative choice. The heavy-fighter(jabo and escort) and zerstörer role. It was to have supplanted Fw-190D production which took lead on general fighter duties (which was its interim type).

It's like the Mustang, which gets vote for midwar innovations. Designed to essentially perform the job traditionally requiring a twin engine, that of bomber escort (in interwar period these were things like the Blenheim, bomber escorts had range, speed and often a light loadout themselves), but it was single seat and deadly as a short range interceptor. At best people might've thought of bomber escorts as the P-38, Germany was traditional with the Me-110, soviets and americans often converted bombers into gunships as escorts. The Mustange blew all of that away, nobody expected it.
The Ta152C does that but with heavy fighter-bomber/attack models rather than long range escorts. It replaces things like Fw-190F, Me-410, Ju-88, packing their specialised heavy equipment in a single engine high performance airframe capable of combating Tempests, I think it would've been a terrific success.

A disagreement, vanir: Mustang was not designed as a bomber escort.

no I know that, but it was earmarked for that role so effectively re-engineered specifically for it when they added the destabilising rear fuselage tank.

Me 262.
All other "innovative" designs were dreams, not aeroplanes.....

Elmas said:

Me 262.
All other "innovative" designs were dreams, not aeroplanes.....

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Ummm...maybe without the 'dreams' the jet would have been invented.
A rather pointless remark Elmas, if you don't mind me saying so.
John

Readie said:

Ummm...maybe without the 'dreams' the jet would have been invented.
A rather pointless remark Elmas, if you don't mind me saying so.
John

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About that, the aeroplane itself is born from dreamers, from Leonardo da Vinci to the Wright Brothers, passing trough Stringfellow, Pénaud, Lilienthal, Adér and many others....
The Me 262 was the first real step towards the jet era, that completely changed the world.
In 1945 this aeroplane, with jet engines with axial compressors, was shooting missiles towards his enemies, while in Korea the Americans were still shooting with 0.50s.....
The Me 163 or the Lippisch or Horten designs were certainly amazing (dreams, by my persona point view) but the mainstream towards the future was signed by the Me 262.
Elmas

Elmas said:

...while in Korea the Americans were still shooting with 0.50s......
Elmas

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Light the fuse and set back...

Elmas,
The thread is trying to find the most innovative piston engined aircraft. Its proving hard to pin point one example but, if you read the posts you'll see some cracking examples.
The Italian aircraft industry engineers were up there with the best. Can you suggest a plane that contributes to this thread?
Best wishes
John

The Me-163 was certainly a innovative way to kill Luftwaffe personnel, but it was not piston engined.

Now in all fairness, the Horton Brothers did have a piston powered wing, like Jack Northrup's and the Me262 did first fly under piston power (engine in the nose, jet nacelles were empty)...

The Komet...well, it did have a little propellor in the nose!

Elmas said:

In 1945 this aeroplane, with jet engines with axial compressors, was shooting missiles towards his enemies, while in Korea the Americans were still shooting with 0.50s.....

Elmas

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With due respect Elmas, in 1945 Me-262s were not exactly using heat-seeking or radar-guided missiles against heavy bombers nor were the Americans in Korea without a clue about the ordinance the Me-262 carried.

You know one of the things I like about the Yak-9 was that it had such a good reputation as a fighter, if built well, but was actually the airframe of a two seat combat conversion trainer, modified on the production line.

The fighter yak was the Yak-1 but it was a difficult aircraft to fly, the trainer version was the UTI/Yak-7 which pilots actually preferred because it was more stable and with one crew had the same performance as the single seater. The little one was smaller, more nimble, but ever so slightly inherently unstable. Eventually what happened as service deliveries ramped up through 1942 onwards the Guards squadrons, any aces which requested it, and some raw recruits got the Yak-1, the regular front line units got the Yak-7 (combat modified version stripped of the second crew position but still using the trainer airframe, armed and engined like the Yak-1). The Yak-7 became the Yak-9 and the Yak-1 became the Yak-3. These Yak-3 used older engines and were virtually restricted to Guards squadrons only. The standard fighter had become the Yak-9.

So the Yak-9 was never intended to be a fighter, just a fighter-trainer. The Yak that was meant to be a fighter needed a flight computer, well not really but reportedly only experienced pilots with a flair for seat of the pants manoeuvring could fly them well, but could out turn anything ever made in one. It was the aircraft the Luftwaffe were warned about, not to dogfight under 3000 metres.

