VoyTechOriginally posted by Mark V
The general trend in WWII was for air combat to take place at increasingly higher altitudes and the Merlin met this challenge.
Mark, your statement is only true with regard to the air combat over Western Europe, i. e. strategic bombings of Britain by the Luftwaffe, and then strategic bombings of occupied Europe/Germany by the RAF/USAAF. If you look at any theatre where ground forces were involved, low altitude combat was the norm. The Russians, for example, preferred the Allison-powered Airacobra to the Merlin-powered Spitfire in their combat units.
The only decent high altitude fighters (I mean those used operationally) were developed:
1) by the Brits for defence (Spitfire variants)
2) by the Germans for defence (109 and 190 variants)
3) by the Americans for bomber escort duties (Merlin-powered P-51s and P-47s with supercharged radials).
Coming back to the original question, wasn’t it that the Americans didn’t need (in their own opinion) a good high altitude engine for their fighters? They obviously didn’t think (quite right) about air defence of their own territory from strategic bombings. And by the time they saw the need for a high altitude fighter to escort their bombers, they had the Merlin and the supercharged radials (developed for their heavies originally) to choose from.
VoyTechOh, I see!
You just have to complain and ask for help.
VoyTechCan someone tell me what is the trick? I have posted pictures in this forum in the past. I seem to follow the same routine. The only difference is that those were b&w and now it is a colour one. The file is a 25 kB jpeg.
VoyTechThanks JDK.
I didn’t mean to be a bore. In fact I intended to attach a nice shot of MH434 to look my reminder pleasant, but failed in doing so. Maybe now.
VoyTechOriginally posted by JDK
Just a reminder that the MH434 book is still gonna happen.
Just a reminder of the reminder. JDK?
VoyTechOriginally posted by srpatterson
Well, I see this is going to be a fun group…Please, can we put away the daggers and resolve that Great Britain and America both made substantial contributions to airframe and powerplant development during the war years, and LEAVE IT AT THAT.
As a member of “other nations, thet do nothing and critisize everyone” (thanks, TTP) I would like to point out that:
1) There can hardly be any doubt that “Great Britain and America both made substantial contributions to airframe and powerplant development”, and not only “during the war years”.
2) If we follow the “LEAVE IT AT THAT” rule we might just as well close quite a few threads on this forum. But then we are never going to learn many interesting things.
VoyTechOriginally posted by Steve Bond
It is true to say that the answer is the Merlin was recognised as “the best game in town”. Why waste scarce resources – especially time – in developing a competitor when you don’t need to?
Quite right.
But, the Americans DID develop the Allison throughout the war, and it even powered the Twin Mustang after WWII.
So, to get back to the original question, one might ask why they didn’t achieve that earlier on?
VoyTechOriginally posted by Learning_Slowly
My good US friends
I was talking about our jet innovations that we let you see, yes I guess a swap was in order for how far you had got against that which we had, however I think you will find that although we let you look round, in fact gave you plans, the US decided that it didnt want to do likewise.
Funny thing, it was a similar thing with the British jet know how transfer to the Soviets.
Makes you wonder if there would be any jet vs. jet combats in Korea had John BUll not been so kind to both Uncle Sam and Uncle Joe.
VoyTechOriginally posted by Col. Gibbon
Thanks guys!I was interested to know, as on all of the recent pictures of Spits, I’ve seen here, had round mirrors, and I was wondering if these were first, or the rectangle ones. I’d like to know if possible, at what time the RAF changed to the round mirrors, and what marks of fighters used them? or was it the case older marks were refitted from a certain date.
Rectangular mirrors were fitted as standard on Spitfires (all Marks then in production) until late 1942/early 1943. Then they changed to the round ones, and these were subsequently retro-fitted to aircraft in service. I have seen photos of font-line service Spitfires as late as 1945 still with the rectangular ones. Not impossible, though, that some pilots simply preferred these.
V.
VoyTechOriginally posted by mike currill
Sorry if this upsets you VoyTech but about 80% of the German designs that were publicised in Luftwaffe 46 were viable given sufficient R&D funding
Glad to see someone missing my point now 🙂
I would risk saying that ANY design is viable with SUFFICIENT funding, the point is how much funding is ‘sufficient’, and how this compares with the funding you are likely to get.
What I meant to say (unclear probably) was that they did not make sense in the situation of the Third Reich at the time, not that they could not be made to fly at all.
And I will stick to my opinion that many were developed according to the rule ‘the more weird it looks, the more chance the Führer will love it’.
V.
PS. I can see we are in agreement once again, JDK. Read the same book recently? 😉
VoyTechOriginally posted by JDK
Oh, dear you’ve missed my point again! 😀
I wasn’t thinking
that on the other side of the Atlantic companies like Bell and Sikorsky were innovating,
Oh, now I see your point! Supermarine should have gone for choppers. Their fault, clearly…
Supermarines were very cautious –
to the extent of not getting anything right after the Spitfire;
Missing your point again: was Spiteful not ‘right after the Spitfire’? Or should they have developed a transonic swept-wing jet fighter in 1944? The problem was it was up to the Air Ministry to assign development work to companies, and as far as I remember they told Supermarine that Spitfire development had priority over any other projects.
V.
VoyTechRe: Re: Re: ………….>>> A “Historic Aviation” QUIZ <<<………….
