davparlr
Senior Master Sergeant
Perdido Key, slightly west of Pensacola NAS had a target range on it during WW2. If you were lucky you could find inert practice bombs. I was never lucky.
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Perdido Key, slightly west of Pensacola NAS had a target range on it during WW2. If you were lucky you could find inert practice bombs. I was never lucky.Here's a faint negative taken during a training exercise over the Gulf of Mexico in 1944. That's the old man in #19. They had night trainings in these, as well, over illuminated die markers. The old man carrier-qualified on the "Speedy D" in 1944, June, off the Sable, in Lake Michigan, where they had to do 8 landings for that. Just a little more historical on these...
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. This is true but it must be noted that 3 of the 4 penetrated to torpedo launch distance with no fighter cover. Had there been 20 B-26s with good torpedoes and well trained pilots, the Japanese fleet could have been severely attacked with 15 good and well targeted torpedoes.2 of the 4 B26's were shot down
On the F5F specs listed above it said 4 mins to 10,000' and 9+ to 20,000', which seems a little low for the weight and power. I am more inclined to agree with you. Are the above specs in error?
Perhaps a better supercharger, turbo's were a big hoopla to develop and manage. The Navy rejected the turbocharged F4U-3.
Pinsong wrote . This is true but it must be noted that 3 of the 4 penetrated to torpedo launch distance with no fighter cover. Had there been 20 B-26s with good torpedoes and well trained pilots, the Japanese fleet could have been severely attacked with 15 good and well targeted torpedoes.
Right you are. I was thinking (without checking) the XF5F was earlier than it was. Good catch!
I agree 100% with that. And what if those torpedoes could have been dropped at the B26's max SL speed as well....
Actually the RAAF was quite happy with the vengeance and it's squadrons were doing good work up in New Guinea. The decision to withdraw the vengeance wing from combat came from USAAF orders, not RAAF. IIRC the RAAF leadership of these squadrons were not impressed...
Some of these examples are not correct.
The P-40 was a P-36 with a new engine (of course the P-36/Hawk 75 had already gone through 4 or 5 engines)
I qualified the mention of the F6F / F4F anticipating just such an attempted 'gotcha', though I gather some parts were shared, it's debatable. I wrote: "was at least partly derived from the F4F. Or was it? I'm not sure about that one. " But you act like I made a definitive statement.and yes the P-51B was derived from the Allison P-51.
However some of the others like the Hurricane/Fury and and the F4F/F6F had nothing more in common than being made by the same company.
Tales of the Fury monoplane notwithstanding. There was a fury monoplane on paper, it was tossed and the Hurricane was a fresh start.
The I-153 first flew about 3 1/2 to 4 years after the I-16. The I-16 used a wooden fuselage and metal wings (at least the structure) while the I-153 use a metal fuselage and fabric covered wooden wings.
So assuming it hadn't lost an engine, the F5F was probably fine for carriers, in fact with the enhanced visibility and lack of torque probably better than most. Assuming they improved the rudder a bit.
I think with both engines working the F5F would have been fantastic to land on a carrier. As you said, you can see and there is no torque since the engines cancel each other out. I'm sure you've read about how a P38 could get down to 100 mph and turn inside a lot of single engine planes by just hanging on the props, that is what I picture the F5F being able to do. I picture it in my head coming in, flaps down, just hanging on the props right above stall, rudders still working fine since they are sitting directly behind each engine, you can see the Landing officer just fine, and if you do get a wave off you can slam the throttles forward and go just go straight and up with out having to worry about torque rolling into the water upside down. For what its worth it sure sounds good while I'm sitting at home behind a computer.....
That's not the speed that matters. Vmc, or Velocity minimum controllable is the speed below which there isn't enough rudder authority to keep the plane from yawing and rolling into the dead engine with the working engine at full power.
This is an indication of a rudder authority problem, which seems to be confirmed by the small size of the tailfeathers. This implies that Vmc might be rather high and likewise single engine landing speed. The TBF was still several years in the future, so this would likely be the heaviest and fastest and by far the highest energy the arresting gear had ever had to cope with.
Cheers,
Wes
The F5F seems to have had a lower wing loading than a TBF or a F6F so normal landing should have been fine.
Landing on a carrier with one engine is no doubt, not fun. What did they do with say an E2 hawkeye or C-2 greyhound if one engine went out? Ditch or land?
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If you still have the one engine and have made it through takeoff you can probably get the pilot back to the vicinity of the carrier and the pilot is really the most valuable thing, at least that is how it seems to have turned out in WW2 right? I would say engine reliability being so important for Navy / Carrier planes might be a reason for not putting turbos in prior to say late 1942.
I would agree with getting pilot back to fleet even if he had to bail out or ditch is the most important thing. I also agree that turbochargers weren't very reliable pre 1942 and that, plus weight, plus increased maintenance all make sense on why they didn't do it. Plus, turbochargers were relatively new and maybe they didn't understand how much they would increase performance. They also, I believe, seriously underestimated what the Japanese were capable of. No one really understood what carrier warfare was going to be like or what they were capable of doing.
Hindsight is a big help to making decisions. In hindsight I would have bought $10,000 of bitcoin in 2008 or so for .001 a piece, sold it all for $19,000 a piece and had someone build me an F5F and an aircraft carrier so I could show you guys how good it was......but that is hindsight
I'll be candid, it's your presentation.
Need a tissue?
I got what you were saying. At any rate, funny they're both from the same manufacturer, they both look somewhat similar, and yet, for the most part, they're so different. Contrast that with the FM and F4, from different manufacturers, and yet, for the most part, they're virtually indistinguishable.I qualified the mention of the F6F / F4F anticipating just such an attempted 'gotcha', though I gather some parts were shared, it's debatable. I wrote: "was at least partly derived from the F4F. Or was it? I'm not sure about that one. " But you act like I made a definitive statement.
Yes. Grumman was getting busy with something else at the time (aren't FM and F4 basically the same design?
Actually rudder force is the amount of force it takes to achieve the desired response, which is not the same as achieving a specified number of degrees of deflection. It's a dynamic rather than a static thing.Quick question: Rudder force is the amount of pressure it takes for the pilot to apply a certain degree of rudder correct? In this case, the rudders are directly behind each engine. Would high rudder forces indicate that the rudder is being effective because the wind/prop wash is pushing back against the pilot? Would high rudder forces be more indicative of the gearing/ratio of the rudder pedals to the rudder? It seems to me if a rudder pedal was super easy to move then that would mean there is no resistance at the rudder i.e. no airflow pushing back. The P36 would easily out roll an early Spitfire because the P36 ailerons were geared lower so the P36 pilot had to move the stick farther for a given deflection of the ailerons but it was easier to move and could be done at high speed where the Spitfire ailerons or the Zero's were immovable.
I know your a pilot and mechanic, am I looking at this wrong?