Worst aircraft of WW2?

[FLYBOYJ]

Sorry, I already said and I'll repeat, I don't accept russian sources/performances/histories as representatives of the model. The soviets burned their planes abusing their engines. They used engine settings well avobe those reccomended by the builder and those planes never lasted more than a handful of missions because of that. The P-39 was a model built by Bell, and I qualify it by the performances and traits it had flying according to the builder's manual. The Soviets did not fly them that way, they burned them and then trashed them (it was easy to replace them, as a lot more would come via Siberia or Persia so, why bother?)

if we are to compare "soviet" P-39s we then should do it against hypotetical similarily "souped up" german fighters. And then the P-39 against appears as a dog.

I'd like to know specifics for you to back up your opinions. Were the Russians running theses aircraft at full RPM too long? Too high Manifold Pressure? Tell me what these setting are?

There were many an allied pilot who, for a given mission or situation burnt up their engines. Look at some of the overhaul times on P-51Bs when they first reached Europe. It's no secret the Russians weren't gentle with their aircraft, but then again they had a war to win that decided if they survived or not.

More of your opinions - they used the aircraft and got results, end of story. Again history speaks for itself.

I never said the P-39 was the worst aircraft of WW2. AS I said my vote went for the Ba-88, with honorary mentions to the Me163 and bachem Natter. The P-39 was a lousy plane, dangerous for it's pilot (almost unrecoverable spin, and easily put into one) overall qualifyable as a dog. But at least was able to regularily beat the Zero, which actually and instantly means it can't be a "worst" in any list of mine (and which means the Zero was a REAL DOG ... yet it isn't the worst for me anyway ).

The P39 was obsolete as soon as it passed prototype stage, got it's high altitude supercharger deleted, and a crapload of indispensable combat equipment loaded instead. It's tremendous flying quircks regarding maneouverability and lack of stability didn't help.

I agree 100% about the Ba.88

The P-39 was not unstable or dangerous if one was properly trained to fly it. Chuck Yeager said it was his favorite WW2 aircraft to fly. There were many "green" and inattentive pilots killed flying the P-39 because they allowed it to get away from them. Training, it's that simple.

The P40 was a honest workhorse. Noble, stable, did it's job, never shined and was quite sometimes outclassed. Contrary to what it might seem here I have a soft spot for the plane in my heart (is one of my favorite rides in flight simulators, for instance). But it's undeniable that, while it could hold out and prevail against the Zero (which isn't too much in my agenda ), it was outclassed by contemporary fighters on the MTO and relegated to ground attack duties because of it. That, for me, is a good description of a dog.

Certainly they did in the PTO but against an opposition that wasn't in a very good plane either. Both planes did its job, but that doesn't make them more than mediocre at best (the P39 even worse). I think their (partial) success is more a credit to the air crews that flew them than to the models themselves which were barely acceptable to the job at hand.

Said that, certainly for me the P40 was hands up the best of the two. At least it was an honest performer, a though airframe, a good weapons platform, and a stable, safe plane to fly. IT was outclassed but still served with a style.

The same can't be said about the Airacobra, which was not only a dog, but a dangerous one for its pilot, at that.

All the best.

In actuality the P-40 was the more difficult aircraft in many respects because it was a tail dragger. Again, the P-39 had its quirks but a properly trained pilot could master it. Both aircraft were outclassed in the theaters they served and took on other roles that made them effective weapons, but both aircraft, especially the P-40 were far from "dogs." Again, you're entitled to your opinions, their war records speak for themselves.

 

[RAM]

I read the reports. A few comments.

of the reports I posted only one had performance problems, the A6M2 tested against the P40 and P43 which, for unknown reasons, could only attain 2050 rpm. However control issues had nothing to do with the engine, so that can be sided.

Of the rest of the tests, well the Alleutian zero was (and is) renowned for falling on american hands virtually intact. All the americans had to do was to change the propeller (not difficult for the Zeke flew with a licenced american propeller) and the plane was ready to go. Pretty much similar with the Type 52, was captured in almost pristine status.

So no, I don't think "damage" is an issue in this captured planes tests.

The report stated the Zero's controls "started" to stiffen up at 225 MPH.

Read it well: it says controls start to stiffen over 160 Knots IAS. Translated to Mph, that's 175mph, not 225mph.

It did not give any indication that the stick loads were unmanageable or that the aircraft's turning ability was falling off.

a plane that is stated as developing heavy controls at 175mph IAS and not being able to roll at all at speeds of 300mph IAS means that in the mid-range of the 200s is progressively worse and worse. Even more, the plane not only gets unresponsible, heavy controls mean that any kind of maneouver will tire the pilot fast, and put himself in a serious situation in protracted fights.

Adding up to that, the reports also mention severe vibrations developed over 250mph IAS (275mph IAS). So at 275mph you have a cemented control plane vibrating, and demanding an exhausting ammount of strenght to fly. You can guess how those effects developed in the mid range of 200 to 300mph, I have a pretty much clear idea of it in my mind: VERY FAST because a Zeke reaching those speeds most of the times meant a diving Zeke building up speed pretty fast (not as fast as the allied planes anyway). An allied fighter with a Zeke on it's back only had to do a tight diving spiral; the Zero would be left in the dust in no time. Follow on move would be a pull-out the Zeke would also be hard pressed to follow, and a Zoom, something the Zero wasn't good at. After that sequence the initially advantaged position of the Zero was inverted with a Zeke seeing an allied plane higher than himself getting ready to start a BnZ sequence he couldn't run away from.

It's not strange that the reports say that over 250mph the allied iron could outmaneouver a Zero. Was easy to achieve. And was easily done during the air fights of the Pacific.