Originally posted by Distiller
Define ‘in service’. The USAAC ordered their first helicopter design long before WWII (not that I remember its name, nothing to do with Sikorsky anyway) and I think it even flew
>>> You’re right “in service” needs to be clarified when talking about those early choppers. Let’s settle for “accepted for service”, regardless if that was just for tests.
Well if it is just ‘accepted for tests’ then your current answer is ca. 18 years wrong. I was quite sure it was long before WWII, but it took me a while to unearth the details.
In early 1921 the Department of Defence signed a contract with Prof. George de Bothezat (a Russian emigre) to build a flying machine able to take off and land vertically under own power. The design had four rotors, one at each end of the cross-shaped trusswork fuselage. Construction was completed in 1922 and on 18 December 1922 Major (some say Colonel) Thurman H. Bane flew it for the first time at McCook Field, Ohio. Testing cotinued in early 1923, but as the helicopter never got close to the required ceiling of 300 ft., further work was dropped. The helicopter managed to climb as high as 6 ft., fly over a distance of 100 yards, and even carried up to 3 ‘passengers’ (brave men, simply clinging to the structure).
Originally posted by JDK
Can’t answer any of the questions without cheating, but the first flight of Sikorsky’s VS-300 was in 1939, not 1940.
The first tethered flight, yes. The first free flight was in May 1940. Until that time they had so much problems with lateral control that there had to be men on the ground, holding ropes attached to the landing gear, to prevent the helicopter from rolling. (I believe Sikorsky described that in detail in his memoirs.)
V.
VoyTechOriginally posted by JDK
if I’m running a business with a design office, I’d be looking further ahead than Supermarine’s ever seemed to do. That takes us neatly back to the start of this thread – why were Supermarine’s so conservitive?
‘Conservative’?
I suppose you mean to say that while German designers developed innovative aircraft (swept wings, tri-cycle undercarriage, supersonic performance perhaps), at Supermarine’s it was all old-fashioned, with straight wings, tailwheels, slow and ugly?
One could also put it differently: British designers used well proven solutions, while the Germans did their best not to employ anything that had proved its worth in the past.
Now, was it because the Germans were full of new ideas and the Brits completely unable to develop anything new? I don’t think so.
When you run a company with a design office you have to think, first of all, who’s going to pay for all the work done there. Are you going to pay it from your own income? Or is it going to be paid for by the government? Now, in this respect the situation in Germany and in Britain was completely different at the time the first jets were developed.
Germany was about to lose a war, being run by a political system in which the führer would decide everything. If you wanted to get a contract for your aeroplane in late 1944/early 1945 you had to bring something looking like a wonder weapon able to win the war overnight. Nothing short of science-fiction spaceship could possibly attract the attention of the ultimate decision maker. This situation favoured all sorts of visionaries, and if you look through all those “Luftwaffe 46” projects you will see how few of them made sense at all!
At the same time Britain was winning a war, and this meant imminent cuts (very dire cuts) in military spendings. Aircraft makers had to think of selling what they already had, rather than starting completely new innovative projects.
So, if you were one of those conservative-thinking Supermarine managers you’d think like this: “We have spent all that time and money on the blinking Spiteful, but now the Air Ministry won’t buy it, and won’t even let us sell it abroad. Let’s try to make as much use as possible of all the stuff we have developed over the last few years. Hey, let’s put one of them jet engines in a fuselage that will require minimum additional work, perhaps we will obtain a useable machine that we will be able to sell to somebody.” And if a designer came to you at that moment saying “No, no, the straight wing from the Spiteful is no good, we have to start developing swept wing, and we cannot use the Spiteful landing gear either, we should have tricycle undercarriage” you’d probably choke him with your bare hands. Not because you were against progress in aircraft design, but because you had a family to feed.
V.
VoyTechOriginally posted by JDK
Hi VoyTech,
I think you misunderstand me. Technically, and in design terms, there was, definitely, a clear lead from one Hawker design to the next.
Right, I misunderstood you. My poor English, you know.
as you started by saying, Supermarine’s had noting to replace the early Spitfire; a management failure.
Don’t recall saying that (my English again?) If you have a successful design (= Spitfire) and have no prospect of getting a next one in production why waste your time working on it? Spitfire was only ordered as a stop-gap because Hawkers were not able to make enough Hurricanes in time to meet the RAF expansion plans. In 1939 Spitfires were ordered with the express explanation that they were surplus to RAF requirements, but Supermarine production lines had to be kept running until a new licence type was available for manufacture.
While you can draw a line from the Spitfire, prior to the Spit, Supermarines had NO service fighter, and only a couple of ropy prototypes.
Interestingly, this was the case with most of the outstanding WWII fighters (109, 190, Mustang).
Spitfire, Hurricane and 109 at the Battle. The Hurricane was the 3rd place in ranking, sure, but it wasn’t a P-11c;
Funny you should mention that. When the PZL fighters were introduced into service at the beginning of 1930s they were the best in the world. Was Hurricane ever the best in its class?
1. There were more Hurricanes than Spitfires. (Because it could be pass produced quicker – a strike against the Spitfire)
The eternal question of quality vs. quantity. Compare the Hurricane and the 109 – no difference in ease of production and what a difference in performance and development potential. And remember that unlike the 109 or the Hawker fighters, the Spitfire was not designed with mass production in mind. Everybody knew big fighter contracts would go to Hawkers rather than some flying-boat-makers.
V.
VoyTechOriginally posted by Flood
Anybody brave enough to volunteer the ugliest Spitfire varient?;)
What a question?
Of course that awful German Daimler Benz-powered Mk V.
V.
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