your wish is my commandQuote:
Originally Posted by Bearman
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQxb-V-rZqA&feature=related]YouTube - F4U Corsair "Whistling Death" Flight Demonstration ![/ame]
Printable View
your wish is my commandQuote:
Originally Posted by Bearman
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQxb-V-rZqA&feature=related]YouTube - F4U Corsair "Whistling Death" Flight Demonstration ![/ame]
And the Sea Fury, I have seen one of these in flight at an airshow at Naromine I think. It looked so impressive in flight and when it landed and taxied down to the main terminal it's nose sat well above the cesnas and tiger moths. So powerful just to look at but the sound, did I mention that I love the round sound. It is written that "If aero engines where meant to be any configuration other than round, Pratt & Whitney would have made them that way". Having said that, thank god and the poms for the Merlin.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA69MsHfxuc&feature=related"]YouTube - Hawker Seafury AWESOME SOUND ![/ame]
The Sea Fury of course, does not have a Pratt & Whitney engine! Its engine was a Bristol Centaurus, a sleeve valve engine representing in some eyes the peak of aeroplane piston engine development.Quote:
Originally Posted by Landy110
John
Personally a Centaurus always sounds better than a Pratt & Whitney
there was an Iranian one in auckland for a few years
But the British Bristol Centaurus was bigger and better. If the Sea Fury had been an enemy fighter it probably would have been a match for the P51 Mustang (the early versions of which were British designed and built).Quote:
Originally Posted by Landy110
Garry
The earlier versions of ther Mustang were fitted with an American Allison engine and were a disappointment, it was only when fitted with the Merlin that the Mustang was any good.Quote:
Originally Posted by garrycol
well in concept, shoving a bomber motor into a fighter = FW190 which was a match for a P51 c and early P51d until they got the shark fin, then they had the edge. The XP51 was designed by a couple of German jews who were in Brittan and were given British citizenship then shipped to the US after the US army preordered all p40 production.Quote:
Originally Posted by garrycol
The fitting of the Merlin to the XP51 was done by a couple of Kiwis in Egypt. they had some Merlin parts but no Alison parts. Which then scared the pants off there pilots.
the XP51 was ( i think) 20 miles an hour faster than the p40 this was not due to there laminar flow wings but to the internal radiators and NAs???? Air intake. The only advantage a P51 had over a spit, was fuel capacity, speed in a dive and wing thickness ( well it was designed as a ground attack, not a dog fight)
The British Bristol Centaurus, is was and always will be a dog. The advantage of a sleeve valve motor was better air flow. This was good up until sodium filled valves became available, which allowed overlap in valve timing and (eventually multiple valves) which increased the performance of valve motors past that of the sleeve valve motor. Ease of manufacturing wasn’t in the sleeve valves favor either. The real disadvantage was cooling, having a sleeve and a liner meant that there was so much metal between the hot stuff and the cold stuff. Distortions of the sleeve and excessive wear of the sleeve both lent to in-flight failures with disastrous effect for such a heavy air craft with a high over the fence speed.
Its use was a political one, since all the other manufactures had been post war supported with other projects or products. Bristol had to be given some thing.
Besides all that, they are the absolute top of piston powered fighters. And to me the best sounding aircraft ever. uumm that would make a Bristol freighter twice as good ????
Correct, the XP 51 was fitted with an Allison. but since they were purchased and designed for the desert, as a replacement/ supplementing the p40. The British air ministry was over joyed with its extra speed. hidden radiators and the ability of the laminar flow wing to not fail under heavy buffeting ( IE bending when pulling out of a dive at low altitude)Quote:
Originally Posted by Bearman
For Europe the only offering the yanks had was the P47, so the poms brought them for Europe and Asia at a latter date
My old Dad was in the RAAF during WW2 and he reckoned the best Yank aircraft was the Lightning. Apparently it was the only one that could catch and blow the Zeke in level flight.Quote:
Originally Posted by 85 county
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bearman
to most ww2 service men any Japanese fighter was a zeke and any bomber was a betty.
But at the time of the first lightning’s arriving at cactus, yes, the p40s an aircobras couldn’t catch a zero. not that they were slow just its hard to overhaul another aircraft that’s 60 miles away when your speed advantage is only 10 miles an hour better ( 5 hours) and that’s on a good day.
Even the lightning’s with a 60mile an hour advantage would still need a hour to catch up. as soon as you hit the guns you lose about 40 miles an hour in air speed. any way the zero could just turn out of the way.
The real advantage with the lighting was when they followed the flying tiger’s tactics. fly CAP. Stay on station until the japs came in underneath. Then dive, shoot, maintain airspeed and clime. don’t dog fight a zero, only a corsair could do that. so the advantage of the lighting was it endurance and height. its ability to fly high for long periods of time waiting for the japs.
The practice at catus in the early days was to stack aircraft in the anticipation of the japs coming over. P39 then p40s and on top the lightning’s.
Neither the p40 or 39 had a hope in hell against a zero in this situation but then there job was to go for the bombers and the lightning’s to come down after the fighters.
RNZAF had p40s very early on at piva 1 as well as SBDs losers were high. 25 squadron SBDs losed 8 out of 18 crews I cant remember the P40 numbers. There was a bit of controversy when the lightings first arrived. As the green pilots ( AS they all were at that time) because the didn’t want to come down to the fight.
There is a story of some Kiwis (construction) who were on cactus from day one ( and had formed part of the line, and held it when the dogfaces dropped the ball and the marines had to disembark again) entering the lighting pilots mess and shooting the place up. This was a small gang of a bit more than a doz kiwis who run a saw mill off a jap tank in there own camp up the hill or the back of cactus. These guys were left to there own devices in the early days and survived on what they could liberate from the yanks, there nick names were the thieving “Keye whys” Nimitz even mentions them in his book as the single motivating factor for the lighting pilots.
Another story was one of these kiwis purchased a new air cobra from a yank for a bottle of whisky. He then had to steel the whisky from another yank but from the same tent. Purchase completed the Allison was striped out, disassembled and shipped back to NZ in crates marked Parson.
This motor ended up in a racing boat on a lake just out of nelson NZ. To much power it pulled the transom out so it was cut down to a V6. He died in about 2002 I think. The last sbd crew member is alive in Auckland and only stopped flying about 5 years ago.