At speeds below 200 mph, it was obvious the Zero was superior.

No sane allied fighter would fly at 200mph IAS while fighting a Zeke. Well, yes, in the DEI where they were all untrained and had no idea what they were flying against. Elsewhere, any fighter that slow would initiate a power dive the Zero simply coudln't follow.

...Zero and Oscar did cause great concern at the beginning of the war because of tactics against them.

Their myth grew out of any possible proportion, but as much as the deeds of the plane over the DEI and phillipines as for the fact that it was a fighter designed by an "inferior race". Racial considerations had a lot of impact for the allied mind of the era; they didn't give Japan any chance to compete with their own designs and the Zero came as a harsh surprise. And the reaction to it was an OVER reaction.

Although Thatch did recognize and developed tactics, it obvious that on many occasions, there were many pilots who did try to dogfight the Zero and came out on the losing end...

Mostly happened when caught by surprise. If the Zeke was able to would the enemy before he could put his plane into a steep dive, then the enemy would surely die. Target fixation also happened: pilots moving in for the killing shot being shot to pieces by a Zero slipping on their backs without them noticing it.

But that would've been true had the Japanese flown a very different plane than the Zero.

So what do YOU think low speed maneouvering is/ was?

I thought it was implicit in one of my prior messages. If high speeds are speeds over corner speed where inertia/aerodynamics are of bigger importance than acceleration/wingloading, it's plain to see that by slow speeds I mean speeds under the corner velocity of the plane, where acceleration/wingloading play a bigger part than inertia/aerodynamics.

 

[RAM]

Oh, BTW; do you --REALLY-- want me to go through the pain of going to every home page of each of the fighters list I gave, in order to give you a link so you can double check my data on order dates?...

come on, man, you can check in any book you own on american planes. Is late and I hate to browse online sources as I'm posting. Those dates are real...don't make me go to each the Corsair, Hellcat, Thunderbolt and Lightning's webpages to give you a link so you can read from someone else :O.

And when was his tactics adopted by the entire fleet?

Thatch weave itself was adopted as a general maneouver after midway, and wasn't an instant process. By guadalcanal it was more or less standard (even while some pilots didn't know it yet at that time).

However we're talking about a SINGLE maneouver here. The lesson "stay fast-don't turn with a Zero" was GENERALLY accepted among navy and Marine Corps pilots already by the time of the Coral Sea battle. And actually "stay fast and don't turn with a Zero" was enough to keep the Zero at bay and deny it any kind of decisive victory in the meantime. When we're talking about F4Fs here, that some big stuff to achieve.

That was the doctrine of the day - it was thought that the US would fight a war close to home and would have to intercept enemy bombers. Explore the AAF proposal that led to the P-38 and P-39.

CErtainly ,and the P38 had noticeably different design emphasis than either the F4U, F6F or P-47 (its plain to see as the P-38 was a notably better climber/accelerator than either of them).

However, those other models also were chosen for production and awarded contracts much prior to Pearl Harbor. You can't really explain how a fighter as the P-47 (which accelerated as a truck and had the same wingloading and low speed turning radious as the A-20 Boston) achieved such a contract without aknowledging that those who asked for it (the USAAC) were well aware than future air combats would rely on dive/zoom/firepower/speed rather than in close slow turnfests.

Same goes for the F4U and F6F, btw.

Had designers or people at Wright Patterson or Pax River known more about the low speed turning performance of the Zero, that would have been addressed during the concept and design stage of pre-Pearl Harbor aircraft.

That's easily proven wrong. The designers of Grumman had good forewarning about the Zero capabilities when the plane was still in prototype stage.

Did they make it lighter? no.

Did they make it better turning at low speeds? no

Did they try to lower it's wingloading? No.

Actually the only thing they did was giving the plane a bigger, heavier engine (increasing wingloading in the meantime, thus hurting low speed turning ability) so the plane could have more power available and as such a higher top speed. By increasing weight they also improved dive/zoom (where inertia,and as such, mass, plays a very big part). But they didn't try to make their plane any better at slow turning.

Although the battle was overclaimed, damage was inflicted on the Germans and this battle is well documented.

As I said, if I mistook that battle report for another, my bad. But there was one instance of a high number of 109s claimed as shot down by american planes over Sicily in a day the Luftwaffe records show no 109 losses in the MTO.

There are a lot of opinions there but I think history actually shows that the P-40 did its job when it had to and despite being outclassed was not a push over.

few if any planes in history were "push overs", even when totally outclassed. Mostly because in many occasions of outclassed fighters soldiering on, the pilots behind the controls usually showed a high quality and did their best to put up the difference in performance in pilot skill, so avoiding being totally wiped out.

Such was the instance of the P-40s in the mediterranean, at least for me.

The Zero was over rated but was till an effective fighter aircraft untill tactics and better aircraft came along. I don't think it was a big lie, just over rated. It still caused a lot of damage.

The problem is that tactic superiority only lasted 6 months (at best) in fading away. And better aircraft lasted just roughly one year in entering service. After that, the Zeros were simply were exterminated.

Wouldn't be as bad if in the meantime the model achieved decisive air superiorities, thus at least justifying it's fame as a great fighter. But the fact remains that out of the DEI/Phillipine area (flying mostly against mid-30s hopeless dustbins with wings), the Zeke failed time after time to establish any kind of sizeable air superiority even when flying against much inferior (on paper) planes as the american models of the era.

I don't rate that as an "effective" aircraft. Not even close.

