The Swearingen-TEB incident: control issues with twins

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 18:26:50 -0700, "Matt Barrow"
wrote:

The same guy (Ted Smith ?) who designed the Rockwell/AeroCommander series,
now called the Twin Commander.

Don't know about Ted Smith, the information I have, which was compiled
by Joseph Baugher and posted to the internet years ago is as follows:

Requests for proposals were widely circulated throughout the industry.
Proposals were received from Martin, Douglas, Stearman, and North
American. The proposal of the Glenn L. Martin company of Middle
River, Maryland (near Baltimore) was assigned the company designation
of Model 179. Martin assigned 26-year old aeronautical engineer
Peyton M. Magruder as Project Engineer for the Model 179. Magruder
and his team chose a low-drag profile fuselage with a circular cross
section. Since the Army wanted a high maximum speed but hadn't
specified any limitation on landing speed, the team selected a
high-mounted wing with a wingspan of only 65 feet. Its small area
gave a wing loading of more than 50 pounds per square foot. The wing
was shoulder-mounted to leave the central fuselage free for bomb
stowage. The wings were unusual in possessing no fillets. The
engines were to be a pair of 1850 hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800-5 Double
Wasp air-cooled radials, which were the most powerful engines
available at the time. Two-speed mechanical superchargers were
installed in order to maintain engine power up to medium altitudes,
and ejector exhausts vented on each side of the closely-cowled
nacelles. The engines drove four-bladed 13 foot 6 inch Curtiss
Electric propellers. Large spinners were fitted to the propellers,
and root cuffs were added to aid in engine cooling.

I archived a number of his aircraft development histories, they are
comprehensive and dry, tending to the technical side with long lists
of serial numbers for respective models and where each was deployed.

Corky Scott

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 19:09:55 -0700, "Matt Barrow"
wrote:

And IIRC, the B-26 drew mostly low level attack missions which drew all
sorts of fire, most of it more accurate than the high level bombing!?!?

The B-26 crews that were going to Europe initially trained for
extremely low level missions. At the time, the only information
available was from the Pacific Theater and low level missions there
were relatively successful with acceptable casualties.

But the Japanese did not have the concentration, training or accuracy
of the German AA crews. In the initial sortie from England against a
Netherlands target, every single bomber was shot down by AA fire. It
wasn't a huge flight, I think 6 or 7 took off, but the only surviver
was one bomber that turned back over the Channel due to some technical
problem, or he probably would have been shot down too.

This catastrophy caused the B-26 group to halt all operations and
rethink the mission. They spent several months retraining at medium
height, which required the bombardiers actually learn how to use
bombsights, and returned to combat flying above the level of accuracy
of the small caliber AA guns.

Corky Scott

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 22:16:51 -0700, "Jay Beckman"
wrote:

"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:I4une.4992$Sl5.2242@trndny08...

snippage

"My father worked on the Martin assembly line in Baltimore."

Hence the B26's other nickname: "The Baltimore Wh*re"

;O)

The various nicknames such as the above "Baltimore Whore" and"The
Flying Prostitute", referred to the airplanes ability to seemingly
"fly without any visible means of support", due to it's
extraordinarily short pair of wings. :-D

Corky Scott

"Corky Scott" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 18:26:50 -0700, "Matt Barrow"
wrote:

The same guy (Ted Smith ?) who designed the Rockwell/AeroCommander
series,
now called the Twin Commander.

Don't know about Ted Smith, the information I have, which was compiled
by Joseph Baugher and posted to the internet years ago is as follows:


http://www.twincommander.com/aero_design.htm

The story of the man begins with Ted Smith, and the dream starts when, as
project engineer at the Douglas Aircraft Company during the Second World
War, Smith envisioned the day when peace would come and the airplane would
fill its promise of usefulness to man as a transportation vehicle. The
airlines had already developed a growing network of schedules and yet the
air transport system, as it was and as it showed signs of developing, did
not provide for the many needs of business and individual travelers whose
requirements placed a premium on going between origin and destination
(frequently not on the airline map) and doing so with all the convenience,
flexibility and time saving that only a privately owned aircraft could
accomplish. At the same time, comfort, dependability, and safety must be the
ultimate that the aviation industry could achieve.

