RAF daylight strategic bombing campaign results

tomo pauk · May 23, 2015

What Steve said.

RCAFson · May 23, 2015

stona said:
You might want to check that.

Steve

paragraph 33 of the Spitfire V PNs:

Cockpit heating and ventilation.- A small
adjustable flap on the starboard coaming above
the instrument panel is provided for ventilation
of the cockpit. The flap is opened by turning
a knurled nut underneath the flap.

The same control is available on the Spitfire IX.

EKB · May 23, 2015

RCAFson said:
paragraph 33 of the Spitfire V PNs:

The same control is available on the Spitfire IX.

If any heat actually reached the cockpit, apparently it was not noticed by the pilots.

" I went on a show this afternoon and damn near froze to death. I sure wish the Spitfire had a heater. In fact, my oxygen tube would freeze and when I'd squeeze it, ice crystals would blow up into my mask and slap me in the face. Very refreshing when its about 40 below, very."

Lee Gover,
336th Fighter Squadron, USAAF (Spitfire V)

" the P-47 really shined when it was headed downhill. The dive performance was truly spectacular ... I really liked the cockpit heating system, which kept the pilot reasonably comfortable even at 30,000 feet, where the temperature was minus 60 degrees. The heating system also did a good job of keeping the windshield clear of frost. In a Spitfire, if you made a long dive the windshield would frost over at about 15,000 feet, leaving the pilot blind until it cleared. That didn't happen in the P-47 "

Lt. Colonel Francis Gabreski
315 Squadron, RAF (Spitfire IX)
63rd Fighter Squadron, USAAF (P-47D)

" A cramped cockpit at -50 degrees is not not the most comfortable work place. At altitude the heater in the Spitfire or F-5 was not much good ... From April 1944 to October I flew 36 missions in the Spitfire."

John Blyth
7th Photo Recon Group, USAAF (Spitfire PR XI)

EKB · May 23, 2015

RCAFson said:
Quote Originally Posted by stona View Post
You might want to check that.

Steve

paragraph 33 of the Spitfire V PNs:
Cockpit heating and ventilation.- A small
adjustable flap on the starboard coaming above
the instrument panel is provided for ventilation
of the cockpit. The flap is opened by turning
a knurled nut underneath the flap.

The same control is available on the Spitfire IX.

If any heat actually reached the cockpit, it was apparently not noticed by the pilots.

" I went on a show this afternoon and damn near froze to death. I sure wish the Spitfire had a heater. In fact, my oxygen tube would freeze and when I'd squeeze it, ice crystals would blow up into my mask and slap me in the face. Very refreshing when its about 40 below."

Lee Gover
336th Fighter Squadron, USAAF (Spitfire V)

" The P-47 really shined when it was headed downhill. The dive performance was truly spectacular ... I really liked the cockpit heating system, which kept the pilot reasonably comfortable even at 30,000 feet, where the temperature was minus 60 degrees. The heating system also did a good job of keeping the windshield clear of frost. In a Spitfire, if you made a long dive the windshield would frost over at about 15,000 feet, leaving the pilot blind until it cleared. That didn't happen in the P-47."

Francis Gabreski
315 Squadron, RAF (Spitfire IX)
63rd Fighter Squadron, USAAF (P-47D)

" A cramped cockpit at -50 degrees is not the most comfortable work place. At altitude the heater in the Spitfire or F-5 was not much good ... From April 1944 to October I flew 36 missions in the Spitfire."

John Blyth
7th Photo Recon Group, USAAF (Spitfire PR XI)

Koopernic · May 24, 2015

Presumably the Mk VI and VII, with their pressurised cockpits, had such. How would one stop condensation on the canopy? This can completely blind a pilots view if changing conditions cause the condensation to freeze.

stona · May 24, 2015

EKB said:
At altitude the heater in the Spitfire or F-5 was not much good ... From April 1944 to October I flew 36 missions in the Spitfire."

John Blyth
7th Photo Recon Group, USAAF (Spitfire PR XI)

Well a heater that is "not much good" at 30,000 ft is not the same as no heater. You've rather confirmed what others have written above.

Nobody said that the Spitfire had a good cockpit heater, they just said that you were incorrect to say that it didn't have one at all. Maybe another internet myth nipped in the bud

Cheers

Steve

kool kitty89 · May 25, 2015

Koopernic said:
Presumably the Mk VI and VII, with their pressurised cockpits, had such. How would one stop condensation on the canopy? This can completely blind a pilots view if changing conditions cause the condensation to freeze.

Does anyone know if cockpit heating vents were arranged similar to automobile windshield defrosters? This would seem like the most straightforward solution. (Bell took the much more complicated approach of using a double-paned canopy in the P-59, with heated air ducted between the panes -a feature that ended up rather troublesome on the XP-59A given it couldn't be shut off and made the cockpit excessively hot in the desert testing grounds at Muroc)

bobbysocks · May 26, 2015

i remember reading about the early 38s...that either didnt have a heater or it wasnt very effective.

kool kitty89 · May 26, 2015

bobbysocks said:
i remember reading about the early 38s...that either didnt have a heater or it wasnt very effective.

