New Airplanes in WWI (ISOT)

(alfred montestruc) wrote in message . com...
"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message ...
Lets suppose you get to give a single new airplane design and a single prototype
to a participant of World War One. You can offer the Austro-Hungarians the
design for a B-52 if you wish. However, that might prove a manufacturing
challenge to them (and one can only wonder about their supply of jet fuel).

Your goal is to change history. You can hope for a German victory or just that the
Allies win faster. It's up to you.

So, what design do you offer, remembering that this design must be manufactured, fueled,
and armed by the natives?

Probably a Japanese Zero. The Zero could land and take off on a
relitivly short grass runway as long as the ground is not soft. The
engine should be within their capacity to build, and that is the main
thing, a late 1930's evolved internal combustion aircraft engine with
lots of power.

The airframe had lots of wood and nothing very sophisticated in terms
of metal parts. The 20mm cannons would make it's firepower something
to be feared.

A Zero would be a terror of the sky in 1918, it can outrun and out
climb everything else. A small number with fuel and ammunition can
rout the other side's airforce and do nasty things in ground attack,
and recon especially given their speed and range.


-snip

problem: that aluminum wing spar

(Jack Linthicum) wrote in message . com...
(alfred montestruc) wrote in message . com...
"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message ...
Lets suppose you get to give a single new airplane design and a single prototype
to a participant of World War One. You can offer the Austro-Hungarians the
design for a B-52 if you wish. However, that might prove a manufacturing
challenge to them (and one can only wonder about their supply of jet fuel).

Your goal is to change history. You can hope for a German victory or just that the
Allies win faster. It's up to you.

So, what design do you offer, remembering that this design must be manufactured, fueled,
and armed by the natives?

Probably a Japanese Zero. The Zero could land and take off on a
relitivly short grass runway as long as the ground is not soft. The
engine should be within their capacity to build, and that is the main
thing, a late 1930's evolved internal combustion aircraft engine with
lots of power.

The airframe had lots of wood and nothing very sophisticated in terms
of metal parts. The 20mm cannons would make it's firepower something
to be feared.

A Zero would be a terror of the sky in 1918, it can outrun and out
climb everything else. A small number with fuel and ammunition can
rout the other side's airforce and do nasty things in ground attack,
and recon especially given their speed and range.


-snip

problem: that aluminum wing spar

What problem? German Navy Zepplins of WWI used aluminum for frames.

http://www.richthofen.com/dark_autumn/

---quote
As the war progressed, the German Navy and Army each built their own
mutually exclusive airship fleets. The Navy zeppelins however, were
usually of aluminum Zeppelin Company manufacture, whereas the Army
often used the wooden Shutte-Lanz or "SL" ships rejected by the Navy
due to their excessive weight.
---end quote

(alfred montestruc) wrote in message . com...
(Jack Linthicum) wrote in message . com...
(alfred montestruc) wrote in message . com...
"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message ...
Lets suppose you get to give a single new airplane design and a single prototype
to a participant of World War One. You can offer the Austro-Hungarians the
design for a B-52 if you wish. However, that might prove a manufacturing
challenge to them (and one can only wonder about their supply of jet fuel).

Your goal is to change history. You can hope for a German victory or just that the
Allies win faster. It's up to you.

So, what design do you offer, remembering that this design must be manufactured, fueled,
and armed by the natives?

Probably a Japanese Zero. The Zero could land and take off on a
relitivly short grass runway as long as the ground is not soft. The
engine should be within their capacity to build, and that is the main
thing, a late 1930's evolved internal combustion aircraft engine with
lots of power.

The airframe had lots of wood and nothing very sophisticated in terms
of metal parts. The 20mm cannons would make it's firepower something
to be feared.

A Zero would be a terror of the sky in 1918, it can outrun and out
climb everything else. A small number with fuel and ammunition can
rout the other side's airforce and do nasty things in ground attack,
and recon especially given their speed and range.


-snip

problem: that aluminum wing spar

What problem? German Navy Zepplins of WWI used aluminum for frames.

http://www.richthofen.com/dark_autumn/

---quote
As the war progressed, the German Navy and Army each built their own
mutually exclusive airship fleets. The Navy zeppelins however, were
usually of aluminum Zeppelin Company manufacture, whereas the Army
often used the wooden Shutte-Lanz or "SL" ships rejected by the Navy
due to their excessive weight.
---end quote

True, little thin pieces of aluminum, not a full depth wing spar,
which required a special new aluminum developed by Sumitomo. In later
years the few Zeros still extant had this spart crystalize and fail.