I'd like to know specifics for you to back up your opinions. Were the Russians running theses aircraft at full RPM too long? Too high Manifold Pressure? Tell me what these setting are?

again, too far from my sources to give detailed data at the moment. Could look for it in the internet, but will have to wait until tomorrow the soonest (is late here at Europe).

Roughly speaking, the soviets overboosted their engines well avobe what the Allisons could sustain. Russian service records show that, while the allison had an (theoretical) expected operational life of 250 hours between overhauls, the soviet P-39s were good at the most for 60% of that time, and after that the engines were totally burned out and was more economical to wait for the next lend-lease P-39 batch to come rather than overhauling the engine.

Of course, lower grade russian fuel only worsened the situation. Overboosting was bad enough, but running the engines on lower grade aswell was a killer.

I'll try to dig for more details on this tomorrow, to give you some hard data on it. I know where to ask for details.

AS a further note, Soviet planes not only ran on crazy boosts, they also chopped their aircraft down. Soviet P-39s had erased machineguns and deleted armor that lightened up the model a lot. As I said, I'm sorry but a P-39 flying for the soviets was a VERY DIFFERENT machine than the P-39 flying for the USAAF. You can't say the USAAF P-39 was "decent" because a very different creature was succesfull when flying for the soviets.

The P-39 was not unstable or dangerous if one was properly trained to fly it. Chuck Yeager said it was his favorite WW2 aircraft to fly. There were many "green" and inattentive pilots killed flying the P-39 because they allowed it to get away from them. Training, it's that simple.

That would be really good if the plane was just meant to fly around. P-39s were fighting machines and as such they were repeatedly used in air combat. Air combat means that sooner or later you're going to pull some high AoAs on your plane.
If said plane has a nasty, almost unrecoverable, accelerated spin developed from a terrific stall that kicks in with absolutely NO Forewarning at all, that means that even an experienced pilot in the middle of a combat is in a serious,constant, danger of losing his plane and probably his life. Actually there were quite some experienced pilots who either lost their life in, or had to jump out of, a P-39 they had unexpectedly put into a spin.

As for the P-40 being actually more dangerous because being a tail dragger...come on, then most every other fighter of the WW2 era was more dangerous than the P-39 aswell?. The P40 was a pretty stable and noble platform with a very wide separation between landing gears, meaning it was pretty safe to operate in takeoff/landings. INstead the model never really gave any kind of serious problem in that department.

All the best.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

of the reports I posted only one had performance problems, the A6M2 tested against the P40 and P43 which, for unknown reasons, could only attain 2050 rpm. However control issues had nothing to do with the engine, so that can be sided.

Of the rest of the tests, well the Alleutian zero was (and is) renowned for falling on american hands virtually intact. All the americans had to do was to change the propeller (not difficult for the Zeke flew with a licenced american propeller) and the plane was ready to go. Pretty much similar with the Type 52, was captured in almost pristine status.

So no, I don't think "damage" is an issue in this captured planes tests.



Read it well: it says controls start to stiffen over 160 Knots IAS. Translated to Mph, that's 175mph, not 225mph.

The Alleutian Zero was basically in tact true, but was flipped on its back - it was damaged. Once an airframe recieves any type of damage as such, it is never the same. The amont of intelligence gather from that aircraft was invaluable, but I could say with oyt a doubt that aircraft never flew the same or exhibited all the characteristics that a factory example would show - that's the problem with test flying ANY repaired captured aircraft

And I bolded your comment -

a plane that is stated as developing heavy controls at 175mph IAS and not being able to roll at all at speeds of 300mph IAS means that in the mid-range of the 200s is progressively worse and worse. Even more, the plane not only gets unresponsible, heavy controls mean that any kind of maneouver will tire the pilot fast, and put himself in a serious situation in protracted fights.

At the point where it could not roll is where it gets really serious, at that point the progressive stick forces will be subject to the pilot and what he can handle. I have flown planes with high stick forces where I was able to control the aircraft with no problem but another pilot would have difficulty.

Adding up to that, the reports also mention severe vibrations developed over 250mph IAS (275mph IAS). So at 275mph you have a cemented control plane vibrating, and demanding an exhausting ammount of strenght to fly. You can guess how those effects developed in the mid range of 200 to 300mph, I have a pretty much clear idea of it in my mind: VERY FAST because a Zeke reaching those speeds most of the times meant a diving Zeke building up speed pretty fast (not as fast as the allied planes anyway). An allied fighter with a Zeke on it's back only had to do a tight diving spiral; the Zero would be left in the dust in no time. Follow on move would be a pull-out the Zeke would also be hard pressed to follow, and a Zoom, something the Zero wasn't good at. After that sequence the initially advantaged position of the Zero was inverted with a Zeke seeing an allied plane higher than himself getting ready to start a BnZ sequence he couldn't run away from.

And again all this is progressive. Would it mean that a P-40 SHOULD dogfight a Zero at 250 mph?

It's not strange that the reports say that over 250mph the allied iron could outmaneouver a Zero. Was easy to achieve. And was easily done during the air fights of the Pacific.

Perhaps, but the tactic of the day was not to maneuver with the Zero.

No sane allied fighter would fly at 200mph IAS while fighting a Zeke. Well, yes, in the DEI where they were all untrained and had no idea what they were flying against. Elsewhere, any fighter that slow would initiate a power dive the Zero simply coudln't follow.

Well it did happen early in the war and some who tried this were American

Their myth grew out of any possible proportion, but as much as the deeds of the plane over the DEI and phillipines as for the fact that it was a fighter designed by an "inferior race". Racial considerations had a lot of impact for the allied mind of the era; they didn't give Japan any chance to compete with their own designs and the Zero came as a harsh surprise. And the reaction to it was an OVER reaction.