I believe the early P-38s lacked cockpit heating but featured gun heaters. That on top of the compressibility issues are some of the reasons a non-turbo version would have been relatively attractive. (somewhat cost/complexity reduced and optimized for operations at altitudes where the heating and compressibility problems were much less severe, while having overall superior performance than the P-40 or P-39 and better low alt performance, range and early war bombload than the P-47)

There's the cost to performance/value (survivability included) issue to compete with the cheaper P-40 and P-39, but that isn't even the deciding factor until volume production is actually feasible.

Glider · May 27, 2015

I just read a piece on the American Mosquito's. A navigator from a B24 unit was transferred to fly on the mosquito. He refused to believe that he could stay warm so went up fully dressed in everything and almost passed out he was so hot. The one ting a mosquito lacks is room to get rid of extra clothing.

EKB · May 28, 2015

25 October 1943
" But we had dived in a very short time from the Arctic cold of twenty-five thousand feet, and the moisture from the warmer air below began to cake in solid ice on our windscreen. In a few moments it was opaque, and although by the time we had pulled out of our dive the range had closed to two thousand feet we could see nothing through that sheet of ice."

25th October 1943: Mosquito night fighter over London AA fire

Greyman · May 28, 2015

There are a lot of anecdotes of Spitfires having problems with windscreens icing up.

After his short stint of operational experience in the Battle of Britain, Jeffrey Quill (Supermarine test pilot) had in his report:

"Windscreen Condensation. Internal condensation on the bulletproof glass is a very serious defect. Aircraft operate for long periods at high altitude on patrol and then may descend 20,000 ft. in a few seconds. The aircraft is rendered entirely inoperative as a fighting machine by the fact that the windscreen and sighting line become obscured. Immediate steps must be taken to cure this."

kool kitty89 · May 28, 2015

Is it possible that proper operating procedures for the cockpit heaters in the Spitfire V were improperly briefed, at least in some squadrons?

Greyman · May 28, 2015

It was common enough that I doubt it was due to forgetting any particular procedure. One anecdote I remember but can't recall specifics (so as to find it) told of a Spitfire formation jumping a formation of 190s and the Germans half-rolled and dived for home. As the Spitfires dived after them the author looked left and right at the others in his Section and saw them all scraping their windscreens along with him.

The Spitfire XIV had a de-icing system that sprayed glycol on the windscreen. Many American fighters (Kittyhawk, Lightning, Mustang) had warm air from the coolant radiator blast directly onto the armoured glass.

The Airacobra and some Mustangs also had glycol spray.

EKB · May 29, 2015

Alan Deere wrote that the problem of misted over cockpits was never solved in British aircraft during World War II.

Greyman · May 29, 2015

From what I can tell the Meteor might have been good in this regard. The windscreen used the "dry air sandwich" method, internal moisture was prevented with silica-gel containers, and there was a windscreen de-icing pump.

kool kitty89 · May 29, 2015

Any information on whether the bubbletop P-47s had any trouble with condensation or icing that the razorback versions? (aside from the good cockpit heating, I'm wondering if the canopy geometry had an effect)

Also, I was replying more to the issues of the Spitfire being unbearably cold and without heating than without defrosting/defogging. It's plenty believable that the heating ventilation system wasn't oriented/ducted in a way that facilitated windscreen heating/drying. Having wholely inadequate/nonexistent heating for the pilot is more the issue that confuses me. (post Spitfire II/BoB in particular)

tomo pauk · May 30, 2015

bobbysocks said:
i remember reading about the early 38s...that either didnt have a heater or it wasnt very effective.

Heating was insuficient. The solution for the problem was provided once second geneartor was installed (early 1944), the greater supply of electric power meant that guns were heated electrically, so the stream of hot air that previously was heating the guns was re-routed to the cockpit.

kool kitty89 · May 30, 2015

tomo pauk said:
Heating was insuficient. The solution for the problem was provided once second geneartor was installed (early 1944), the greater supply of electric power meant that guns were heated electrically, so the stream of hot air that previously was heating the guns was re-routed to the cockpit.

Hadn't considered it before, but I wonder if they could have added a heater core as part of the intercooler system on the early P-38s ... then again, probably a big engineering pain there too given they were air to air intercoolers. Still, with the radiator cooling lines all routed to the aft portion of the booms, that leaves the turbo/manifold/intercooler ducting and oil coolers as the main sources of heat anywhere close to the cockpit. (without greatly expanding the coolant loop for the radiators)

I suppose air bled off the turbocharger manifold before reaching the intercoolers could work too. Hot, pressurized air ducted and blended into the cockpit ventilation system. That'd probably be much simpler than any sort of expanded heater core arrangement.

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