Soviet aircraft the west coulda/shoulda used?

[parsifal]

Aircraft produced in Australia during the war were almost exclusively foreign designs.

In additioon to those in the Table in 1943 plans were under way in Australia for the Beaufort Division of DAP to build the Lancaster Mk III. The Lancaster Mk IV (or GAF Lincoln B Mk 30 as it became known) was built because of the long-range requirements in the Pacific area. Orders were placed for 85 Lincolns, but only 73 were built. The first five Lincolns, A73-1/5, were constructed from British supplied components and A73-1 made its first flight on March 17 1946. The first Australian built Lincoln, A73-6 was delivered in November 1946. The Lincolns were phased into No 82 Bomber Wing at RAAF Amberley to replace the Liberators of Nos 12, 21 and 23 Sqns. The Lincoln B30 originally had four Merlin 85 engines, but was later equipped with a combination of two Merlin 66s in the outboard positions and two inboard Merlin 85s. Eventually, four Merlin 102s were installed and this version became the GAF Lincoln B Mk 30A. Armament was generally upgraded to ).5 in and 20mm cannon. The Lincolns gave great service, serving with the RAAF until 1961

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The alloys might have more to do with engine construction than airframe.

But as an example of possiable confusion I wil give you this. Aluminium rolled sheet (for baffles, cowling, etc.) could be called 17S as an alloy trade designation. It was called QQ-A-353 under a federal system which the army used while the navy called the same alloy 47A3c and the S.A.E called it 26 with the A.S.T.M. calling it B78-36T.

The QQ-A-353 is the general material specification. The rolled sheet is 17T and known as 2017 in today's world. There will be a heat treat designation following it depending on how it was heat treated, usually T-3, 4 or 6. It its annealed it will carry the letter "O"

From one of my material books I show 2017 consisting of the following.

Aluminum Balance
Chromium 0.1 max
Copper 3.5 - 4.5
Iron 0.7 max
Magnesium 0.4 - 0.8
Manganese 0.4 - 1
Remainder Each 0.05 max
Remainder Total 0.15 max
Silicon 0.8 max
Titanium + Zinc 0.2 max
Zinc 0.25 max

Or for Aluminium forgings (for Pistons, crankcases, connecting rods, Impellors, etc) you have alloy trade designations of 14S, 18S, 25S, 3S, and A51S all of which are called QQ-A-367a by the federal and army sytem and all of which are called 46A7b by the navy sytem. A.S.T.M has no designation and the S.A.E. has designations only for for the 15S and A51S which it calls 27 and 280 respectively.
Each of these does actually have slightly different composition

QQ-A-367A is an open die forging spec that is related to 2219 Aluminum

Aluminum Balance
Copper 5.8 - 6.8
Iron 0.3 max
Magnesium 0.02 max
Manganese 0.2 - 0.4
Remainder Each 0.05 max
Remainder Total 0.15 max
Silicon 0.2 max
Titanium 0.02 - 0.1
Vanadium 0.05 - 0.15
Zinc 0.1 max
Zirconium 0.1 - 0.25

See: supermarine spitfire | 1939 | 0927 | Flight Archive alloy

and: 1938 | 2180 | Flight Archive alloy

NEAT!

Is DTD 351 the exact same as 24T aluminium? is it close enough?

I believe DTD 351 is an Alclad Process that is usually applied to 24T or in today's world 2024T material

I don't know, all I am saying is that just having a set of blue prints from another country doesn't mean you are ready to start production in your country. Things may have gotten a lot more standerized since WW II.

Very correct and that was part of my original point. With the introduction of SAE specs and ISO, things are more standardized but when dealing with Soviet or Eastern Europe processes, there are still many differences.

If you have an interest in aircraft materials and processing, get an older copy of the "Standard Aircraft Handbook" or a copy of the Airframe Powerplant Mechanics General Handbook AC 65-9.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Canada was able to produce some Hurricanes. I didn't know that CAC made any foreign designs, what licensed production did they have?

Canada also produced the PBY Catalina.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Canada also produced the PBY Catalina.