"It was the first aircraft credited with using wing spars that
provide high strength, but were constructed of light weight aluminum.
" http://www.pacificwrecks.com/reviews/roaring_a6m5.html

(Jack Linthicum) wrote in message . com...
(alfred montestruc) wrote in message . com...
(Jack Linthicum) wrote in message . com...
(alfred montestruc) wrote in message . com...
"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message ...
Lets suppose you get to give a single new airplane design and a single prototype
to a participant of World War One. You can offer the Austro-Hungarians the
design for a B-52 if you wish. However, that might prove a manufacturing
challenge to them (and one can only wonder about their supply of jet fuel).

Your goal is to change history. You can hope for a German victory or just that the
Allies win faster. It's up to you.

So, what design do you offer, remembering that this design must be manufactured, fueled,
and armed by the natives?

Probably a Japanese Zero. The Zero could land and take off on a
relitivly short grass runway as long as the ground is not soft. The
engine should be within their capacity to build, and that is the main
thing, a late 1930's evolved internal combustion aircraft engine with
lots of power.

The airframe had lots of wood and nothing very sophisticated in terms
of metal parts. The 20mm cannons would make it's firepower something
to be feared.

A Zero would be a terror of the sky in 1918, it can outrun and out
climb everything else. A small number with fuel and ammunition can
rout the other side's airforce and do nasty things in ground attack,
and recon especially given their speed and range.


-snip

problem: that aluminum wing spar

What problem? German Navy Zepplins of WWI used aluminum for frames.

http://www.richthofen.com/dark_autumn/

---quote
As the war progressed, the German Navy and Army each built their own
mutually exclusive airship fleets. The Navy zeppelins however, were
usually of aluminum Zeppelin Company manufacture, whereas the Army
often used the wooden Shutte-Lanz or "SL" ships rejected by the Navy
due to their excessive weight.
---end quote

True, little thin pieces of aluminum, not a full depth wing spar,

Sure they could. Aluminum extrusion was invented before 1905.

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0102/fig2.gif

that timeline GIF file is from this website.

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM...ders-0102.html



which required a special new aluminum developed by Sumitomo. In later
years the few Zeros still extant had this spart crystalize and fail.

"It was the first aircraft credited with using wing spars that
provide high strength, but were constructed of light weight aluminum.
" http://www.pacificwrecks.com/reviews/roaring_a6m5.html

I think others have shown that statement to be in error.

"alfred montestruc" wrote in message
om...
"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message
...
Lets suppose you get to give a single new airplane design and a single
prototype
to a participant of World War One. You can offer the Austro-Hungarians
the
design for a B-52 if you wish. However, that might prove a
manufacturing
challenge to them (and one can only wonder about their supply of jet
fuel).

Your goal is to change history. You can hope for a German victory or
just that the
Allies win faster. It's up to you.

So, what design do you offer, remembering that this design must be
manufactured, fueled,
and armed by the natives?

Probably a Japanese Zero. The Zero could land and take off on a
relitivly short grass runway as long as the ground is not soft. The
engine should be within their capacity to build, and that is the main
thing, a late 1930's evolved internal combustion aircraft engine with
lots of power.


It wasnt, the engine was at least 2 generations beyond
anything achievable in 1918.

Keith




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In article ,
Keith Willshaw wrote:

/Mitsubishi Zero../

It wasnt, the engine was at least 2 generations beyond
anything achievable in 1918.

I'd thought of the Ishak, but again the engine was well beyond anything
possible in 1918. Best engines available were the Cosmos (later Bristol)
Jupiter and the Napier Lion - hurrying these along by a few metallurgical
nudges might have been possible, and it's not too much of a leap from the
technology required for those to being able to build the Curtis V12
of the middle 1920s - which leads to my suggestion:

The Fairey Fox

2 seat light bomber, first flew in IIRC 1926, when it was close on 50 mph
faster than any fighter. Carried a decent load for its time (1.5 times or
so the DH9A load, I think) and was also available as a heavy 2-seat
fighter. Trying to deal with Foxes in 1917 or 18 with the fighters
available then would be like trying to stop Canberras with 1944 fighters.
Just not on. I'd suggest the Fox as one possibility. Another might be
one of the big 1920s commercial transports plus gliders (the Lion, Jupiter
or Curtis V12) could give enough power for glider tows. That would allow
rapid re-supply of troops after advances across no-mans land (this was
being done with smaller aeroplanes and parachute drops by 1918) and
would mean that you could provide recently-advances troops with artillery
pieces, heavy machine guns, wire entanglements and probably even light
armoured vehicles - tankettes - by glider before the enemy could arrange
a counter-attack. That would probably have the greatest effect of all.
Perhaps something like a more powerfully-engined Vickers Victoria or
similar?

