Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote in news:vb-
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
"Blueskies" wrote in
. net:

LeVier did a lot of the high mach number dive tests in the 38,
and
there definitely was a compressibility problem, mach tuck; the
whole
works. I know they added speed brakes but not sure at exactly
what
stage. The engine rotation switch was early on in the program
according to Ethell; I believe in the YP38 stage before the
first
production run. If I'm not mistaken, the high mach dives came
after
the switch but I'm not at all certain of that.

--
Dudley Henriques
All the -38s sold to England had same rotation direction engines
on
both sides all the way through. Just another odd thing...


Are you sure about that?


Bertie
I heard the same thing. The Brits raised hell about what they
considered
a high degree of possibility for unnecessary maintainence due to
the
handed engines. On the practical side, the Brits had ordered a ton
of
P40's which used the V1710 Allison with a right handed prop. The
word
we
got was that the brits wanted the Allison's on the 38's to be
interchangeable with the P40 to cut down on cost.

Found some info on that in an old book I have. Apparently there
were
a
handful of unblown 38s delivered to the RAF with both engines RH
but
they had a lot of problems and the remainder all had contra
rotating
engines.


Bertie
That's right on the Turbo Chargers. The Brits believed they wouldn't
be
fighting at the altitudes where the Turbos were an advantage.


According to the ariticle on the website they were inherited from a
French order and the French wanted them without to avoid delays in
deliveries.

Bertie
That one's new to me, but highly likely :-))


Don't know a whole lot about WW2 aviation. just peripheral stuff,
really. You'd be a lifetime at figuring out the whole mess.

Bertie
I agree. The history stuff is interesting but highly speculative to say
the least. Sorting it out can try your patience for sure. I remember
Bader telling me about one "historian" who cornered him one evening and
proceeded to TELL him about an air battle he had been in personally.
When Bader tried to correct the man on a certain detail he personally
had experienced, the "historian" argued with him that he (Bader) was
wrong! :-))

--
Dudley Henriques