The Pilot Factor (1 Viewer)

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Ive seen it stated that most pilots are simply padding and cannon fodder. Most of the lethal work is done by perhaps 20% of the pilots. the padding is there to protect these vital assets but they generally dont shoot many enemy down.

I can apply this analogy to my workplace (and all previous workplaces) and even volunteer organizations I'm involved with.
A handful of passionate skilled folks pull the weight and the rest are along for the ride.
Sister Leo always asked us, "Are you a leaner or a pole?"
 
I am not a pilot but shooting down a plane in a tight turn is done by the pilot, for one plane to out turn the other one of them would stall out wouldn't they? From what I have read here the ability of a plane to sustain a high G turn depends on the power available as much as the aerodynamics. If that is the case it depends completely on which spitfire and which Bf109. German BoB pilots were always shot down by spitfires (so the legend goes) and so they presumably always shot them down too?

I saw one veteran Typhoon pilot on TV recounting a chase of a Fw190 at sea level. The Fw190 went into a power on stall and hit the sea, that I would say is out turning.
If someone is getting a lead on you and you cant turn harder surely you must try something else?

I suspect many a pilot were not comfortable operating near stall and tried their best to avoid it, while other "experts" developed an intimacy with their aircraft and could feel or sense the stall and how far they could push it (even embrace it) and used that to their advantage.
 
Agreed that pilots make the difference, in fact many times the decisive factor in my opinion. The following is from a test by the British between a Spitfire I, Hurricane I and a captured Bf-109E:

"When the BF-109 was following the Hurricane or Spitfire, it was found that the British aircraft turned inside the Bf-109 without difficulty when flown by determined pilots who were not afraid to pull their aircraft round hard in a tight turn. In a surprisingly large number of cases, however, the Bf-109 succeeded in keeping on the tail of the Spitfire or Hurricane during these turning tests, merely because pilots would not tighten up the turn sufficiently from fear of stalling and spinning." – Augsburg Eagle, William Green page 48.

So though a Hurricane I or Spitfire I can turn inside a Bf-109E without difficulty, it took a determined or well trained pilot to accomplish it, assuming that the Bf-109E was flown by a pilot of similar skills.

With the three aircraft mentioned, is it possible that one telegraphs the approach of stall better than the others?
That might allow a skilled pilot to operate at the edge of stall much easier than a plane that stalls more abruptly.
 
<SNIP> all pilots seem to be convinced that their mount was the master Hurricane Spitfire or Bf109 they all had the best plane, Nothing against the veterans but I think they started with an advantage.

P-39, P-40 and F4F pilots too?
 
I suspect many a pilot were not comfortable operating near stall and tried their best to avoid it, while other "experts" developed an intimacy with their aircraft and could feel or sense the stall and how far they could push it (even embrace it) and used that to their advantage.

Performing a stall is a basic flight maneuver. As you check out in different aircraft one of the first things you learn is how to do is stalls and how the aircraft will react. No pilot, especially a combat pilot should ever be uncomfortable during a stall, intensional or not - if they are they better reconsider their career path.
 
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I am not a pilot but shooting down a plane in a tight turn is done by the pilot, for one plane to out turn the other one of them would stall out wouldn't they?

To win a dogfight you don't have to be the best turning airplane, you only have to be in plane, in lead, and in range with the trigger on. An example would be two aircraft, 500' apart, with the trailing aircraft pointing at the lead aircraft. The trail A/C is heading North (360) and the lead aircraft is heading 320 (40 degrees of heading crossing angle between the two). If you then laid a circular template over each aircraft, the size of their respective turn radii (radius's?), with the edge of the circle on the aircraft, then drew it what would you have. Answer: Two misaligned circles, or in fighter speak misaligned turn circles. This is what you want as the offender as it allows you bring your nose to bear and employment of weapons. If the two aircraft kept going around those two circles you would see the offender fly outside the defenders turn circle (going into lag), and the offender appear to be getting away (momentarily). However, keep them going around the circles and you have the offenders nose come back inside the defenders circle and the ability to get into a firing solution should arrived at or could be arrived at with a little bit of maneuvering. You are doing one of two things, trying to stay behind a guy, or trying to shoot him. You don't do both simultaneously.