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
"Time has stopped, says the Black Lion clock
and eternity has begun" (Dylan Thomas)

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message ...
"alfred montestruc" wrote in message
om...
"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message
...
Lets suppose you get to give a single new airplane design and a single
prototype
to a participant of World War One. You can offer the Austro-Hungarians
the
design for a B-52 if you wish. However, that might prove a
manufacturing
challenge to them (and one can only wonder about their supply of jet
fuel).

Your goal is to change history. You can hope for a German victory or
just that the
Allies win faster. It's up to you.

So, what design do you offer, remembering that this design must be
manufactured, fueled,
and armed by the natives?

Probably a Japanese Zero. The Zero could land and take off on a
relitivly short grass runway as long as the ground is not soft. The
engine should be within their capacity to build, and that is the main
thing, a late 1930's evolved internal combustion aircraft engine with
lots of power.


It wasnt, the engine was at least 2 generations beyond
anything achievable in 1918.

Hogwash.

Any IC engine that I can give a WWI machine shop the plans for that
does not use late 20th century solid state electronics can be build in
WWI so long as the alloys specified are available. Very little
changed in basic machine shop technology from the lat 19th century
till the introduction of electronic chips.

The issue is were the alloys used in the engine available in the
1914-1918 era, or were reasonable substitutes available. If yes, then
it can be built.

Point of fact, I am very sure that alloys needed either existed, or
reasonable substitutes did.

Note that commonly in design of machines where the engineer wants to
allow the potential builder to substitute materials when that
originally specified is not available or the price rises, will spec
the required material properties like hardness, and yield strength and
minimum percent elongation in a tensile test, a range of chemistry, a
specification of acceptable processes (forging, casting, hot or
cold-rolling), and sometimes Charpy impact tests and sometimes more
exotic tests to prove the quality of the material.

Sometimes one goes whole hog and specifies the chemistry of the steel
and tolerences on that chemistry, and all the processes used to make
it from the steel mill on.

I work as a mechanical engineer and have designed many machines, and
reviewed the designs of many more.

Basically your statement is flat wrong, given the plans for the engine
and material specifications for the steels and other materials used in
the engine, which would fit in a shoebox and weigh very little, any
industrial society in WWI era could build them.

"alfred montestruc" wrote in message
om...
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...


Hogwash.

Any IC engine that I can give a WWI machine shop the plans for that
does not use late 20th century solid state electronics can be build in
WWI so long as the alloys specified are available. Very little
changed in basic machine shop technology from the lat 19th century
till the introduction of electronic chips.


Apart from the alloys available, lubricants, cooling systems
and ignition systems

The fact is you couldnt get the materials to manufacture the
engine from, most engines of WW1 were cast iron, the
lubricants were simple mineral oils or vegetable oils,
cooling was a major problem , hence the rotary engine
and ignition systems were extremely crude

The issue is were the alloys used in the engine available in the
1914-1918 era, or were reasonable substitutes available. If yes, then
it can be built.

Point of fact, I am very sure that alloys needed either existed, or
reasonable substitutes did.


Evidence please

Note that commonly in design of machines where the engineer wants to
allow the potential builder to substitute materials when that
originally specified is not available or the price rises, will spec
the required material properties like hardness, and yield strength and
minimum percent elongation in a tensile test, a range of chemistry, a
specification of acceptable processes (forging, casting, hot or
cold-rolling), and sometimes Charpy impact tests and sometimes more
exotic tests to prove the quality of the material.


None of those tests were in common use in WW1, steel production
was still more of an art than a science.

Sometimes one goes whole hog and specifies the chemistry of the steel
and tolerences on that chemistry, and all the processes used to make
it from the steel mill on.


They didnt have gas chromatographs in 1914

I work as a mechanical engineer and have designed many machines, and
reviewed the designs of many more.


So have I

Basically your statement is flat wrong, given the plans for the engine
and material specifications for the steels and other materials used in
the engine, which would fit in a shoebox and weigh very little, any
industrial society in WWI era could build them.

Yet first rate engineers like Harry Ricardo were severely constrained
in their engine designs by the technology available. Some of his designs
could not be manufactured until the 1940's, his sleeve valve engines
required techniques that were still difficult to master in 1939

Keith

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message ...
"alfred montestruc" wrote in message
om...
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...


