dogfight

Morgans wrote:
"Dudley Henriques" wrote

The 51 was a fine airplane, and it worked well at all altitudes but it was
nearing the end of its run at the end of the war.
I loved the airplane and flew it often but for me, flying the F8F Bearcat
one sunny afternoon in December, redefined the meaning of the term "prop
fighter performance".
In my opinion, if the war had lingered on and the Bear had been mass
produced for both theaters, the F8F would have not seen its match
anywhere.

Interesting. I had never heard that expressed, before.

Would the F8F had the legs to do the long range bomber escort missions?

How about top speeds; was it as fast, or faster than the 51?
The Bear had VERY short legs and even with the drop tank would never
have made it as a long range fighter.
In close, intercept, and shoot it down fast was the Bear's prime
intended function.

--
Dudley Henriques

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:07:48 -0500, "Morgans" wrote:

Here's a pic of the Junior/Malmo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:B...d-edna.arp.jpg

I have often wondered why that configuration is not more popular. I've not
flown one, but it would seem like the visibility while flying level, turning
or anytime would be superior to high or low wings, than either upward or
downward views, depending whether it is high or low wing.

Cockpit access issues and CG, would be my guesses. Kind of an awkward clamber
into the cockpit, without even a wing to stand on and nothing above you to grab
onto. Imagine trying to get into the cockpit while wearing a skirt...that was a
consideration, back in the '50s and '60s. Then again, I thought this was once
produced in Scotland, too...:-)

CG-wise, it lacks growth capacity. If you hang a bigger engine on the front,
you can't balance it by shifting the cabin back slightly because the wing spar
passes directly behind the pilot's shoulders.

Years and years ago, I looked into a VW-powered homebuilt with a similar
configuration, the HAPI Cygnet SF-2A. Geeze, I still even have the info pack.
It says, "The Cygnet is designed to use a 60HP VW engine. Anything larger will
weigh too much..." Of course, HAPI was also in the VW engine business.

Back to my first point, the brochure show a woman...in jeans...climbing in. No
way she could do it in a skirt; the cockpit side rails is pretty high.

Ron Wanttaja

Ron Wanttaja schrieb:

Cockpit access issues and CG, would be my guesses.

I don't think so. Cockpit access is no issue, and the pilot sits pretty
near the CG. But if you take a closer look, the pilot's sight is not
that great, either, at least if you believe that the pilot should be
able to look over his shoulder before turning:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Bo208C_HB-UPF_68.jpg

The main disadvantage is the wing spar which prevents a reasonable and
easy accessible luggage room behind the pilot and which limits the whole
design to two seaters.

Well said...

The Mustang was (is) a fine mount, and while it shares the mantra as
the "best" fighter with others, each fighter had to be flown in it's
design environment.

It was best (designed to be) long range fighter ESCORT, which it
excelled at.

Down low and in the dirt, many other planes could out gun, out turn,
out climb and out dive it..

One of the best tactics for a P-51 pilot if caught down low was to
get outta dodge.. Some of the enemy pilots called them "runstangs"
(I forget the translation)

But 15000 ft, while other planes started to wheeze.. the stang could
still breathe, and , clearly in it's design element, was the ride to
have...up at that alt....

As a "dogfighter" ? (within the definition) .. nope...

Dave


On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:44:56 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:

wrote in news:4a4b3843-18c7-4881-b8b8-
:



I don't know if there were any higher performance versions of the
ME-109,


There were. there were long wing variants built later in the war
specificially for high altitude ops.

but the TA-152 could outperform the Mustang. It was a souped
up version of the FW-190.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Ta_152


Well, the figures don't tell the whole story. while speed and rate of
clinmb certainly would have given an advantage, as a package, though,
it's much harder to define what makes one airplane superior to
another.Performance can be a lot more than numbers at the end of the
day...


For instance, there was a loonie Swedish count in the 1960s who
symathised with the Biafrans in their war of secession from Nigeria (
the short story here is that oil was discovered in Biafra and they
diecided to take the money and run, having been a seperate nation inthe
first place, only paired up with the rest of Nigeria by arbitrary
colonialist redefintion of nations)
Anyhoo. this guy and some of his buds gathered up the best airplanes
available to the, the Bolkow Junior, manufactured in Sweden as the Malmö
a midget little box of a thing with a Cont A75 in the nose,put some hard
points on it and off to Biafra they went. They proceeded to decimate the
Nigerian Air Force, which at that time had the very latest Russian
stuff, Mig 21s, 17s, etc by flying at treetop level to their bases and
launching their little match head missiles at them while they were still
on the grond. they'd then race back to their own lines at treetop level
at 75 knots and any Migs that got airborne found it impossible to get a
bead on them.
Eventaully, all of these mercenaries were killed (IIRC, there were
another half dozen airplanes and pilots brought it over time, also lost)
but the damage they inflicted on the vastly superior forces of the other
side were astonishing.
Just as well the NAF didn't have 150s, eh?

