The Night Witches...

[GrauGeist]

Most of those older types were hand-propped, so an in-flight restart should have been an option...

But based on the German's description of their approach, it makes sense they cut the throttle back on their approach, then. Even making the sounds as they did, I'm sure it was hard to spot them inbound on a moonless night.

To be honest, I haven't really read any details on their night bombing tactics until this discussion, so it's interesting to learn of the tactics used to evade the German AA defenses.

 

[l'Omnivore Sobriquet]

Another very good thread.
I love this forum.

 

[vikingBerserker]

I agree with Tom, I'm not sure it would have had the air speed to turn it. If so, I think it would have just stalled.

__________________

I agree l"Omni!

 

[bobbysocks]

Lilya ( the wite rose of stalingrad ) was a fighter pilot...flew a yak. she was last seen being chased by several 109s and smoking iirc. her remains were found in 1979

found the site that lists several russian women ( and a bunch of stories from other countries ... ) check out the russia site for a story on lilya

WW II ACE STORIES

iirc the Po2 or the i 153 was manufactured up until not too long ago for civilian aviation....

 

[bobbysocks]

And this is correct. The engine wasn't cut off but cutting back to idle. If you want to re-start a such engine in the air either it needs a starter or keeping a prop rotation. This is the only way for working of a fuel pomp, fuel injection with compression in a cylinder by a piston and then ignition. So without the prop rotation ( the dead prop ) the restart isn't possible.

if the engine is windmilling the fuel pump should still working since it was mechanical and worked off of the cam or crankshaft....and if not a lot of ac had primers which could be used to get fuel into the cylinder. then all you have to do is hit the mag and you should have spark. that is the theory anyways. i am not sure if you could start it or not. i am with the others and am not sure with the low airspeed the prop would windmill at all or enough to get it going. i do know on several ww1 ac they did not have throttles and the way they kept the speed down was continually turning the mag on and off ( what a PITA that would be ). i believe the spad was that way. i wouldnt take an engine at idle and firewall the throttle. you have a pretty good chance to stall the engine doing that. when i taught to practice forced landings the instructor would pull back the throttle ( after pulling the carb heat )....when i had satisfied him that i would have made a successful landing in whatever cornfield or pasture i was going for i was told to bring the throttle up steadily and quickly but not to slam it forward.

 

[rednev]

The part about ww1 aircraft not having throtles belongs on the myths that wont die thread.
Rotary engined fighters camel sopwith triplane , nieuports ect used the coupe switch (kill switch )
as a way to easy pilot work load in some situations the throtle was a two step affair requiring the pilot to adjust both fuel and air independtly
something that was hard to do if a quick go round was required late in a landing for instance.
The camel was famous for killing as many rookie allied pilots as german ones being unstable and requiring hands on attention at all times
however the throtle had to be adjusted shortly after take off trainees became distracted doing this tha camel spun to low to recover .
on the pluse side before conventinal carburators where fitted with altitude compensating systems it allowed rotary powered aircraft to maintain their
horsepower to higher altitudes .
spads by the way had a conventinal hispano suiza v8

 

[tyrodtom]

True, the rotaries did have throttles. But they were slow reacting to the throttle.
Not only because fuel and air had to be adjusted independently, but because the carb was mounted to the rear of the engine, and the intake air, fuel, and castor oil, went thru the whole volume of the crankcase, before it found it's way into a cylinder on the intake stroke.

But there was a great deal of difference in the throttle ability between the single valve rotaries and the two valve rotaries

The single valve ( monouspape) rotaries took in most of it air thru the open exhaust valve, and was fed a very rich mixture thru the crankcase, so the carb only had limited ability to affect engine rpm.

The two valve rotaries were a little more controllable by the throttle, but still suffered from a lag between throttle change and the engine's reaction to that throttle change.

 

[GrauGeist]

I might mention that the older, lower compression engines with fixed props didn't take much to turn the engine over...

 

[Lefa]

Finnish name of Po-2 was the nerve saw. (Hermosaha)
Also Polikarpov R 5 used.

Edit: What I know, night witches do not fly Finnish front.

 

[bobbysocks]

i was at an airshow in the late 60s early 70s. there were several ww1 ac flying around and most of them kept cutting out and starting back up again while flying. i asked if they were having engine problems and that was the explanation i got from an old pilot there. i took his word for it and didnt investigate further.

 

[Erich]

the LW night fighter fore shot these women/machines up pretty badly we covered this on an FB page recently.

 

[bobbysocks]

i dont doubt it E. think its just another one of those cases where in order to honor someone's sacrifice or a little national pride the story gets embellished and some truths get a little cloudy. soon there are more myths than facts...like the red tails. the stuff i read about some of these women had a slant to it. i dont doubt some of them were great pilots and did as well as their male counter parts.

 

[Lefa]

Have you already looked at these?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-5cVgjJZu4


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeN8PnEPB4w


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17ZHHEQQdUg


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOoNw8ORnr4



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnW9Fbne89Q

 

[Old Wizard]