From what I have read here the ability of a plane to sustain a high G turn depends on the power available as much as the aerodynamics. If that is the case it depends completely on which spitfire and which Bf109. German BoB pilots were always shot down by spitfires (so the legend goes) and so they presumably always shot them down too?

The ability to sustain a high G turn does depend on power, CG, and design. If a fighter is sustaining a high G it's most likely at sea level or in a constant descent (using God's G (gravity) to help sustain airspeed while pulling heavy G.


I saw one veteran Typhoon pilot on TV recounting a chase of a Fw190 at sea level. The Fw190 went into a power on stall and hit the sea, that I would say is out turning.

The Fw-190 had stopped turning if he stalled and augered in. You can turn up to the point you stall. Not sure if that's true these days with vectored thrust motors.

If someone is getting a lead on you and you cant turn harder surely you must try something else?

That my friend is the essence of staying alive. Never give up, and as long as you have altitude below you, there are more problems you can give him to hopefully allow you to shake free.

Cheers,
Biff
 
Which illustrates the point nicely :)

I've sat in both a Spitfire and a Bf 109 and I think I'd prefer the Spitfire simply on the grounds that whilst the Spitfire was cramped the 109 was ridiculously tight. I'm of average height and I suppose fairly heavily built (front three in Rugby Union, many years ago) and I couldn't put my shoulders square in the 109.
This is an entirely spurious reason to pick any aeroplane, neither was exactly comfortable!

Cheers

Steve

You would love the P-47.
 
With the three aircraft mentioned, is it possible that one telegraphs the approach of stall better than the others?
That might allow a skilled pilot to operate at the edge of stall much easier than a plane that stalls more abruptly.

All aircraft (or their wings) have different stall characteristics. The Spitfire was particularly benign due to the complicated shape of the wing. This resulted in pre-stall buffeting occurring next to the cockpit at the wing root and inner wing section. The outer wing continued to fly and this allowed aileron control to be maintained in what might be described as a partial stall. Another factor in the retention of aileron effectiveness was the design of the ailerons themselves.

The Bf 109 also had fairly benign stall characteristics, partly due to the slats which are an aerodynamic expedient that the Spitfire wing didn't need.

Then there is the question of wing loading and its effect on turn radius. I'm not an aerodynamicist, but luckily one of the world's great aerodynamicists and designers has written an explanation for us:

"To produce a lot of g forces one does not need a fast machine. Tight turns on a slow (but strong) type gives one as many gs as one may wish...A very definite limitation is given by the effective stalling speed of an aeroplane in a turn. One cannot, no matter what g one dares to use, make as tight a turn on a highly loaded type. In fact for every wing loading there is a minimum radius of turn that can be flown."

Beverly Shenstone.

Cheers

Steve
 
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P-39, P-40 and F4F pilots too?

I think most pilots are like that P 40 and F4F pilots seemed to like their mount until completely outclassed or given another mount. I have heard spitfire pilots say it improved throughout the war but that the MkI was the nicest to fly. Some Polish pilots preferred the Hurricane to the Spit in the BoB purely for its armament, they were seasoned experts who could get in close no matter what they flew, they certainly wouldnt prefer a Hurricane to a Mk XIV though.
 
Cheers,
Biff

Thanks Biff, I suspect most pilots referring to turning fights omit a lot of banking climbing rolling and other maneuvers ending with dodging around churches bridges and power lines. The Typhoon pilot said (as you say) the Fw was pulling a hard turn about 20ft above the sea, suddenly a wing dipped and it cartwheeled into the sea.
 
the Fw was pulling a hard turn about 20ft above the sea, suddenly a wing dipped and it cartwheeled into the sea.

The Fw 190 was an aircraft with a malicious and sudden stall.

