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It didn't really have a fuselage so if you remove a lot of fuel from the wings you have a plane with a shorter range than a Spitfire, apart from stellar performance in mock dogfights what would you use it for?I remember in Warren Bodie's book on the P-38, it was said that the P-38's wings would have been as thin as the Spitfire had ferry range, and auxiliary fuel not been a problem: I'm not sure if that was an honest statement or a 20/20 hindsight view, but a P-38 with slimmer wings would have been quite a design, and might have avoided a lot of the problems the actual P-38 would have faced.
There'd have been range penalties, provided they didn't use an overall different planform, but it would have been a hell of a performer, in overall
It is so light it can be hand launched and caught in a fishing net to land.With a thinner wing, what about take-off and landing speeds?
That was the Navalised version. Winkle Brown was impressed.
I suppose it sort of had three. There were the booms which were fuselage-ish, except they had no cockpit; then there was the gondola, which had the nose, the guns, and the nose-gear, which was fuselage like.It didn't really have a fuselage
Actually, how much fuel did the XP-38 and P-38 variants prior to the -J model have in the wings and booms? How much of a reduction would you have if the T/C went from say 15-16% to about 13%?if you remove a lot of fuel from the wings you have a plane with a shorter range than a Spitfire
I'm not sure the exact effects on thickness/chord to stall speeds, but the Spitfire flew pretty good...With a thinner wing, what about take-off and landing speeds?
I remember in Warren Bodie's book on the P-38, it was said that the P-38's wings would have been as thin as the Spitfire had ferry range, and auxiliary fuel not been a problem: I'm not sure if that was an honest statement or a 20/20 hindsight view, but a P-38 with slimmer wings would have been quite a design, and might have avoided a lot of the problems the actual P-38 would have faced.
There'd have been range penalties, provided they didn't use an overall different planform, but it would have been a hell of a performer, in overall
It didn't really have a fuselage so if you remove a lot of fuel from the wings you have a plane with a shorter range than a Spitfire, apart from stellar performance in mock dogfights what would you use it for?
With a thinner wing, what about take-off and landing speeds?
Actually, how much fuel did the XP-38 and P-38 variants prior to the -J model have in the wings and booms? How much of a reduction would you have if the T/C went from say 15-16% to about 13%?
I suppose it sort of had three. There were the booms which were fuselage-ish, except they had no cockpit; then there was the gondola, which had the nose, the guns, and the nose-gear, which was fuselage like.
Actually, how much fuel did the XP-38 and P-38 variants prior to the -J model have in the wings and booms? How much of a reduction would you have if the T/C went from say 15-16% to about 13%?
I'm not sure the exact effects on thickness/chord to stall speeds, but the Spitfire flew pretty good...
Exactly. You can't install Fowler flaps on a plane that already has, can you?As thin as the Spitfire wing - are we speaking about relative value(thickness to chord ratio) or about absolute value (wing being so many inches thick)?
There is a lot of space in outer wings that can accept fuel tanks.
P-38, along with Fairey Firefly, was the only in-service ww2 Western fighter that sported Fowler flaps.
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Exactly. You can't install Fowler flaps on a plane that already has, can you?
I believe the the early P-38s (up until the "D") had 400-410 gallons of fuel in the inner wing, The installation of self sealing tanks cut that to 300 gallons. Using a thinner wing root/inner wing between the "fuselage" and the engine nacelles would cut that further. As Elmas as so correctly pointed out, changes in one area affect other areas. Yes there is empty space in the outer wings. However in the P-38J & L they used the space forward of the spar for the fuel tanks, that is just forward of the CG. on the P-38D-H that is where the intercooler is (poor as it may have been) and putting fuel tanks behind the spar
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puts them behind the CG, how much this would affect handling I don't know. However, the P-38 was already noted as not one of the best rolling fighter planes going and sticking hundreds of pounds of fuel outboard of the engines was certainly not going to improve things. At least until the power boosted ailerons show up.
For the Fowler flap fans note the distance from the rear of the wing to the attachment point/s for the Fowler flap. The thin green line behind the main tanks in the inner wing and continuing on through the engine nacelle and out to the aileron where it steps back to the aileron hinge point.
Fowler flaps can do wonderful things but they have to be designed in from the start and not added later. They also help dictate the rear spar placement and the available volume in that part of the wing.
On the P-38 the main tanks behind the spar were 90 US gallons while the tanks in front of the spar were 60 gallons each and labeled reserve tanks. The main tanks would normally be used for starting, warming up and taking off. Normal practice for most planes in WW II seems to have been to use up fuel from the tanks in certain sequences to maintain an acceptable CG. I don't know of any cases where fuel was pumped from one tank (or set of tanks) to another to maintain the CG as normal procedure. The more complicated fuel management becomes the great the risk of accident.
I will note on another subject that the P-38s cockpit heating problem was actually fairly easy to solve. Once the bean counters were forced to accept a 2nd electrical generator in the aircraft (one on each engine) there was sufficient electrical power for a cockpit heater. Having just one generator on what was a fairly electric dependent plane for so long was just stupid. Not only all lights, most instruments and all the radio gear (including the IFF) but the plane used electric propellers, electric armament control, auxiliary fuel pumps, turbo regulators, oil cooler and intercooler exit flaps, and a few others.
The 2nd generator did not show up until after the first of the J models were built (I believe the P-38J-10s got them?) and so did not show up until after the P-38 was thoroughly and justly condemned for poor cockpit heating in NW Europe, what difference few months makes
Thickness/Chord ratio almost certainly based on the statements in the book.As thin as the Spitfire wing - are we speaking about relative value(thickness to chord ratio) or about absolute value (wing being so many inches thick)?
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However extending the wing leading edge makes the downward view from the cockpit (none too good to begin with) even worse. If I am doing the math correctly (big if) going for a 14% airfoil while keeping the max wing thickness the same at the wing root means you need another 16-17 inches (400-430mm) of cord. How much on the leading edge and how much on the trailing edge I don't know.
How much extending the trailing edge is going to mess up the existing Fowler flaps I don't know.