Mostly happened when caught by surprise. If the Zeke was able to would the enemy before he could put his plane into a steep dive, then the enemy would surely die. Target fixation also happened: pilots moving in for the killing shot being shot to pieces by a Zero slipping on their backs without them noticing it.

But that would've been true had the Japanese flown a very different plane than the Zero.

Possible scenerios but not always the case

I thought it was implicit in one of my prior messages. If high speeds are speeds over corner speed where inertia/aerodynamics are of bigger importance than acceleration/wingloading, it's plain to see that by slow speeds I mean speeds under the corner velocity of the plane, where acceleration/wingloading play a bigger part than inertia/aerodynamics.

And again - in your opinion what are "high speeds?"

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Oh, BTW; do you --REALLY-- want me to go through the pain of going to every home page of each of the fighters list I gave, in order to give you a link so you can double check my data on order dates?...

come on, man, you can check in any book you own on american planes. Is late and I hate to browse online sources as I'm posting. Those dates are real...don't make me go to each the Corsair, Hellcat, Thunderbolt and Lightning's webpages to give you a link so you can read from someone else :O.

It not about the data - its about your statement. Do you really think pre WW2 aircraft were "designed" heavy on purpose or were developed with a heavy wing loading on purpose? Do you think that the US "could have" designed an aircraft just as manoeuvrable as the Zero? The CW-21 had similar properties as the Zero and Oscar but it could not accelerate or climb like the Japanese planes. Bottom line, it was on the same track of design philosophy was the Japanese and it was made in the USA

Thatch weave itself was adopted as a general maneouver after midway, and wasn't an instant process. By guadalcanal it was more or less standard (even while some pilots didn't know it yet at that time).

However we're talking about a SINGLE maneouver here. The lesson "stay fast-don't turn with a Zero" was GENERALLY accepted among navy and Marine Corps pilots already by the time of the Coral Sea battle. And actually "stay fast and don't turn with a Zero" was enough to keep the Zero at bay and deny it any kind of decisive victory in the meantime. When we're talking about F4Fs here, that some big stuff to achieve.

So I guess it made no difference about the Zero's performance below 300 mph?!?

CErtainly ,and the P38 had noticeably different design emphasis than either the F4U, F6F or P-47 (its plain to see as the P-38 was a notably better climber/accelerator than either of them).

The P-38 was designed as an interceptor. It became apparent during its development that it could perform other roles. Needs during WW2 also dictated additional roles.

However, those other models also were chosen for production and awarded contracts much prior to Pearl Harbor. You can't really explain how a fighter as the P-47 (which accelerated as a truck and had the same wingloading and low speed turning radious as the A-20 Boston) achieved such a contract without aknowledging that those who asked for it (the USAAC) were well aware than future air combats would rely on dive/zoom/firepower/speed rather than in close slow turnfests.

Same goes for the F4U and F6F, btw.

Actually that's easily answered - SYSTEMS. The P-47 introduced a huge turbocharger, air conditioning and was advertised as a high altitude fighter. Additionally the AAF wanted it to be able to carry bombs and shoot up things. It was only natural that this aircraft was going to grow in size.

Additionally, look at the US engines that were being developed, especially radials. The customer wanted more power and the engines got bigger and bigger.

That's easily proven wrong. The designers of Grumman had good forewarning about the Zero capabilities when the plane was still in prototype stage.

Proof?!?

That for the most part is a myth. The Grumman proposal for the aircraft that eventually became the F6F was sent to the Navy in late 1940. Grumman was awarded the F6F contract in June 1941. The Zero entered service while the F6F was on the drawing board and there was little if any intelligence sent to Grumman about the Zero. There were reports about the Zero floating around and Chennault knew about it, but the Zero no way influenced the F6F.

Did they make it lighter? no.

Did they make it better turning at low speeds? no

Did they try to lower it's wingloading? No.

Actually the only thing they did was giving the plane a bigger, heavier engine (increasing wingloading in the meantime, thus hurting low speed turning ability) so the plane could have more power available and as such a higher top speed. By increasing weight they also improved dive/zoom (where inertia,and as such, mass, plays a very big part). But they didn't try to make their plane any better at slow turning.

And that was based on a design philosophy from Leroy Grumman.

As I said, if I mistook that battle report for another, my bad. But there was one instance of a high number of 109s claimed as shot down by american planes over Sicily in a day the Luftwaffe records show no 109 losses in the MTO.

Ok...

few if any planes in history were "push overs", even when totally outclassed. Mostly because in many occasions of outclassed fighters soldiering on, the pilots behind the controls usually showed a high quality and did their best to put up the difference in performance in pilot skill, so avoiding being totally wiped out.

Such was the instance of the P-40s in the mediterranean, at least for me.

Again your opinion, history shows otherwise..

The problem is that tactic superiority only lasted 6 months (at best) in fading away. And better aircraft lasted just roughly one year in entering service. After that, the Zeros were simply were exterminated.

Actaully things changed in Early 1943 when you saw more P-38s in theater as well as other aircraft such as the F6F.

Wouldn't be as bad if in the meantime the model achieved decisive air superiorities, thus at least justifying it's fame as a great fighter. But the fact remains that out of the DEI/Phillipine area (flying mostly against mid-30s hopeless dustbins with wings), the Zeke failed time after time to establish any kind of sizeable air superiority even when flying against much inferior (on paper) planes as the american models of the era.

Actually that's not true - in the very early going in 1942, there were many times the allies did not have air superiority over New Guinea and Port Morsby . Read the book "Bloody Shambles"

I don't rate that as an "effective" aircraft. Not even close.

