I think it was part of Aeroplane’s ‘Project: Cancelled’ series. If you can find the more recent Aeroplane (some time last year) with the article on the Miles M42 it has a reference to the earlier article.

I’d be interested to see any materials you come up with Nick, if you’re willing to share.

That’s quite ironic, since the shot works quite well in that context! :rolleyes:

This is true – it’s on the documentary on the Special Edition. As to positioning in the film, it’s in the ‘Aerial Ballet’ section set to Sir William Walton’s The Battle in the Skies or something like that.

The shot was the last aerial shot they were trying to take and numerous things kept going wrong. It was important because it was supposed to be Sq Ldr Canfield (Michael Caine) bailing out – hence the script change killing him off (‘He Blew Up!’ etc.). When it came to the editing, the shot of the dummy falling…. and falling…. and falling fitted so well with the music it was used and is apparently the longest single shot in the whole film!

However, at the time, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back – shooting with the aerial unit had gone on too long and was costing too much. I think the whole unit was sacked actually, not just the stunt co-ordinator.

I was with you all the way until you mentioned the Skua 🙂

NiallC

Heretic.

😀

Don’t suppose Hurricane is on there?

Sometimes it seems we want to commemorate what might have been, rather than what was, so an aircraft with a material combat history is ignored while people get moist at the edges over, say, the TSR . . no, mustn’t go there, must take medication.

NiallC

Right – the workhorses always seem to get a poor deal. But there’s always a degree of emotion in these things. The early impressions of aircrew seem to have chased the Barracuda through its whole life, and a lot of this undoubtedly came from the fact that they were used to slow, stable biplanes and were reacting to a modern, all metal monoplane with flaps and constant speed and all manner of other gizmos. Same with the Vultee Vengeance that seemed to have been very effective in some theatres and yet was regarded as dangerous by some commentators… Yet the Bf109 seems to have people in raptures despite its poor range, weak tail, lack of ammo, cramped cockpit and sheer, honest to goodness ugliness.

[puts head well below parapet and assumes crash position]

The Barra needs rehabilitating, as does the Skua, the Vengeance and the Stirling while we’re about it.

It says here that the Allison reached 4,000 hp as
a racing engine, obviously at the expense of
very short engine lives. I think this version was apparently
developed from the late model 2,300 hp V-1710-145,
but it demonstrates the potential of the Allison. I don’t
believe the Merlin ever generated this amount of power,
even in any racing versions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_V-1710

http://www.unlimitedexcitement.com/Miss%20US/Allison%20V1710%20Engine.htm

Thus the earlier Allisons meant for the P-40 could easily
have reached above 2,000 hp by pushing it to racing
limits at the relatively paltry cost of engine life, and I
wonder why some direction towards this was never
taken, when Curtiss was desperately trying to improve
the P-40’s performance throughout the war years.

I remember this tradeoff was evident in the Bf109K, whose
Daimler-Benz DB605 ASCM engine with GM-1 and MW-1
boost took it to 2,200 hp, at the expense of horrendous fuel
consumption and an engine life of just 100 hours. The
German fighters had to land to refuel, while the P-51s were
still operating over their motherland. I think these penalties
were acceptable considering that the Germans were fighting
for their survival.

It’s relatively easy to wring the neck of an engine if you don’t have to worry about fuel consumption or engine life. The main reason Rolls never tried to push these kinds of figures from the Merlin is that by 1941-2 they had the Griffon on the stocks which could be fitted to most airframes that a Merlin could and easily developed IRO 1,900 hp while Napier’s by-then reliable Sabre was pushing out over 2,000.

Your supposition that the Germans were taking more desperate measures to improve performance makes sense, but they could afford to as they were operating over home territory. The whole point of the initial question was about the P40 (among others) as an escort fighter – trying to push 2,000hp plus on long missions would have been asking for trouble and soon high numbers of aircraft would have been u/s – no more escort.

In any case I suspect more effort was not made to extract more power from P40 Allisons because there would have been little point; the airframe was already at the limits of its aerodynamic potential. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to push, with drag increasing exponentially with speed when you hit that brick wall you will stop.

Ugly? This beauty? Nah 🙂

Ah, aluminium origami.

I will ignore Hornchurch’s comments on the grounds that the inclement weather must be affecting his judgement 😉 OK, so the crews may have had a rather uncharitable song about the poor beast that went to the tune of ‘any old iron’ and it may have been saddled (literally!) with the traditional Fleet Air Arm tendency to overload aircraft with every bit of equipment but the kitchen sink, but it’s hard to imagine a type so poorly represented today that made such a contribution back then.