Hi John;
Hope all's been well with you and yours.

The pilot killed diving the P40 was Pete Adkinson of the AVG. Erik told me
Pete went up one morning to "wake up the field". Pete climbed to 18K and
entered a split s from cruise airspeed.
Erik said he heard a sound like he had never heard before coming from a 40
in a dive. There was a muffled explosion and the airplane disintegrated
killing Pete instantly.
Erik was the investigating officer on the crash. There was no over speed.
The prop was in relatively high pitch but not at the stops.
Erik surmised that Pete had over redlined the airplane (the P40 was redlined
at 480 on this model)
What probably happened was that some of the cowl fasteners opened, letting
in high velocity air that literally blew the bird apart, at least this was
what Erik said in the final report.
I think he was right.
Pete most likely got the tip rotation plane velocity coupled with the
forward velocity vector supersonic. That would account for the high pitched
moaning sound heard on the ground.
There wasn't much left, but Erik noted no thrown rods.

About outdiving the Zero in the P40. Could be done easily. Saburo Sakai was
a member of the Fellowship. He told me the Zeke's ailerons froze solid above
300. Chennault's tactics although never to my knowledge used in China
against the Zero, were to dive in fast on the nip fighters, blow through
their pursuit curve inside guns range and blast away through the overshoot,
then dive, gaining energy and climb back to altitude outside the fight.

The new gal on the Thunderbirds is Major Nicole Malachowski.She's on the
right wing. F15 instructor, and VERY good stick!! We're all wishing her the
best of luck.
Dudley



"Big John" wrote in message
...

Dudley

I've heard nothing about the broad with the jocks in T-birds. Have you
heard any feed back?

As a new 2nd Lt I took a P-40N to almost 25K and rolled over with full
power straight down. Pulled out about 7K and never came close to any
mach one.

Looking back stupid, stupid, atupid.

I had heard you could out dive a Zero and wanted to check it out.

Still recovering from shoulder operation.

Big John
`````````````````````````````````````````````````` `

On Wed, 17 May 2006 14:07:29 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:


"Boris" wrote in message
roups.com...
Do any readers know what particular plane in World War 2,
was rumored to have broke the sound barrier ?

I might be perhaps unique on the group to answer this question, as I had a
P51D out to .75 during an O2 failure some years back. During the post
event
investigation with some friends from North American , this subject came up
several times and was openly discussed.
First of all, no prop fighter ever made it out to mach 1.

I had a friend, Herb Fisher, who did high speed dive testing using various
prop configurations, in a P47 Thunderbolt. Herb didn't find a prop that
would make it through the drag rise between .90 and mach 1. Several types
of
prop were tried. All failed. I had another good friend, Erik Shilling, who
flew with Chennault in China, who had his best friend die diving a P40
when
the prop tips went into transonic shock.

The Brits tried it at Boscombe Down with Spits after the war. Same result.
As the prop tips entered critical mach through tangental velocity, the
drag
curve became intensive. That, coupled with propeller shock denied all
propeller driven fighters supersonic flight.
As for the jets;

Much has been written pertaining to the early German jets. One German
pilot
(Hans Mutke)swore he exceeded mach 1 in the ME262. Investigation revealed
he
honestly believed this.
What happened to him was that his aircraft had exceeded the pressure rise
in
his pitot system as he was diving and he misread the instruments. US
engineers have absolutely proven that the 262's basic design was not
conducive to supersonic flight, again due to drag rise.
As for my experience in the 51, I had a walking stick, a potential
overspeed
condition, and compressibility onset. I barely made it out alive, and I
would never want to do it again :-)
George Welch was the first to go Mach 1 in the prototype F86. Yeager
followed in level flight several days later.
Dudley Henriques