Dudley

Let me hang this on your post.

The fighter pattern in WWII was flight in echelon and at a minimum of
cruise airspeed at 100 feet or less (high enough to give #4 ground
clearance).

At end of Runway, leader pitched up in a hard climbing turn and
throttle idle (to kill off airspeed) and rest of flight fanned out in
pitch up. After about 180 degrees of turn, speed of #1 would be down
where gear could be extended followed immediately by wing flaps. At
this time #1 was on a very short turning final. Rest of flight took
spacing after pitch up, put gear and flaps down as required to make
short pattern and flight landed close together right side, left side,
right side and left side.

Rational for this pattern I was told was that we often caught German
Fighters in big patterns or long straight in and shot them down
because the were slow and dirty (and many times short on fuel). To
prevent Germans from catching our fighters low and slow in pattern the
pitch up let us keep at least cruise airspeed (some Fight Leaders
pitched faster that cruise airspeed) until we pitched and made the
very quick pattern and got on ground.

After War's end there were some accidents associated with the pitch up
and it was changed to the overhead pattern.

In this pattern the flight in echelon flies down the runway at 1000 ft
and half way down the leader breaks hard enough with throttle back and
boards out to get down to gear down airspeed at or shortly after
rolling out on a downwind leg. Flaps are extended in the normal
position in rectangular pattern to let bird make a normal base leg and
turn to final at 300 feet or so.

Wing men each make their break at a number of seconds after leader
(varies with aircraft type) rolling out on a down wind with proper
spacing from bird ahead. Landings are again right side, left side,
right side and left side for safety.

On Dudley's comment about plugs. We used British Platinum plugs and
didn't have any plug problem going to idle on Merlin. We got 25-50
hours on these plugs with minimum fouling. Not sure these plugs were
available after War and those in supply channels used up???? If we ran
out of the British plugs and couldn't trade some booze to a Spit
outfit for plugs, we used American plugs which fouled up very easy and
were sometimes changed after every mission.

One technique we used was to run Merlin very lean on ground taxing out
prior to taking R/W for take off where we went to auto rich for
takeoff. This helped with any fouling. We also found that improper
ground adjustment by the mechanic, of the mixture control, caused plug
fouling.

On night takeoffs there was fire out of short stacks about half way
back to cockpit. After getting airborne and cutting back to climb
power the fire reduced to a little over a foot. After leveling off and
going to cruise power we manually leaned the mixture until there was
just a very light pale blue flame almost all in the short stacks. We
could then start working on getting our night vision and tuck it in
tight in night formation.

During War (WWII) there was no restriction I ever hear of about Idle
on Merlin in P-51. After War they put a restriction on idle rpm in
pattern to keep from warping valves.

Oh,those were the days with that sweet sound of a Merlin )


Big John


Dudley how is your health coming along? My Rotator Cuff surgery is
finally getting better and am getting full movement back in right arm.
I can almost hold my Martini in my right hand again )
`````````````````````````````````````````````````` `````````````````



On Tue, 01 Aug 2006 03:17:57 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:


"Bob Martin" wrote in message
...
Peter Duniho wrote:
"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...
[...]
Warbirds, you are not welcome at Oshkosh.

We've all got our pet peeves when it comes to other pilots. Around here,
where we don't see warbirds on a regular basis during daily flying, it's
the RV "squadron" who do high-speed, low passes down Lake Sammamish, or
the Mustang replica pilot who does his "overhead break" to a landing at
the airport, or any number of other pilots doing stupid pilot tricks.


How is an overhead break a "stupid pilot trick?"

Then again, maybe we should clarify some terms. My interpretation of
overhead break means entering an upwind over the runway, then flying a
tight pattern from there, usually involving a tight turn from upwind to
cross-/downwind. The rest of the approach is flown as normal. I've been
watching an F-15 squadron fly overhead breaks in SAV for a month. Nothing
looks unsafe about it. We fly the same kind of break when we come back
from some formation work. I do this as an alternative to a straight-in
landing, especially if there is other traffic. As long as you announce
what you're doing there shouldn't be a problem... unless you consider
formation flight or patterns smaller than a mile on a side to be
inherently dangerous.

An approach flown from an initial overhead break has a practical side as
well. In the P51 for example, flying a regular pattern with reduced manifold
pressure can really foul up the plugs on you.
An overhead approach allows a tight in circular pattern that can be flown
with the power up in the range that keeps the plugs clean; allows for better
visibility, and allows for easier positioning without losing the runway
under the nose.
This doesn't mean that pilots flying high performance airplanes should
arbitrarily use these approaches without prior approval or radio contact to
clear first. It just means that in high performance airplanes, this type of
approach is requested for practical reasons by practical pilots who know
exactly what they are doing and have no wish to be showing off or violating
anyone's airspace.
Dudley Henriques
Ex P51 pilot........among others :-))