Hogwash.

Any IC engine that I can give a WWI machine shop the plans for that
does not use late 20th century solid state electronics can be build in
WWI so long as the alloys specified are available. Very little
changed in basic machine shop technology from the lat 19th century
till the introduction of electronic chips.


Apart from the alloys available, lubricants, cooling systems
and ignition systems

The fact is you couldnt get the materials to manufacture the
engine from, most engines of WW1 were cast iron,

Silly them.

the
lubricants were simple mineral oils or vegetable oils,

some vegetable oils are very good lubricants, they are just expensive.

cooling was a major problem , hence the rotary engine
and ignition systems were extremely crude

The issue is were the alloys used in the engine available in the
1914-1918 era, or were reasonable substitutes available. If yes, then
it can be built.

Point of fact, I am very sure that alloys needed either existed, or
reasonable substitutes did.


Evidence please

Artillery gun tubes of that era. They were (obviously) subjected to
high stresses for many thousands of repititions. Obviously the
pressures in a gun tube near the breech during fireing of an artillery
gun are much larger than in an IC engine that has a peak compression
ratio of 10:1 at most.

Imagine if you will I take say a 75mm cannon, hone the bore free of
rifling, then cut it into 6" section to make cylinders for a radial
engine. I can make the engine block out of a ductile iron casting,
the pistons, rods, and shaft from forgings of the same alloy as the
gun tube is made from.

I can then machine fins on the outside of the cylinders and bolt them
to the block. See any showstoppers?

This would not be the way to duplicate the engine of a zero, but the
alloys of the cylinders, crankshafts, pistons and so on cannot have
been vastly superior to those of gun alloys, else one would have seen
a revolution in artillery technology in WWII, and that did not happen,
and little improvement in basic artillery gun tube materials has been
made since the very early part of the 20th century till now. As in
WWI gun tubes are not hopelessly obsolete.





Note that commonly in design of machines where the engineer wants to
allow the potential builder to substitute materials when that
originally specified is not available or the price rises, will spec
the required material properties like hardness, and yield strength and
minimum percent elongation in a tensile test, a range of chemistry, a
specification of acceptable processes (forging, casting, hot or
cold-rolling), and sometimes Charpy impact tests and sometimes more
exotic tests to prove the quality of the material.


None of those tests were in common use in WW1,

Most were available, including tensile testing (quite old) and Charpy
impact testing which became popular soon after the Titanic sank.


steel production
was still more of an art than a science.

Sometimes one goes whole hog and specifies the chemistry of the steel
and tolerences on that chemistry, and all the processes used to make
it from the steel mill on.


They didnt have gas chromatographs in 1914

One does not use a gas chromatagraph to determine the chemistry of
steel, even now. In modern times several methods are used, a popular
one being Optical Emission Spectroscopy, but in those days one kept
track of what one put into the mix and you could also get a read on
Carbon and Sulfer content by combustion analysis using a bomb
calorimeter IIRC, and doing tests on the combustion products.

http://www.materials.co.uk/chem.htm




I work as a mechanical engineer and have designed many machines, and
reviewed the designs of many more.


So have I

Basically your statement is flat wrong, given the plans for the engine
and material specifications for the steels and other materials used in
the engine, which would fit in a shoebox and weigh very little, any
industrial society in WWI era could build them.

Yet first rate engineers like Harry Ricardo were severely constrained
in their engine designs by the technology available.

But if the design and a working example is handed to him?


Some of his designs
could not be manufactured until the 1940's, his sleeve valve engines
required techniques that were still difficult to master in 1939


As I recall the radial engines we are discussing use pretty standard
cam actuated cylinder head valves.

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"alfred montestruc" wrote in message
om...
"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message
...
Lets suppose you get to give a single new airplane design and a single
prototype
to a participant of World War One. You can offer the
Austro-Hungarians
the
design for a B-52 if you wish. However, that might prove a
manufacturing
challenge to them (and one can only wonder about their supply of jet
fuel).

Your goal is to change history. You can hope for a German victory or
just that the
Allies win faster. It's up to you.

So, what design do you offer, remembering that this design must be
manufactured, fueled,
and armed by the natives?

Probably a Japanese Zero. The Zero could land and take off on a
relitivly short grass runway as long as the ground is not soft. The
engine should be within their capacity to build, and that is the main
thing, a late 1930's evolved internal combustion aircraft engine with
lots of power.


It wasnt, the engine was at least 2 generations beyond
anything achievable in 1918.

How about a Boeing P-26 Peashooter?