Exactly – the physical damage caused by Black Buck’s single bomb, followed by those delivered by SHAR, was mended immediately.

I think it’s in ‘Vulcan 607’, though I’m not sure and don’t have my sources to hand, that the crater in the runway from Black Buck 1 was only repaired cosmetically – i.e. thrown full of rubble and hasily concreted over to give the appearance that the runway was functioning again, but actually could not have supported aircraft landing on the ‘repaired’ section. Does anyone have any confirmation or otherwise for this?

Much as I enjoyed Sharkey’s book, it does not pretend to be anything other than an individual personal account and its agenda is worn very clearly on its sleeve. To my mind it cannot be compared with Rowland White’s book which has obviously been very deeply and carefully researched and, though this does not free it from any suggestion of bias, at least relies on documentary evidence and a large number of personal accounts. I would not want to take either as gospel without reading a lot more widely round the subject.

Rather than an indication of how much British equipment had slipped I would see Black Buck as an indication of how strategic, long range bombing had been wound down for years in favour of Harriers and Tornados inderdicting Soviet conventional forces – in those terms UK equipment was very good. It’s also an indictment of the policy of winding down the conventional carrier force. I’d say the fact that the British got a bomber to Stanley at all was a hell of an achievement given that there was no infrastructure and barely the equipment to plan a raid of this nature.

Lake Skuas

The Fleet Air Arm Museum’s Blackburn Skua L2940 was recovered from Lake Grotli in Norway but although this is the most Skua in one place (for the time being anyway) it still counts more as wreckage than a complete aircraft. However, lots of bits of Skua have also been recovered from lakes (as well as from Fjords and hillsides) in Norway and some from e.g. the Bodo museum are confident that a complete Skua will be a possibility quite soon. They already have around 75% (in fact they have something like 60% of two complete airframes) of what they need but the main problem is the middle of the fuselage around the rear cockpit which tended to be the bit that got junked during crashes etc.

I would like to add, that the RAF were also using some strange machines as fighters.

98 Squadron RAF Coastal Command used Battles as fighters against He 111´s in Iceland during the winter and spring of 1941. The only He 111 that came within range during that period escped unharmed because the Battle could not catch it:eek:

Then there’s the Blenheim MkIVF ‘fighter’, some 20mph slower than the bomber version.

Need I even mention the Blackburn Roc?

Nope, your getting confused between the Me262 and the Me163.

The sweep on the 262 was for stability (although the designers were aware of the compressibility effects). The sweep on the 168 was for compressibility – which was very necessary considering it achieved speeds of up to Mach 0.8.

As for the benefits of sweep being discovered purely accidentally, that was simply not the case. The following is an extract from one of my own undergrad reports (feel free to use google if you have any doubts):

As to source material I am largely taking from Peter Caygill’s excellent ‘Sound Barrier – the rocky road to Mach 1.0+’ rather than Google.

Regarding Messerschmitt designs, I don’t think it’s me that’s confused. The Me262’s swept wings were for balance, to maintain the C/G with heavier-than-expected engines. The Me163 on the other hand used swept wings for lateral stability as the airflow acts differentially when roll and yaw is introduced. There was also a balance element as the tail had been removed to reduce drag and some longitudinal damping is required also.

Busemann’s findings were just as ignored in Germany as everywhere else, you need look no further than the number of straight wing German jet and rocket designs still hanging about at the end of the war. That the Me262’s swept wing was a happy mistake is well documented, the Me163’s less so. If Lippisch designed it for good transonic capabilities he failed. Its high Mach characteristics (as we have both noted) were so bad as to be dangerous and led to a high proportion of the losses sustained by this aircraft. Its critical Mach number was no better than the Spitfire’s, though it reached it rather more easily. The improvements made to the B model were to mitigate some of the dreadful high Mach behaviour, but only eased them somewhat – Lippisch was still shooting in the dark.