("Matt Barrow" wrote)
http://www.twincommander.com/aero_design.htm

The story of the man begins with Ted Smith, and the dream starts when, as
project engineer at the Douglas Aircraft Company during the Second World
War, Smith envisioned the day when peace would come and the airplane would
fill its promise of usefulness to man as a transportation vehicle.


(Posted this last week in another thread)
OT - Speaking of Aero Commanders, I saw the Pella Windows corporate jet a
few weeks ago at the Pella, Iowa airport open house. Talked with the crew.
It's an Aero Commander jet. Israeli company converts them - see link.

http://tinyurl.com/a7duk
Israel IAI-1124A Westwind


Montblack

Morgans wrote:

The thieves are now having to put the parts back together. Problem is, that
it is hard to reassemble a prop from all of the 6"" x 8" x 10" chunks that
fit in the lunch boxes. That's just the prop. How about the engine case,
and tires? g

Naw ... They just carried *really big* lunch boxes. :-)

George Patterson
Why do men's hearts beat faster, knees get weak, throats become dry,
and they think irrationally when a woman wears leather clothing?
Because she smells like a new truck.

On Thu, 2 Jun 2005 06:59:39 -0700, "Matt Barrow"
wrote:

The story of the man begins with Ted Smith, and the dream starts when, as
project engineer at the Douglas Aircraft Company during the Second World
War, Smith envisioned the day when peace would come and the airplane would
fill its promise of usefulness to man as a transportation vehicle.

The B-26 Marauder was designed by the Martin Company, not Douglas.
Douglas designed the "A"-26 Invader, which replaced the B-26 by the
end of the war.

Two VERY different airplanes from two different (and competing)
aircraft companies.

Corky Scott

Corky,

Well put.

The B-26 was the first high wing loading airplane the Army used and it
demonstrated that the training procedures in use were way out of date
and dangerous (as I recall, the wing loading is today considered no big
deal - about the same as a Cessna 310 - but then it was completely
new). Once the training got figured out, the airplane did extremely
well, its speed made it valuable in combat. Naturally, having a nasty
(and undeserved) initial reputation, it never really got over it and
the Army dumped it, but after flying the kiddy car B-25, which is so
very easy to fly, it's understandable why it was kept and the -26
dumped once peace rolled around.

The horror stories of single engine handling ran around the block
pretty fast, and were naturally exaggerated by pilots who weren't so
hot in the first place and had to blame their own shortcomings on the
airplane. With appropriate training, the airplane flew as well as
anything else on one engine, however, Vmc was so high that there were
circumstances (as with the B-25) where power on the good engine had to
be reduced to maintain control of the airplane.

A major part of the problems with the B-26 were due to the Curtiss
Electric props, Prop malfunctions killed a lot of people and now the
FAA will not approve the electrics on the remaining airplanes that had
them, they have to use hydraulic props.

Another challenge was that the generator switches were located behind
the pilot's head (who designed switch positions back then?). If you
forgot to turn on the generators (and many did because of the switch
position and macho-posturing pilots who didn't use checklists), you had
enough juice in the batteries to start, taxi out and takeoff. At that
point the batteries went flat and the props ran away (went flat), which
was nearly unrecoverable.

All the best,
Rick

Matt,

You sure it was Ted Smith? For some reason I was thinking he was at
Consolidated and heavily involved with the B-24 design. Not sure.

He had a thing for outward retracting landing gear...

All the best,
Rick

Matt Barrow wrote:

The story of the man begins with Ted Smith, and the dream starts when, as
project engineer at the Douglas Aircraft Company during the Second World
War, ....

If he worked for Douglas, he had nothing to do with the design of the Martin
Marauder (the B-26). He may well have been involved with the design of the
Douglas A-26.

One cause of confusion is that three aircraft have been designated the B-26. The
Marauder was the first. After all of the Marauders were retired, a version of
the Douglas A-26 was produced as a bomber and was called (at least by some) a
B-26. Later, the USAF changed the numbering scheme and a jet bomber got the B-26
moniker in the 50s. Since the USAF has restarted the numbering yet again (with
the B-1), it's possible that we might see yet another B-26 in the future.

George Patterson
Why do men's hearts beat faster, knees get weak, throats become dry,
and they think irrationally when a woman wears leather clothing?
Because she smells like a new truck.