Seems your not too good at reading either, it says ‘4’ up there. Also pleased to see you mock a primary source. Now that speaks volumes!

Hmmmm, northeagle is happy to bring you up for your inattentiveness Andy, but happy to let his own slips go by – if of course he knows the difference between “your” and “you’re”.

Question –

Was it worth it?

The program or the thread?

The program – absolutely.

A tin leg would have been more secure than the helmet or the trainers but the opening shock would, I feel be similar. Plus there is the “how far did Bader fall before pulling the handle” question so how fast was he doing? A skydiver would chop the malfunction and then get face to earth quickly and then pull the reserve so the distance would have been less.

Ali

Good points Ali.
How would Bader’s false legs be attached ? Would they be held in place merely by straps (reasonably tight) around his legs above the knees? If this is the case then it seems very feasible that a leg could be dislodged by the jerk of an opening chute. Why didn’t he lose both? I seem to remember that Bader had one leg amputated below the knee and one above. Perhaps one stump provided better purchase than the other.
Ali’s point about how long he would have free-fallen before the chute opened – surely the aircraft would already be moving at a faster speed than the average free faller’s terminal velocity. Especially since this aircraft almost certainly had just performed a serious nose down ‘bunt’ having lost the tail.

Semper in sterquilinio haeremus: tantum altitudo stercoris interdum Mutatur

My Latin’s a bit rusty…
“I came, I saw, I……… peeled onions?” :rolleyes:

Might be wrong :p

There was also discussion on how the aircraft might have fluttered down minus tail, and possibly part of one wing, like a sycamore seed and just plopped on the surface with minimal penetration and then been carted away.

A taillless aircraft, now considerably nose heavy would probably bunt through the vertical and rapidly descend – accelerating as it did so.
Aerodynamic ‘fluttering down’ for something as heavy as a fighter would require a stalled condition – exposing the large wing surface areas at some large side angle to create enough drag to slow the descent. But to be ‘stalled’ would be virtually impossible in the very nose heavy trim the aircraft would find itself in – sans empennage.

400 posts and 10k hits in seven days must be record.

Emotive stuff.

Mark

Yep – great thread 🙂

Interesting, what other types ‘spawned’ such a family?

The Manchester springs to mind first – leading to Lancaster > York > Lincoln > Shackleton.

Roger Smith.

No – the Manchester is an early WWII Avro design that predates the Viking/Valetta/Varsitty, and possibly even the Wellington. Different designs.

Pros & Cons – tractors give you the benefits of prop wash over the wing enhancing lift to some extent, but this wash promotes an early turbulent boundary layer which is a bit more ‘draggy’. With the design of the B-36, one of the primary requirements was a very long range, which was the reason why the pusher configuration was chosen – to keep the boundary layer on the wing laminar as long as possible reducing drag.