Your opinion

again, too far from my sources to give detailed data at the moment. Could look for it in the internet, but will have to wait until tomorrow the soonest (is late here at Europe).

Roughly speaking, the soviets overboosted their engines well avobe what the Allisons could sustain. Russian service records show that, while the allison had an (theoretical) expected operational life of 250 hours between overhauls, the soviet P-39s were good at the most for 60% of that time, and after that the engines were totally burned out and was more economical to wait for the next lend-lease P-39 batch to come rather than overhauling the engine.

Of course, lower grade russian fuel only worsened the situation. Overboosting was bad enough, but running the engines on lower grade aswell was a killer.

And given a desperate situation, any other combatant of the day would have done the same thing.

I'll try to dig for more details on this tomorrow, to give you some hard data on it. I know where to ask for details.

Ok...

AS a further note, Soviet planes not only ran on crazy boosts, they also chopped their aircraft down. Soviet P-39s had erased machineguns and deleted armor that lightened up the model a lot. As I said, I'm sorry but a P-39 flying for the soviets was a VERY DIFFERENT machine than the P-39 flying for the USAAF. You can't say the USAAF P-39 was "decent" because a very different creature was succesfull when flying for the soviets.

The Soviets did nothing different than other operators of the war. So they deleted guns and armor. That was their decision. The US put 75mm cannons on B-25s. What's the difference?!?

You fail to grasp that the US also used the P-39 and P-400 in the ground attack role and it served well.

I don't see what the Soviets modding their aircraft has to do with anything.

That would be really good if the plane was just meant to fly around. P-39s were fighting machines and as such they were repeatedly used in air combat. Air combat means that sooner or later you're going to pull some high AoAs on your plane.

If said plane has a nasty, almost unrecoverable, accelerated spin developed from a terrific stall that kicks in with absolutely NO Forewarning at all, that means that even an experienced pilot in the middle of a combat is in a serious,constant, danger of losing his plane and probably his life. Actually there were quite some experienced pilots who either lost their life in, or had to jump out of, a P-39 they had unexpectedly put into a spin.

And you're quoting totally inaccurate information. First off a good fighter SHOULD have a level of instability. Second I don't know what your background is but every aircraft will give you indication when it is about to stall. Some more pronounced than others but the P-39 was easily mastered by an experienced pilot. Bottom line, if you're properly trained and master your aircraft you will not have problems and I can tell you that the P-39 did not just fall out of the sky. It was touchy, but there were many other aircraft of the day that had similar or even worse characteristics.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

As for the P-40 being actually more dangerous because being a tail dragger...come on, then most every other fighter of the WW2 era was more dangerous than the P-39 aswell?. The P40 was a pretty stable and noble platform with a very wide separation between landing gears, meaning it was pretty safe to operate in takeoff/landings. INstead the model never really gave any kind of serious problem in that department.

Have you ever flown a taildragger? Just by design a taildrageer is inherently more dangerous than any tricycle aircraft. Look at the accident rate of the Bf.109! Even the Spitfire had its share of landing accidents. Now does that mean it can't be mastered? Not at all, but in reality, look around and see how many modern combat aircraft planes are tail draggers.

 

[RAM]

The Alleutian Zero was basically in tact true, but was flipped on its back - it was damaged

only the propeller. Structure was pretty much intact otherwise. But we're turning circles here, so I'll stop it just by saying that every test done on the Zero showed the same characteristics at high speed and stiffening at similar speeds. Which means it was an attribute of the model as a whole, not of a certain captured aircraft

At the point where it could not roll is where it gets really serious,at that point the progressive stick forces will be subject to the pilot and what he can handle. I have flown planes with high stick forces where I was able to control the aircraft with no problem but another pilot would have difficulty.

well for starters japanese pilot constitution wasn't he strongest around. They weren't really strong (of course, exceptions also happened) so strong control forces were a ibg penalty for them.

The moment the plane stopped to roll wasn't the point where things got "really serious". The plane had a very hampened roll before that -cementing was progressive, not instant. Meaning the plane couldn't follow close spiral high speed dive, level and pull out by an american plane at all, putting the plane in a distinct disadvantage iin air combat. That's for me "really serious", and that happened quite before 300mph IAS.

And again all this is progressive. Would it mean that a P-40 SHOULD dogfight a Zero at 250 mph?
Perhaps, but the tactic of the day was not to maneuver with the Zero.

Agreed, the P40 would do better to restrict itself to BnZ, where he was nigh untouchable by the Zero. Yet, if needed, could resort to other tactics and STILL beat the Zero.

Possible scenerios but not always the case

true, but they were the most common ones, at least in the case of the USN and USMC pilots.

And again - in your opinion what are "high speeds?"

Already answered it before. Speeds over corner speed of the model flown, where inertia/aerodynamics play a bigger part in the aircraft Energy management than sustained climbrate/Acceleration or wingloading.

It not about the data - its about your statement. Do you really think pre WW2 aircraft were "designed" heavy on purpose or were developed with a heavy wing loading

ACtually pretty much the opposite. US air forces requested planes with certain kind of equipment on board, and motorizations. The designers gave them what they wanted but they had to pay in weight for loading that required equipment and heavy engines: the resultant planes were all very heavy, and didn't allow for any kind of low speed maneouvering. Which was never a problem, the models the air forces already had (P-40, P39, F4F, F2B, etc) already weren't the best slow turners around.

Accordingly the air forces had to adapt their flying style for them. They knew what was coming, and that what was coming was no better (and usually worse) in low speed fighting than what they already had.