Cheers

Steve
 
Well that's from a fighter pilot and I have to say he knows what he's saying. Perhaps it IS possible, but when I was flying there was nobody in formation with me trying to pass, and it is likely I wasn't looking around at 5+ g's because I didn't HAVE to. In a race, I suppose it is a requirment, not a luxury.

Still, when I look at cockpit g-meter in an Unlimited Gold race, I don't SEE 5+gs.

Here is an in-cockpit video: The g-meter is bpttom left:

[video]http://www.dashware.net/videos/p-51-cockpit-forward-view-2013-reno-air-races/[/video]

Sure, he hits some g-peaks, but when he needs to look around, he has less than 3.5 g's MOST of the time.

Of course, at Reno, the guy passing MUST pass to the outside or be disqualified ... and if he TRIES to pass to the inside, everyone as advised on common frequency.

Cool video, but that's not a dogfight.
 
Cool video, but that's not a dogfight.

There's some Fw 190 gun camera footage somewhere (I can't find it) in which the Focke-Wulf, trying to get a lead on, from memory, a P-51 suddenly stalls, and enters an inverted spin which must have been fun!

That was a dogfight!

Cheers

Steve
 
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the long hours flown were enough to cause fatigue. i happened across a couple comments by Mark Stepelton of the 357th talking about D Day ops. us fighters ran several sorties a day and those took a toll.

"Finally, as my fuel became dangerously low, I returned to our base at Leiston, England. I had logged the longest combat flying time of our pilots on the first mission and could barely climb out of my cockpit."


"After several hours of patrolling at low altitudes, we returned to our base at Leiston, England. I was totally exhausted as my Crew Chief helped me climb out of my cockpit..... I had logged this combat mission at 5:25 hours,"

and this was with just patrol duty...with some straffing of trains and trucks...no dogfights. the LW pilots usually flew several sorties a day. these planes werent FBW and took effort to control at high air speed.
 
Hi Biff,

Not sure why Messerschmitt used acaptured radial, but I could guess that German radials were needed for the Fw 190. The Germans used a LOT of captured things. When they built a forward swept wing aircraft, they used nose wheels from shot down B-24's, of all thing, and were masters at reusing hardware.

My guess is that it was a "feasibility study," a war was on, and non-strategic resources were allotted.
 
Greg, it wasn't a captured engine type...

Hi Biff,

Not sure why Messerschmitt used acaptured radial, but I could guess that German radials were needed for the Fw 190. The Germans used a LOT of captured things. When they built a forward swept wing aircraft, they used nose wheels from shot down B-24's, of all thing, and were masters at reusing hardware.

My guess is that it was a "feasibility study," a war was on, and non-strategic resources were allotted.

Information regarding the Pratt Whitney Hornet I posted earlier in this thread:
In the 1930's, BMW had a license to build the Pratt Whitney Hornet (became the BMW 132) and this engine was used in several pre-war aircraft, like Junkers (including the Ju52/3m) and the first Fw200.
 
Thanks Graugeist. One of the sources I have says the radial powered Bf 109 varint used a captured US engine, but others say it was a BMW 139 (P&W Twin Wasp copy).

I'd rather believe they used a German engine, but using a serviceable caputred engine woudl save time and effort ... perhaps ... and IF correct.

I rather believe the impetus behind it was either to produce a viable alternative aircraft should DB engine deliveries be terminated due to damage, etc. OR to produce an export version that didn't take the important and strategic DB 600-series engines. Either way, they DID have an alternative canopy and elected not to pursue that in production of the domestic Bf 19 for some reason.

Likewise, they DID have a version with inward-retracting gear (to test the Mf 309 gear) and again elected not to go that way for the domestic version ... for some reason.

So "fixes" were produced experimentally, but never incorporated into production. And that makes me think about German attrition versus new-aircraft production. They were falling behind, and mybe a production interruption was unacceptable to the RLM since production wasn't keeping up to start with. Logically, the production interruption excuse would be a very good fit if it weren't for the myriad experimental versions of almost all the planes that WERE produced.

With that in mind, I still wonder why the Bf 109's major faults were not addressed IN production rather than only in experimental one-offs.
 
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