In article ,
(The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) writes:
On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 22:46:44 -0400, Air-Vice Marshal Stickney, Air
Member for Research and Development, wrote:

By all means, except I also note a depressing lack of nationalistic
abuse in this post.

Oh, well then, how's this: The last time a Brit tried to hand my
family a line like that we threw his tea in the harbor.

Now that was the kind of atrocity that should have featured in "the
Patriot"....

It did, in the 1773 original version. (Well, what really happened was
that Charlie, the guy unloading the tea, sorta miscalculated with the
block & tackle. So he and the Shop Steward cooked up this story about
how some of the patriot guys were down at the tavern, getting all
riled up about the tea tax, and after they had a snootful, dressed up
like Indians and chucked the tea in the harbor...)

In truth, though, the Revolutionary period, and the years leading up
to it were a turbulent time. Neither side was above a bit on
intimidation or downright terrorism. For example, Kingston, NH, right
near me, has a memorial plaque for one Dr. Josiah Bartlett, who was
delegate to the Continental Congress, and the second signature on the
Declaration of Independance. What they don't tell you is that while
he was down in Philadelphia, his peace-loving, Rule of Law Loyalist
neighbors burned his house, looted his farm, and, I believe, killed at
least one of his sons.

Still, an innovative approach to evading custioms duties and personal
taxation which I'm sure is maintained as a family tradition under the
IRS and the enlightened leadership of Lord Dubya of Shrub. Shame
about Shay's rebellion, not to mention Sam Adam's interesting
post-colonial take on sedition and the level of property ownership
required to participate in a representative democracy.

It takes all sorts. And we have all sorts.

Ah, that feels better, now back to the mud-slinging of rational
discourse.

[rear fuselage tanks in Spit Vcs]

That's going to take a lot of fiddly meaduring & figuruing to say for
sure, but, looking over the inboard profiles (X-ray views) of both
aircraft, one thing does stand out - a Spitfire's cockpit is aft of
the wing, and well aft of the CG. And the fuselage ahead of the
cockpit is already full of stuff. (Fuel, mostly) The available space
behind the cockpit is a long way aft of the CG, which isn't good.
A Mustang's cocpit is over the wing. The aft tank location is
basically right at the trailing edge. Not only is the airplane more
tolerant of how it's loaded, the tank location is in a better place.

There's no denying it's a real problem.

That's the difficulty with small airplanes. The slightest change has
big effects. R.J. Mitchell's successors at Vickers-Supermarine did an
absolutely incredible job keeping the Spitfire not only viable, but at
the top end of things during the war. Of course, Rolls helped, too,
by buiding three world-beating engines that were not only private
ventures, but, at least originally, not favored officially.
(For the record, those are the original Merlin, the two-stage Merlin
60 series, and the Griffon. The Air Ministry had been planning on
curtailing Merlin production in the '42-'43 timeframe, and, after teh
failure of the Vulture, using the Napier Sabre for high power
applications. Luckily, Lord Hives was a manager who not only could
perceive the real need, but was persuasive enough to sway the
government.

Agreed, but is this insoluable? The question doesn't appear as easily
to definatively answer (either way) as it first appeared to me.

Well, for teh Mk VIII and Mk XIV, it indeed was. FOr a Mk V, I'm not
sure.

See what you think over the sums when you get a chance.

Actually, according to the A&AEE's reports on testing Mustang Is, and
various Mk Vs, I don't see a whole lot of difference in altitude
performance, even without the Mustang II's higher-supercharged engine.

At 25,000 feet? There's no doubt the Alison Mustang was very useful
below that height, but we need an escort force which performs well in
the 20-25,000 or even 30,000 feet band. I'm dubious about the Mustang
I in that environment, even more so with the Mustang II which I
thought had a lower-altitude supercharger peak.

At 25,000, there's not a whole lot of difference between a Mk V Spit
and a Mustang I. Both were gettig pretty ahsmatic at that point.
in static conditions, (no ram) a Merlin 45's Full Throttle Height for
Max Power was 9250' (3000RPM/+16) Climb Power FTH was 16,000', (2850
RPM/+9). A Merlin 46's FTM was 14,000' for max power, and 19,000' for
climb power. There wasn't a whole lot of difference there than the
Mustan'gs Allisons, and the Mustang had a bit better ram recovery.
Note also that as the Merlin 40 series was progressively re-rated for
higher boosts, the FTH dropped quite a bit. The supercharger could
only compress the air so much, after all, and so, in order to get a
higher boost, it has to start with thicker air.