Proof?!?

That for the most part is a myth. The Grumman proposal for the aircraft that eventually became the F6F was sent to the Navy in late 1940. Grumman was awarded the F6F contract in June 1941. The Zero entered service while the F6F was on the drawing board and there was little if any intelligence sent to Grumman about the Zero. There were reports about the Zero floating around and Chennault knew about it, but the Zero no way influenced the,,,

Proof? well, the Hellcat was still in prototype stage when the Alleutian Zero was captured and tested (first test flight: September 20, 1942). At the time the F6F prototypes were flying in two variants, one with the Cyclone, another with the more powerful and heavier R-2800 engine. The Cyclone prototype was lighter and had better low speed maneouverability, the P&W engined prototype was heavier but sported better top speed and power. The chosen prototype was the second.

The first production F6F didn't came out of the line until the 3rd of October 1942. That's 13 days after the Zero started being tested by the americans and their low speed traits were aknowledged (aswell as many of its drawbacks). Had the US Navy been in a hurry to improve the low speed traits of its next gen embarked fighter, they very well coudl've done it.

PLease note: I don't say the Alleutian Zero INFLUENCED the US fighter design. Never said so and never will because that is NOT true. What I say is that the american Navy COULD'VE modified their next gen fighter design, which was intended to be the workhorse against the Zero, to give it better low speed traits. They only should've needed to change their decision and return to the Cyclone based F6F. They never did so (and weren't even tempted). THAT is what I say.

And that was based on a design philosophy from Leroy Grumman.

and on US Navy requirements. The Navy would decide what they wanted, not Grumman. However, it just happened that the Navy was happy with what Grumman was about to deliver them, so they didn't change it at all to give it any kind of imporovement at low speed fighting ability.

Actaully things changed in Early 1943 when you saw more P-38s in theater...

actually things started to change in late 1942 when the first USMC F4U squadron started operating over the Solomons. Of course, the more time passed by, the more modern allied fighters were around and the more gutted the Zeke got. But by late 1942 the first squadron of next-gen US Fighters was already fighting Zeros (and killing them in very large numbers).

 

[RAM]

Actually that's not true - in the very early going in 1942, there were many times the allies did not have air superiority over New Guinea and Port Morsby . Read the book "Bloody

there weren't enough allied squadrons over PM at the time. Numbers also count when trying to establish air superiority ,not just aircraft quality.

However, you'll note, while the Allies didn't hold air superiority over PM, neither did the japanese at the time. It was a consant contest, meaning neither of the sides had the undisputed control of the air. Meaning the Zero ALSO FAILED to establish it. Sure enough, they gave a better account of themselfs than a couple months later when the number of allied planes on PM was triplicated, but still failed to keep a constant, undisputed, control of the air.

Which is exactly my point: the Zeke consistently failed to provide the japanese with air superiority against inferior planes (and here, inferior numbers aswell). Neither did the allies have it for a long time over PM. But certainly the Zero didn't either. So, another Zero fail.

I note the book, btw, another for the list (which is way too long for my ability to buy, lol)

The Soviets did nothing different than other operators of the war. So they deleted guns and armor. That was their decision. The US put 75mm cannons on B-25s. What's the difference?!?

You fail to grasp that the US also used the P-39 and P-400 in the ground attack role and it served well.

I don't see what the Soviets modding their aircraft has to do with anything.

ok, I'll try again.

The P-39 the USAAF used during 1942 wasn't the P-39 the Russians used. The model name was the same, the model series (D version, initial russian version too, aswell as a good number of P-400s) was the same on paper, the plane ACTUALLY was very different.

The soviet fighter flew with overboosted engines which killed engine life, had retired weaponry and deleted armor and were so much lighter and powerful than the american P-39D. So, even while the model and the series was ,on paper, the same ,both planes were VERY different.

So when I say that the P-39D was a dog (and a dog it was) based on their performances and traits when flown by US Forces, you can't tell me the model was OK because the soviets did great with it. Because the soviets weren't flying that plane, they were flying a heavily customized one which largely differed from the base model the americans flew. You would be comparing apples to oranges.



BTW, what the russians did wasn't what everyone would do. Noone else could do that.They just did because they had access to a vast numbers of P-39s they didn't have to build themselves, but was given to them in high numbers with each lend-lease deliver going trhough Persia. As such they simply disregarded any kind of consideration regarding engine life and plane expected lifetime.

That's a luxury NO OTHER NATION could do when flying during WW2, not even Germany in 1945. The only and one nation that could fly the P-39 like they did the soviets during WW2...were the soviets because they had the Lend Lease program to support them. In fact the Russians didnd't do it either with their own indigenous models, none of the soviet built fighters was overboosted or had so little engine life expectancy as the P-39D had on their hands. And that's said even while soviet fighters weren't expected to fly more than 10-15 combat sorties over the front in total.


The degree of abuse the P-39 engines went through can be meausred by the fact that, regardless the L&L constant and uninterrupted deliversvia Persia, at one point some units of the VVS burned out their fighters' engines when there was still no replacement available. They were forced to put the M-105 engine in them (At least a hundred Soviet P-39s flew with the M-105 in a given point) until the next batch of Allison P-39s was delivered to them. They really burned down the models at an atrocious pace.

But I am digressing here. What I mean is what I mentioned avobe: you can't discuss the P39D as a model when I'm talking about the standard model in US service, by giving accounts of it's service record with the Soviets, who abused the planes to extreme limits the US couldn't (and wouldn't) do. Apples to Oranges. That's my point.