The Yak-9 but, straight out of the box in February 43 they were rated as equivalent to the Me-109(G) in all respects and trading one for one in aerial combat over the Kuban. Considering the numerical superiority it came as a shock slightly out of proportion to the actual qualities of the plane, but it was a darn good plane and based on a trainer.

Postwar US comparative test pilots got their hands on some captured NK Yak-9P aircraft (Yak-9U with the rechambered Beresins instead of Shvak), they rated it as equivalent to the P-51D with some superior qualities.

Readie said:

Light the fuse and set back...

Elmas,
The thread is trying to find the most innovative piston engined aircraft.......

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Sorry, I have to apologize: I didn't read all the posts and the title of the 3d was deceiving, as it does not speak of pistons......

Readie said:

The Italian aircraft industry engineers were up there with the best. Can you suggest a plane that contributes to this thread?
Best wishes
John

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No, with the exception of the Caproni Campini CC 2 wich I see was already mentioned in a post I can't see an Italian aircraft of WW II era with a piston engine that was really innovative.
There where planes like the "Serie 5" fighters that were beautiful machines for flying and fighting ( I spoke with WWII Italian pilots that were very upset when they had to change their Macchi 205 for the P 39s, but that's another story) that were fine works of craftmanship as today the shoes of Prada or the bags of Gucci, but I can't say that they were something real new for aerodinamics, structrural design and much less power plants.

The last Italian aeroplane with a piston engine that was really innovative was the seaplane Macchi MC 72 in the early '30: but Italo Balbo, wich was behind the whole project, was sacked from Mussolini, wich was very jealous of Balbo's popularity, and sent him overseas as Governor of Lybia and all the innovative programs in aeronautics in Italy practically ended.

So, the most innovative aircraft with piston engines of WWII era by my personal point of view was not a fighter but a bomber, the B 29.

Cheers

Elmas said:

So, the most innovative aircraft with piston engines of WWII era by my personal point of view was not a fighter but a bomber, the B 29.

Cheers

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Elmas, are you in league with Mr Morales and the B29 love club? ( I'm only joking)...the B29 keeps appearing like a bad penny. The real innovation in heavy bombers was all ready done before the B29 even took to the air. A bitter pills for our American friends but, we British were first.

Who bombed first (with apologies to Pete Townshend)

Cheers
John

Readie said:

A bitter pills for our American friends but, we British were first.

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And the B-29 was a better bomber...

A bitter pill for our British friends, and one that some don't like to admit.

(But this has been beaten like a dead horse. I won't bore you with it anymore. Besides it is for a different thread.)

As for the topic, I am not sure what the most innovative piston engine aircraft was, but in the case of the B-29, I would have to say it incorporated more innovative features than any other bomber of WW2. That however would mostly be because of the fact that it was the next generation. Some of the features it included were tricycle landing gear, pressurized cockpit, remote controlled defensive armament, etc. There were many aircraft that incorporated these features as well though. Fact remains it was still the bomber to measure all others by at the end of WW2 (that includes the Lanc, B-17 and B-24, none of which were more innovative than the B-29...).

Note I am not a B-29ophile, I just believe in giving credit where it is due.

O.T. mode on



Yes, the photo, taken in Bardia ( Cyrenaica, Lybian-Egiptian border) during the Summer of 1968 is not a photo of aeroplanes, but ....

the third gentleman from the left in the upper row is Lt. Z*****y, a Czech who escaped from his homeland in 1940 and served as Navigator on the Lancasters during the war: in those days he was commanding the Rescue Service in El Adem Military airport near Tobruk. I'm somewhere among the others.

We had a lot of conversations about his experiences during the war, including one mission in wich almost a yard of the wing tip of his Lancaster was sawed off by a nightfighter....

Once he told me : "There's no pleasure whatsoever to fly with today's aircrafts. They are just transistor radios that fly....."

O.T. mode off

The B 29 was the prototipe of those transistor radios that fly nowadays, so by my personal point of view, this ship was the most innovative aircraft of WWII........

With piston engines, of course.

P.S. : the Lady in the left of the front row is the wife of W.Cdr. W****, wich was in those days the Commander of El Adem Airport and fought in his twenties in the BoB (the husband, of course....).

Cheers