It didn't climb as well as a Spit, and it didn't quite turn as well,
but it did out-speed, out-turn and out-zoom the Fw 190As that the
Abbeville boys were flying. (Speaking of which, is Holly Hills still
extant? I know he was recovering from his stroke a few years back.)

Sorry, I don't know.

I hope he is. He used to show up here, and had corresponded with some
of us, back about the turn of the century. Among his other
accomplishments, he was the first pilot to score a kill while flying a
Mustang. He bagged an Fw 190 over Dieppe during the attempted raid,
while flying with an RCAF squadron. He later joined the U.S. Navy,
and partidcipated in the Marianas Turkey Shoot.

Precisely. We need to posit a sufficient instiutional change of
policy and interest to even begin this, but as nothing would happen
without it, we might as well take it as a given.

Well, I could begin my somewhat-factually based Nationalistic Rant
about how the Brits, and Europeans in general never figured out how to
put long range into fighter airplanes becasue their countries are so
danged small, and that you can't ever be more than an hour from a
National Border or coastline, unlike those of us who need to be able
to fly stuff from San Francisco to Honolulu routinely, but I won't.

Actually, I don't think that's sufficiently chauvanistic, in that I
think there is a cultural dynamic relatesd to geography at work.
However, the flip side of that is that the Europeans produced better
interceptors in the early war period partly because of their
willingness to cut weight (and fuel carried) to the minimum required
for an area-defence fighter. Now I actually think the early US
fighters (even the P-40 and P-39) were better than their later press
made them out to be, but in this instance I think that for all it's
shortcomings, the Spitfire in 1942-3 was the best type available in
meaningful quantity for altitude combat, which is one reason the USAAF
got it to replace the P-39.

Well, we could, if we wanted to, produce small, short-ranged fast
climbing interceptors. Take a look at teh Curtiss CW-22 Demon. One
way to look at it was that it was the American Zero. Basically, it
was a Wright R1820 with a pistol grip. Consider, if you will, a 1940
airplane with a climb rate of 5,000'/ minute, adn a lower wing loading
than a Mitsubishi A6M. The Flying Tigers got 3, which crashed on a
delivery flight due to poor fuel and bad weather (Erik Shilling flew
it and liked it), and the Dutch East Indies had a couple of squadrons
of them. They didn't fare at all well when the Japanese came - they
didn't have hte endurance to fly standing patrols, and Java had no
early warning system or GCI. All thich climb and maneuverability
meant nothing when the Zeros dropped on them like a box of rocks when
they were trying to take off.

Getting more fuel into the Spitfire airframe, for all the
difficulties, is a better option than trying to make the P-40 or P-39
a competitive high-altitude fighter.

Oh, I certainly agree. I've got the NACA Tech Report on full-size
drag tests done on single-engin service airplanes in the Langley Full
Size Tunnel. (Not models, mind you, but the real airplanes) One of
the airplanes tested was the Turbosupercharged XP-39. With the turbo
& intercooler, it was a very draggy airplane that would have never met
its performance guarantees. The small wing limited ceiling as much as
the lack of engine power, and there wasn't any room for growth.

[2 pilot regime]

The loading on the training infrastructure would increase, and the
attritionally-supportable force would shrink, but then again BC took
heavy casualties and expanded, and I'm not aware of a critical aircrew
shortage: aircrew training slots seem to be over-subscribed since
1941, with pools of aircrew forming everywhere except in Bomber
Command. The output of trained pilots is an issue, but then I'm not
aware of it being inadequate historically. If anything, the British
prioritised aircrew training too much in the period 1941-43 with
repercussions elsewhere on the war effort (e.g. infantry replacements
in 1944-45).

It's a good question, though. If you suddenly start needing twice as
many bomber pilots, the repercussions will be far & wide.

Agreed, but look how many pilots BC were going through in 1943. 100%
losses over 6 months is not insubstantial. If we can keep daylight
raid losses within bounds, which I think is possible, we'll be no
worse off even if we half the size of 3 Group's initial operational
strength.

Perhaps.