This is the same thing as with the Brewster. Noone can come here saying the Buffaloes the US Navy flew during 1942 and that got shredded at Midway was comparable under any means to the Finnish B-339 model that was so succesfull against the VVS. The base models could be the same, the actual planes were VERY different and can't be really brought as "the same plane" in a discussion. Because they weren't the same plane. And US P-39Ds vs soviet P-39Ds is the same story. They weren't the same plane.

background is but every aircraft will give you indication when it is about to stall

Usually a buffeting would warn the pilot. However certain planes gave near t onil warning to the pilot, and stalled almost without any kind of warning. A good instance would be the Fw-190, a plane that "dropped" it's left wing almost instantly with little or no feedback for the pilot that they were on the verge of doing it.

Same with the P-39, it gave little or no forewarning at all. But where the Fw190 had a nasty, sudden and unwarned stall, it had a very noble recovery. The P39 had a nasty, sudden and almost no warning stall, and unless the pilot had instant, perfect reaction, the plane would enter an unrecoverable spin almost instantly thereafter.

If that's not unforgiving, what is?.

Have you ever flown a taildragger? Just by design a taildrageer is inherently more dangerous than any tricycle aircraft. Look at the accident rate of the Bf.109! Even the Spitfire had its share of landing accidents. Now does that mean it can't be mastered? Not at all, but in reality, look around and see how many modern combat aircraft planes are tail

ACtually I have, at Cuatro VIentos, Madrid. I flew with an instructor by my side. Most fun of my life, BTW. I've also flown Cessnas a couple times. Know the differences myself.

But I digress. You bring here two planes that had some serious landing/takeoff/ground rolling quircks. Which can be attributed to their NARROW TRACK UNDERCARRIAGE, not to the fact that they were tail-draggers. It was easy to ground loop a spit or a 109 if one wasn't careful because of the short distances between gears that made the plane very little stable on the ground. But that had nothing to do with the fact they were tail draggers.

most of the WW2 combat aircraft were tail draggers. Hell the T-6 Texan is a tail dragger and is a joy to fly, land and takeoff in (you tell me ). the Fw190 was a taildragger and was easy to land and take off. Same with the P-47 or P51. Others like the Typhoon were nasty because of inverted torque (pulled to the right instead of the left) going against the pilot's instincts when compensating with rudder during takeoffs, and because sheer torque and little rudder authority at low speeds...all of them factors which had nothing to do with the plane being a tail-dragger.

Nose gear planes have a distinct advantage over taildraggers because they give an unrivalled view to the front when on the ground, taking off or landing. That I give you. But that doesn't mean the taildraggers are "dangerous" while the P-39 was not. I'd rather be in a taildragger that has noble flying qualities than in a nose-gear plane which gets me in a spin without almost no forewarning at all.


Re. the P39 overboosting by soviets. I've been promised to receive a good deal of information on the model in my email inbox today. I don't know how much of it is related to it's use by the soviets, but I hope thre's enough. If not ,I'll keep looking. Will post when I receive the information.

All the best.

 

[RAM]

Grrrr "server busy" again, and double post again...really, the "server busy" thing is starting to get into my nerves...

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Already answered it before. Speeds over corner speed of the model flown, where inertia/aerodynamics play a bigger part in the aircraft Energy management than sustained climbrate/Acceleration or wingloading.

Hmmmm - So that's specific for an aircraft? So it should be in the flight manual, right?

Proof? well, the Hellcat was still in prototype stage when the Alleutian Zero was captured and tested (first test flight: September 20, 1942). At the time the F6F prototypes were flying in two variants, one with the Cyclone, another with the more powerful and heavier R-2800 engine. The Cyclone prototype was lighter and had better low speed maneouverability, the P&W engined prototype was heavier but sported better top speed and power. The chosen prototype was the second.

The first production F6F didn't came out of the line until the 3rd of October 1942. That's 13 days after the Zero started being tested by the americans and their low speed traits were aknowledged (aswell as many of its drawbacks). Had the US Navy been in a hurry to improve the low speed traits of its next gen embarked fighter, they very well coudl've done it.

PLease note: I don't say the Alleutian Zero INFLUENCED the US fighter design. Never said so and never will because that is NOT true. What I say is that the american Navy COULD'VE modified their next gen fighter design, which was intended to be the workhorse against the Zero, to give it better low speed traits. They only should've needed to change their decision and return to the Cyclone based F6F. They never did so (and weren't even tempted). THAT is what I say.

Point taken

 

[FLYBOYJ]

So when I say that the P-39D was a dog (and a dog it was) based on their performances and traits when flown by US Forces, you can't tell me the model was OK because the soviets did great with it. Because the soviets weren't flying that plane, they were flying a heavily customized one which largely differed from the base model the americans flew. You would be comparing apples to oranges.

I still disagree. Overboosting an engine and removing some armor and the wing guns is not a "heavily customized" modification. The Russians showed the true potential of the aircraft despite it being outclassed bu other aircraft. In reality they operated it in its element despite frying engines along the way.

Usually a buffeting would warn the pilot. However certain planes gave near t onil warning to the pilot, and stalled almost without any kind of warning. A good instance would be the Fw-190, a plane that "dropped" it's left wing almost instantly with little or no feedback for the pilot that they were on the verge of doing it.

Same with the P-39, it gave little or no forewarning at all. But where the Fw190 had a nasty, sudden and unwarned stall, it had a very noble recovery. The P39 had a nasty, sudden and almost no warning stall, and unless the pilot had instant, perfect reaction, the plane would enter an unrecoverable spin almost instantly thereafter.
If that's not unforgiving, what is?.