At Canadair in Montreal

 

[claidemore]

Another option for using western resources to produce a Soviet design would be to move the entire factory, lock stock and barrel, to Canada or the US. Factory No 47 (Yak 1) was moved from Leningrad to Chkalov for instance. One of the Pe-2 factories was moved as well, losing only a few months production. In many cases some of those relocated factories were being operated outdoors, with no shelter whatsoever. I'm sure we could have housed that equipment properly in North America, with resultant increses in productivity and quality.

 

[parsifal]

Another option for using western resources to produce a Soviet design would be to move the entire factory, lock stock and barrel, to Canada or the US. Factory No 47 (Yak 1) was moved from Leningrad to Chkalov for instance. One of the Pe-2 factories was moved as well, losing only a few months production. In many cases some of those relocated factories were being operated outdoors, with no shelter whatsoever. I'm sure we could have housed that equipment properly in North America, with resultant increses in productivity and quality.

I agree its possible, but moving from onbe place inside a country to another location outside the country is an immensely more difficult task, not least because of language issues.

And whilst i am no great sympathizer of the Communist system, one thing they could do was to organize their war industry. The coommand economy of the USSR proved to be highly effecient in organising labour bring resources togeter and the like. In the context of the war, Soviet industry was super organized

 

[Clay_Allison]

Another option for using western resources to produce a Soviet design would be to move the entire factory, lock stock and barrel, to Canada or the US. Factory No 47 (Yak 1) was moved from Leningrad to Chkalov for instance. One of the Pe-2 factories was moved as well, losing only a few months production. In many cases some of those relocated factories were being operated outdoors, with no shelter whatsoever. I'm sure we could have housed that equipment properly in North America, with resultant increses in productivity and quality.

I don't think they had an entire factory to spare.

 

[Shortround6]

It might be one thing to move a factory by rail taking several days or even a week for each train to move it's load to the new location. Same train might even make several round trips.
It might be another thing to to move the factory by rail to a sea port. unload the trains, load ships, sail ships on 2 week (or more) sea voyage. unload ships onto trains at new port and send trains to new factory location.
The Russian might have been very good at dismantling the factory (early production steps moved first) and re-establishing production lines in new location witht the least disruption of production. Some how I doubt that with all the extra handling the sea move woulf take that that everthing arrives in the proper order to get fast production going on foreign soil.

And you still have the supply problem. Not too many producers of metric nuts, bolts and screws in North America in the early 40s.

 

[Altea]

Hello

Originally Posted by Clay_Allison
So you are saying that it would have been impossible to licence build the Yakovlev because we couldn't have made our own tooling?

Oh we could have made our own tooling, but by the time you consider that in producing some one other country's aircraft the increased cost and time will factor in. Tooling needs to be supplied with drawings when having someone else build your aircraft.

In general case I would say "yes". But the Yak fighter with its wooden wings and welded steel tubes fuselage was a tremendously simple plane to fly and to build (for a warbird !). It did not required such an accuracy that would have need complete transmitting of full set of sophisticated tools and jigs for assembly lines. Moreover it could have been builded by craftsman's methods in simple workshops.
So, it opens a lot of opportunities to small and light-planes builders like Beech, DH Canada, Cessna, Steerman, Stinson…not specially accustomised to complicated airplanes


Even Orenburg's builded metallic Yak-3U from 1993 are hand maded and considering the number of still flying converted or modified Yak-11 and some Yak-3 called "U", i don't think that it is particulary hard to adapt it to American standards. As Jean Marie "John" Garric just did in Harlingen, Texas:

France Warbirds

Has any one considered the metric conversion or some of the different operating systems that would have required specially trained pilots and ground crews to operate any soviet aircraft in the west during WW2? It was all do-able but IMO not worth the time and effort to get the same end result.

Really? I don't see why. France, USSR and certainly Finland exploited both systems without any kind of major problem.
It's also the case of a lot of country's owerdays. Even in aeroclubs for amateur pilots, i never encountered someone finding hard to pass to a Cessna from a JoDel, or the opposite way….