Yes, but even the Wright Field Spits also had 43 gallon tanks behind
the pilot, against 33 gallons in the wings (according to the A&AEE
report summary on MK210 in S&M). Wing tanks have always been a given
with me, as you & Guy have already specified Mk VIII airframes, which
had 25 gall leading-edge tanks, but as Quill states, the only
available space for major increases in internal fuel was behind the
pilot.

43 of _whose_ gallons?

I thought Imperial - were the 62.5 gallon Mustang underwing tanks used
in that trial US or Imperial? They look bigger than 44/45 gallon RAF
tanks.

They were the U.S. streamlined tanks. that would give each one 450#
of fuel. 62.5 Imperial, or 75 US.

It's worth pointing out that the Wright Field
modded aircraft used a somewhat smaller tank behind the cockpit, adn
stuck 150 U.S. Gallons of fuel under the wings, where CG wasn't an
issue. I'll admit to being a bit puzzled about why the RAF never went
for wing rack mounted drops on a Spit, until it occurred to me that
there isn't any significant amount of fuel in the wing, and teh
plumbing and pumping is going to be a royal pain.

I think some of this was dealt with with the Vc, in terms of structure
and stressing for under-wing stores. I think 44 gallon ferry tanks
should be a possibility.

The stressing was there, the plumbing wasn't. It's not 100% sinple to
rig up a drop tank. You need the fuel line, of course, but also a
pressure source to force the fuel out of the tanks when you want them
to feed, and some sort of overflow vant to deal with a tank being
pressurized, but not feeding - It adds up to a lot of plumbing,
really, sort of like taking an old carbureted car and rigging it up
for Bosch fuel injection.

Well, the elevator balance change will add to the stabilizer/elevator
combination area, and that's good. It also will reduce the control
forces for pitch, possibly to the point whre the controls are
over-balanced, and once you start waving the stick around, it wants to
amplify the action, and that's bad, leading to overcontrolling at
beast, and breaking the airplane at worst, especially with an airplane
that's already pretty light on the controls, like a Spit. The
bobweight tends to resist this overbalancing, at a cost in stick
forces. The thing is, the amount of influence from the bobweight
changes, like the elevator balance, with deflection.

Absolutely. Over-tightening in turns was an issue, and this could
only be evaded, not resolved, in a regime putting more weight behind
the CoG datum.

It's confusing,
and there's no intuitive answer other than make the tail bigger.
The same applies to the rudder, as well.

I'm going to give you those in new-production Mk VIIIs and IXs as a
priority. I took that as granted for the LR VIII with a 75 gallon
rear-fuselage tank.

Yes. They did, indeed solve the problems there.

For the LR Vc, we don't need as much in a rear tank, and we only need
it for 3 months or so as a proof of concept demonstrator before doing
it for real with the LR VIII.

I'd leave the Mk V and put the effort into the Mk VIII. In the 3
months that it would take to get the Mk VIIIs going, you can use the
heavies on targets in Western France that can be covered by the Mk Vs,
giving them some valuable experience. That's how we did it, anyway.

Granted. But none of this works without the hierarchy breathing fire
from the CAS on down for long-range escorts a la Arnold. Let me know
what you think could be done with a range of figures, from 4 inches
rearward travel on up, which seems a reasonable conjectural starting
point for me. Don't forget to use the Vc airframe as a reference
rather than a Vb in regard to landing gear.

I'll get round to it, after...

Demotion may follow as a consequence of disobeying my petty whims.
Now, about those performance figures for Sabre-engined Lancasters....

The Sabre engined Lanc is easy. Given a glide ratio of about 9:1, it
should be able to achieve a ferry range of about 10 miles. After
Bomber Command's experience with the Napier-[un]powered Hereford, the
only Motor-glider Medium Bomber, I don't think you could push that one
through. What might work, though, is after you retring the Lanc with
a bigger wing and 2-stage Merlins, you stick a set of Griffons on it.
Change the shape a bit, call it after some explorer, and sell it to
Coastal Command, if need be.


[beer]

After the Great Blaster Worm and Sobig Hydra chases I've had this
week, that's top priority. (Work real job, than travel up to the
North COuntry to help out some former clients)

No beer for bad AMRD's. Just explain the priorities to your clients
would you, there's a good chap?

Thus sayeth the Air Ministry - Sole Agents for Air.
Applications to be sent to Hercules Grytpype-Tynne, the Bladders Hot
Air Pipe.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster