B-17 bomb door actuation (looking aft): screwjack to lefthand door on the right, grey shaft on the left drives the gearbox, which in turn drives the two shafts to both door screwjacks.
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I would hazard a guess that the Mitchell didn’t really have a need for fast acting bomb bay doors, but the end result turned out this way because of:
– the choice for hydraulic actuation by the design team, this was used on the gear, flaps, brakes, cowl flaps as well (in contrast to the B-17’s fully electric systems)
– the limited room beneath the front spar to fit the mechanism. This may have led to the mechanical lever arrangement.
B-25: hydraulic actuator with a mechanical lever arrangement which amplifies the motion.
B-17: electric motor driven, IIRC with a screwjack arrangment.
This aircraft has flown in several colour schemes and to make things interesting, with different RAF serials. Being an ex-RCAF aircraft I assume it never had a specific RAF serial allocated to it. Here it is at Farnborough in 1996.
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Does that Seafire use an ex-Shackleton Griffon 58? I recall reading that the idle speed of that engine was significantly higher on a Shack and had to be adjusted to a compromise setting for the Spitfire installation. That could lead to an ‘unhappy’ sound at low power settings. If so, it’s basically a characteristic due to the engine choice I guess.
Spitfire Survivors, vol.I and II. Without having ever held one of the books myself, the research behind it and the execution has always impressed me. I should have bought them when I could…. 🙁
There are a few aircraft which are instrumented quite extensively (the RNHF Seahawk is another one IIRC) but I think that this is more to do with airframe stressing than engine health.
An interesting subject. Something that is missing from the data is the altitude at which the load is released and the atmospheric parameters. Why? Because the drag changes with the density of the air. As the object moves downward through the atmosphere the terminal velocity will decrease because of the increasing air density. Approx 1% per 520 feet (source: wikipedia).
Terminal velocity is reached when the drag produced by the object and the gravitational pull on the object are in balance. But as the drag changes as a product of density, this number will change throughout the object’s travel downwards. Something to think about…. There are some hints on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity
Very, very impressive! The first time this amazing shape has taken to the air in the (more than) 75 years since it was designed. Let’s hope for a continued, long flying career.
Is it just me or does the spinner seem to be missing from the aircraft? I have a feeling that more of it should be visible from this angle.
Correction, it is visible on the B&W image but appears to be almost the same shade of grey as the sky. The gentleman who coloured the image missed this and only left the shadow of the prop blade visible. I thought for a minute that it might have been removed for work on the engine/prop. Seeing as the tail is lashed down engine runs must have been planned for this aircraft.
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