The Revolution Will Not Be Televised wrote:

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 09:16:49 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

The Stirling III and Halifax III still seem to have a major
differential in terms of operational ceiling, which I can only put
down to structure weight and the wing.

snip

A better operational ceiling comparison would be between the Stirling III
and Halifax II, as the latter has the original 98(?) foot wing (some
sources claim that early Halifax IIIs had the original wing; I don't have
enough info to say). The Halifax II is still better but not much, and I
expect the difference is largely due to the lower weight, and maybe the
drag of the Stirling's nose turret.

[quick driveby]

I sure hope not. I had enough experience with those living in East Oakland in
the early '80s (per capita murder capital of the U.S. for several years).
OTOH, they had generally execrable aim, which made the intended targets
relatively safe but put the innocent bystanders at risk. The closest one I
was exposed to was at a distance of about 50 feet, but fortunately the shooter
was facing away from me and firing into a non-moving car with two guys sitting
in it, so there was little chance of me getting hit by the odd round. He and
his homeys pulled up in a stolen van, he jumped out the side door and opened
fire, but only managed to crease one guy in the arm and IIRR the other got hit
by some flying glass from one of the windows. I later counted only nine
rounds that hit the car (semi-auto machine pistol of unknown type, fired from
the hip), distributed all over it (two just creased the roof), from a distance
of about 5 ft. Pathetic aim, especially considering that these guys were
likely to return the favor. And all because the shooter's sister had taken
offense at something one of the guys in the car had said to her an hour or two
earlier.


The early Halifax II's (i.e. those produced throughout 1941-42) had
the Mk I nose turret, and clocked in at 34,980 lbs with an auw of
60,000lbs with a 98 ft 8in wingspan. The Stirling III seemed to come
in at something like 42,000lbs with auw's somewhere over 60,000lbs
(figures I have vary between 61,000 and up to 70,000lbs), so there's a
couple of tons of weight difference before the operational load gets
included.

I've often wondered at that 42,000 lb. figure, but I think Geoffrey provided
some numbers earlier in the thread.

The Stirling Mk III couldn't get above 17,000 feet (a couple of
thousand feet below routine operational heights for the Halifax), and
had a lower rate of climb than the Halifax. Early Halifax Mk IIIs did
have the shorter-span wings before they got the extended 103 ft 8in
wingspan.

So I'd like to know how high the Halifax IIIs could operate with the short
wings.

Guy