Please tell me your source for that. I'll quote Yeager again who said the aircraft was great to fly aside from being a bit unstable at low speeds, and again what you're describing can be dealt with with training. The P-39 had bad spin/ stall tendencies when operated out of the CG limits and there were many tests conducted by Bell on this. The plane did have a high stall speed when compared to other fighters of the day (105 clean, 90 dirty). The -1 also states that spins aren't recommended, especially if there is ammo in the wings.

The P-39 was used as an advanced trainer and did have a high accident rate for a while until the USAAF training syllabus was tightened up. What you're saying is a remedied with training and in some cases the P-39's spin stall characteristics were no different than a P-51 depending where the CG fell.

ACtually I have, at Cuatro VIentos, Madrid. I flew with an instructor by my side. Most fun of my life, BTW. I've also flown Cessnas a couple times. Know the differences myself.

But I digress. You bring here two planes that had some serious landing/takeoff/ground rolling quircks. Which can be attributed to their NARROW TRACK UNDERCARRIAGE, not to the fact that they were tail-draggers. It was easy to ground loop a spit or a 109 if one wasn't careful because of the short distances between gears that made the plane very little stable on the ground. But that had nothing to do with the fact they were tail draggers.

most of the WW2 combat aircraft were tail draggers. Hell the T-6 Texan is a tail dragger and is a joy to fly, land and takeoff in (you tell me ). the Fw190 was a taildragger and was easy to land and take off. Same with the P-47 or P51. Others like the Typhoon were nasty because of inverted torque (pulled to the right instead of the left) going against the pilot's instincts when compensating with rudder during takeoffs, and because sheer torque and little rudder authority at low speeds...all of them factors which had nothing to do with the plane being a tail-dragger.

Nose gear planes have a distinct advantage over taildraggers because they give an unrivalled view to the front when on the ground, taking off or landing. That I give you. But that doesn't mean the taildraggers are "dangerous" while the P-39 was not. I'd rather be in a taildragger that has noble flying qualities than in a nose-gear plane which gets me in a spin without almost no forewarning at all.

I can tell you that flying a tail dragger is WAY different than an aircraft with a tri cycle landing gear and there is greater risk of landing accidents in the tail dragger. If you had flown one, you'll know what I am talking about and I say this from experience. Even in a T-6, landing in a cross wind can me hazardous. A T-6 IS NOT a joy to fly in a crosswind. I have a good friend who is a flight instructor on them and they are not as docile as you state. You fly a taildragger from the minute the engine is started.

In the P-39, all that had to be done is fly the airplane by the numbers. Know your stall speeds and limitations when performing maneuvers and you will not come close to stalling or spinning the aircraft and in the end it was safer to take off and land than some of its contemporaries. Again I don't know where you're getting your information from about the P-39 stalling, giving no warning prior to going into an uncontrollable spin, I can tell you that is an exaggeration.

 

[Vincenzo]

That's your opinion and you have no proof of that. the combat was actually confirmed on the German side...

please where are this conform from german side?

and 160 kts are ~185 mph
200 kts are ~230 mph

 

[FLYBOYJ]

please where are this conform from german side?

"confirmed"

An air battle between 317th Fighter Squadron and a mix of Bf 109s an Mc 202s on July 30, 1943. 20 P-40s were jumped by 25 to 30 Bf 109s and Mc 202s. The 317th claimed 21 enemy aircraft destroyed with the loss of one of their own.

317His

 

[Vincenzo]

"confirmed"

An air battle between 317th Fighter Squadron and a mix of Bf 109s an Mc 202s on July 30, 1943. 20 P-40s were jumped by 25 to 30 Bf 109s and Mc 202s. The 317th claimed 21 enemy aircraft destroyed with the loss of one of their own.

317His

sure confirmed

the link it's not from german side

 

[FLYBOYJ]

sure confirmed

the link it's not from german side

Its not - but there are some on here (Erich and I think JoeB) who has the data from the German side that confirmed the battle and shows only 5 enemy aircraft lost on the Gide (From what I remember). This air battle was previously spoken about in an older thread.

 

[renrich]

Page 517, "America's Hundred Thousand" by Dean: "Aug 9 '43- The first raised cockpit aircraft appear starting with the 950th, the informally -designated F4U1As, used by Vought, but never officially approved by Navy Bureau of Aeronautics." I'll go with Dean.

A description by Boone Guyton of flying the Zero: " So was it's greatest maneuvering failure--excessive aileron forces required to rotate the airplane, in any maneuver, above 240 mph. Moving the stick, with both hands, at 260 mph produced a ridiculously slow rolling motion. It was like tugging at a box of concrete."

 

[Vincenzo]

Page 517, "America's Hundred Thousand" by Dean: "Aug 9 '43- The first raised cockpit aircraft appear starting with the 950th, the informally -designated F4U1As, used by Vought, but never officially approved by Navy Bureau of Aeronautics." I'll go with Dean.

A description by Boone Guyton of flying the Zero: " So was it's greatest maneuvering failure--excessive aileron forces required to rotate the airplane, in any maneuver, above 240 mph. Moving the stick, with both hands, at 260 mph produced a ridiculously slow rolling motion. It was like tugging at a box of concrete."

it's very important know if this are IAS or TAS speed

 

[FLYBOYJ]

it's very important know if this are IAS or TAS speed

More than likely that would be indicated

 

[TIMPF335]

What about the French made Bloch MB 150. On its first test flight it couldnt leave the ground !

 

[Cromwell]

Look at the post times for your post and mine.
I posted less than a minute after you.
I didn't see that you had already posted again.


Wheels

OK no problem - I am almost never serious anyhow