Best regards

 

[FLYBOYJ]

In general case I would say "yes". But the Yak fighter with its wooden wings and welded steel tubes fuselage was a tremendously simple plane to fly and to build (for a warbird !). It did not required such an accuracy that would have need complete transmitting of full set of sophisticated tools and jigs for assembly lines. Moreover it could have been builded by craftsman's methods in simple workshops.

Not by the thousands.

Even Orenburg's builded metallic Yak-3U from 1993 are hand maded and considering the number of still flying converted or modified Yak-11 and some Yak-3 called "U", i don't think that it is particulary hard to adapt it to American standards. As Jean Marie "John" Garric just did in Harlingen, Texas:

Again that was hand built over a period of time with no wartime stress or schedule placed on those working on the aircraft. Remanufacturing a warbird for exibition purposes is a lot different than mass producing a warbird during a wartime pace.

Really? I don't see why. France, USSR and certainly Finland exploited both systems without any kind of major problem.

During WW2 you had lathes, milling machines and even measuring tools by the thousands all in inches that would have to be either converted or discarded. Additionally you had a training factor of a population that already worked with imperial measurement that would have had to be re-trained. All do-able but hardly worth the effort.

 

[Shortround6]

I would second Flyboys comments.

Although I think" Beech, DH Canada, Cessna, Steerman, Stinson" might take exception to "not specially accustomised to complicated airplanes".

See: Beechcraft Model 18 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

or: Warbird Alley: Cessna UC-78 Bobcat / AT-17 / T-50

and while not a complicted airplane: Warbird Alley: Stinson L-5 Sentinel

means that Stinson probably had their hands full.

I also doubt that Piper was using " craftsman's methods in simple workshops."

"In 1940, the year before the United States' entry into the war, 3,016 Cubs were built; soon, wartime demands would increase that production rate to one Piper J-3 Cub being built every 20 minutes"

The idea that America had all kinds of spare production capacity just sitting around doing nothing just waiting for something to do needs to be discarded once and for all.

My Grandfather worked in a 4 man machine shop half- way up the coast of Maine. They made gyroscopes under subcontract for Nordon bombsights.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I also doubt that Piper was using " craftsman's methods in simple workshops."

You got that right. Piper built Cubs in the same manner Henry Ford built model Ts.

 

[Clay_Allison]

During WW2 you had lathes, milling machines and even measuring tools by the thousands all in inches that would have to be either converted or discarded. Additionally you had a training factor of a population that already worked with imperial measurement that would have had to be re-trained. All do-able but hardly worth the effort.

There is also the option of making an "inch" Yak which would not be compatible with "metric" Yaks. Much the same way many of the Russian engines were "metric" versions of American "inch" designs. Sometimes you can convert the design rather than the tools to each measurement's nearest Imperial equivalent.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

There is also the option of making an "inch" Yak which would not be compatible with "metric" Yaks. Much the same way many of the Russian engines were "metric" versions of American "inch" designs. Sometimes you can convert the design rather than the tools to each measurement's nearest Imperial equivalent.

Yep!

 

[Shortround6]

There is also the option of making an "inch" Yak which would not be compatible with "metric" Yaks. Much the same way many of the Russian engines were "metric" versions of American "inch" designs. Sometimes you can convert the design rather than the tools to each measurement's nearest Imperial equivalent.

Yes you can. but how many engineering hours and draftsmen hours does it take?

And is the " nearest Imperial equivalent" a little too heavy or a little to light to handle the load?

 

[Clay_Allison]

Yes you can. but how many engineering hours and draftsmen hours does it take?

And is the " nearest Imperial equivalent" a little too heavy or a little to light to handle the load?

It might take some small changes, but our tooling wasn't so crude that you would be having to make really rough approximations. In most big parts you would see less than .01 inches difference and in small precision parts they would probably convert down to thousandths of an inch.

The parts wouldn't interchange but they would be in all ways proportional. With modern computers it would take days. In the 1940s, I'd be surprised if it went longer than a month.

 

[Shortround6]

Every single drawing would have to be redone. And while no single part is going to pose a problem it is the assembly that poses problems. Maybe not too great to over come but everything has to be checked.

How many Hawker Typhoons lost their tails?
How many other aircarft suffered structual failures in flight or on landing (FW 200s)

What if all the dimesional changes add 40lb to the tail of the aircraft?