By the end of the war the benefits of sweepback were becoming more obvious, but designers still didn’t know entirely why or how best to make use of it. The Messerschmitt P.1101 prototype had ground-alterable variable sweep to test this out, and Focke-Wulf produced two designs for the Ta183 with different amounts of wing sweep – in fact the design that the RLM rejected went on to influence the MiG 15. Designers were very much feeling their way at this stage and to suggest that Lippisch had fully got his head round compressibility some ten years before anyone else seems to be stretching a point to me.

…But we are way off topic now, and I will leave it here.

You can find an even earlier examples of bubble cockpits, starting with the P-51 Mustang—also by North American—and the Me-262. Also the MiG-15 also got a bubble cockpit.

North American would have sufficient experience with compressibility issues from P-51s going into a dive.

Truth is in 1946 no-one had sufficient experience with compressibility – Spitfire PRXI had made it to Mach 0.93, losing its prop and reduction gear into the bargain, Mustang not quite so good… (If this was sole factor, Supermarine 510 would have gone supersonic and Swift would have been the new Spitfire instead of a dead loss)

When F-86 was designed advantages of swept wing to delay onset of compressibility only just beginning to be understood, together with greater importance of thickness/chord ratio than fancy laminar flow sections at transonic speeds. Area rule wasn’t for another five years or so, all-flying tail ignored by British who invented it, still a little way off until F-86E.

Visibility of F-86 not simply down to bubble canopy – was related to positioning of cockpit fore-and-aft, shape of fuselage, position of wing relative to pilot, even height of pilot’s seat. F-86, by luck or design, got this spot on and a lot of pilots in Korea were justifiably grateful (especially as one of MiG 15’s few advantages was superior altitude – thanks, Rolls Royce – and consequent ability to ‘bounce’).

I have done a bit more reading and the 1938(?) Flight reprint in “Hawker Hurricane Portfolio” by R.M Clarke indicates that the bolted fuselage structure was chosen solely because it was a known method of construction to Hawkers.

…Which had the advantage that it could be tooled up for very quickly with high spares availability. Before WW1 Sopwith pioneered the idea of having common ‘connectors’ with all aircraft made by that company and Hawkers carried this on. It meant that all the separate components could be built by ‘piece work’ and once someone had been trained to make a component you would have as many as you ever needed. I think they also used common tube diameters etc., common fork ends, wires and so on. The industry was prepared to build by these methods and the RAF was prepared to repair aircraft made like this.

It’s probably not true that the structure was easier to repair when it had suffered damage (Though I have read that the servicability of the Hurricane was better than the Spitfire(?). If so, this supports the easier to repair point of view.)

Fascinatingly complicated way to build an aeroplane

I still suspect it would be easier to deal with bolts and tubes than stressed skin. Ask someone who has operated a Pitts and switched to an Extra which was easier to fix! If it was a case of patching holes in the skin that’s one thing but what happenes if a stringer or a longeron is damaged?

Though as mentioned above, the fact that the Hurricane could be repaired and got back into service faster than the Spitfire in the Battle of Britain probably had as much to do with the fact that the RAF had had 20 years experience with that construction method compared to two years with stressed skin all metal.

Not sure what this adds to the argument, but here goes…

I believe two single-engine dive bomber designs, the Vultee Vengeance and the Junkers Ju87 both started out with twin tails. Not sure whether the Ju87 ever flew with this configuration, but the prototype Vengeance (according to Peter Smith’s ‘Vengeance!’) in its initial configuration made it as far as the end of the taxiway on what was to be its first flight when the test pilot stopped the aircraft, jumped out and declared that he was not going to fly it until it had had its tail replaced.

Both designs ended up with a rather large single fin.

Another reason for a twin fin (apologies if it’s already been brought up and I missed it) is that the fuselage is less likely to blanket the airflow over the fin during a spin making recovery easier. Although I imagine if you get into a spin in a Halifax or a B17 you are probably in a bit of trouble anyway…