It might fly OK or it might need a a counter weight in the nose to help balance it. Think 109 with wooden tails with counter weight under the oil cooler.

Yes it can be done but I don't believe anywere near as quick and easy as you think.

And what have you got when you get done? If it is the Early Yak 1 you are taking about a rather unsatasfactory machine. If you are talking about later ones with the M-105PF engine you are talking about the middle of 1942 with P-47s in mass production and Mustangs already flying operations over France.

In other words, why bother.

 

[Clay_Allison]

What if all the dimesional changes add 40lb to the tail of the aircraft?

I know I live in a world with Auto CAD and all kinds of cheats to help me do crap but the conversion should be good enough that if you hold a metric part and an imperial part in either hand you should not be able to tell the difference without a stamp or a tag. I could spend two days with a chart and a stack of drawings converting the measurements to withing .01 inches without using a calculator. I can't believe that it would be impossibly hard.

 

[claidemore]

The Soviets replaced their P40s in front line service with the various Yak variants. We could have done the same in the west, replacing part of P40 production with Yaks.

We've already established that either the Allison or Merlin engine was adaptable to the Yak airframe, and indeed tested by the Soviets. We wouldn't have even needed to start producing Klimovs, just Yak airframes. The 1000 or so Packard Merlins that went into P40F/Ls would have given excellent service in a Yak airframe, certainly netting a greater increase in performance than they achieved in the P40.

Clay is right about changing measurements to SAE equivilants, it's not that complicated. There are even some sizes of nuts and bolts that are interchangeable (more or less). It's always easy to find reasons why something shouldn't be done, the trick is to find ways to get it done.
Here's a little video of a Yak factory. Complicated tooling and precision instruments are conspicuous by their absence. You will see hammers, wrenches and several vices mounted on tables.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjR6CEUyFf4

Even though we wouldn't have needed to start building Klimovs, if we had, we'd have had an aircraft engine that would accept a centerline firing cannon. Centrally mounted guns have been often argued on these forums to be much more effective than wing mounted guns.

 

[MrCreak]

It might take some small changes, but our tooling wasn't so crude that you would be having to make really rough approximations. In most big parts you would see less than .01 inches difference and in small precision parts they would probably convert down to thousandths of an inch.
The parts wouldn't interchange but they would be in all ways proportional. With modern computers it would take days. In the 1940s, I'd be surprised if it went longer than a month.

I'd be surprised if it it took less than six, even with a large team of draughtsmen.
And no, with modern computers it takes far longer than days.
A few years ago I worked for a British company that had an American parent company, they sent us the drawings (not plans!) of their latest design of conveyor (basically two side pieces and a lot of rollers - simple), and told us that it was going to be a new product line in the UK.
I was in charge of the project.
3 months later we managed to produce the first one: it's not simply a case of converting the dimensions and getting on with it, you have to make sure that all of the "bought-out items" (i.e. stuff you don't manufacture yourselves - hydraulic cylinders and fittings, nuts, bolts, etc) are compatible.
An aircraft is not an isolated item, it uses many parts that already exist and which conform to existing standards - THAT'S what makes it difficult.

And then you get onto the "little" things - do the two nations use differing system voltages? (So do you buy equipment from the original nation, switch EVERYTHING or start a secondary national standard?). Likewise hydraulic pressure, pneumatic pressure...

To give an example the original system used 1/2" diameter steel rollers as a sensor in places: British Steel stopped producing imperial sizes decades ago, no problem, switch to 12mm, but the fittings (plastic) that held it were designed for 1/2" and wouldn't have held 12mm. Even though these plastic bits were relatively small and minor components (less than an inch long) it was going to cost £30,000 for new tooling to get them injection moulded - because nobody in the UK made them.
Everything has a huge knock-on effect when converting from metric to imperial and vice versa, and that's without National standards in voltages/ pressures/ material grades... tyre sizes? Instrument dial sizes? Hydraulic/ pneumatic connections?

It's a very big deal and not one that's particularly "fun" or profitable.
Even ten years later that design is one of the least well regarded inside the company