OK, this is an odd example, but it goes to show in a bizarre kind of way
that numbers in a performance column don't tell the whole story.


Bertie

Dave wrote in
:

Well said...

The Mustang was (is) a fine mount, and while it shares the mantra as
the "best" fighter with others, each fighter had to be flown in it's
design environment.

It was best (designed to be) long range fighter ESCORT, which it
excelled at.

Down low and in the dirt, many other planes could out gun, out turn,
out climb and out dive it..

One of the best tactics for a P-51 pilot if caught down low was to
get outta dodge.. Some of the enemy pilots called them "runstangs"
(I forget the translation)

But 15000 ft, while other planes started to wheeze.. the stang could
still breathe, and , clearly in it's design element, was the ride to
have...up at that alt....

As a "dogfighter" ? (within the definition) .. nope...


I'd love to find out, but basically we're arguing about which supermodel
we'd sleep with, of course.


Bertie

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 17:16:28 -0500, Dudley Henriques
wrote:

Morgans wrote:
"Dudley Henriques" wrote

The 51 was a fine airplane, and it worked well at all altitudes but it was
nearing the end of its run at the end of the war.
I loved the airplane and flew it often but for me, flying the F8F Bearcat
one sunny afternoon in December, redefined the meaning of the term "prop
fighter performance".
In my opinion, if the war had lingered on and the Bear had been mass
produced for both theaters, the F8F would have not seen its match
anywhere.

Interesting. I had never heard that expressed, before.

Would the F8F had the legs to do the long range bomber escort missions?

As I recall the F8F had the most powerful piston engine ever used in a
fighter. Then later the same engine was used in the Skyraider. Now
there is one BIG airplane! Not very fast, but BIG!

Roger (K8RI)


How about top speeds; was it as fast, or faster than the 51?
The Bear had VERY short legs and even with the drop tank would never
have made it as a long range fighter.
In close, intercept, and shoot it down fast was the Bear's prime
intended function.

"Roger (K8RI)" wrote in
:

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 17:16:28 -0500, Dudley Henriques
wrote:

Morgans wrote:
"Dudley Henriques" wrote

The 51 was a fine airplane, and it worked well at all altitudes but
it was nearing the end of its run at the end of the war.
I loved the airplane and flew it often but for me, flying the F8F
Bearcat one sunny afternoon in December, redefined the meaning of
the term "prop fighter performance".
In my opinion, if the war had lingered on and the Bear had been
mass produced for both theaters, the F8F would have not seen its
match anywhere.

Interesting. I had never heard that expressed, before.

Would the F8F had the legs to do the long range bomber escort
missions?

As I recall the F8F had the most powerful piston engine ever used in a
fighter. Then later the same engine was used in the Skyraider. Now
there is one BIG airplane! Not very fast, but BIG!


Nah, it only had a R2800 and not a very powerful variant at that. The P47
used a more powerful version of the same engine and there were other more
powerful airplanes out there like the later Griffon powered Spitfires and
the Hawker Sea Fury.
I don't think any of them went any better than the Bearcat, though.


Bertie

Roger (K8RI) wrote:
On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 17:16:28 -0500, Dudley Henriques
wrote:

Morgans wrote:
"Dudley Henriques" wrote

The 51 was a fine airplane, and it worked well at all altitudes but it was
nearing the end of its run at the end of the war.
I loved the airplane and flew it often but for me, flying the F8F Bearcat
one sunny afternoon in December, redefined the meaning of the term "prop
fighter performance".
In my opinion, if the war had lingered on and the Bear had been mass
produced for both theaters, the F8F would have not seen its match
anywhere.
Interesting. I had never heard that expressed, before.

Would the F8F had the legs to do the long range bomber escort missions?

As I recall the F8F had the most powerful piston engine ever used in a
fighter. Then later the same engine was used in the Skyraider. Now
there is one BIG airplane! Not very fast, but BIG!

Roger (K8RI)

How about top speeds; was it as fast, or faster than the 51?
The Bear had VERY short legs and even with the drop tank would never
have made it as a long range fighter.
In close, intercept, and shoot it down fast was the Bear's prime
intended function.

Hi Rog;

The Bear can an R2800 in it. The -2 that I flew I believe had a 2800-30
in it. The entire airplane was just a frame to support the engine.
One of the things I liked about the Bear was that Grumman drooped the
nose a bit (they did this on all their prop fighters) so you could
actually see where the hell you were going. It was an awesome airplane.
The prop at rest (had a huge Aero Products on the nose) looked like the
diameter spanned the wing tips :-)) On takeoff, it broke ground before
you could get the throttle up. Unlike the 51, you couldn't allow the
stick to come forward a bit on the takeoff roll because of the severe
lack of tip clearance on the prop. You took off 3 point and you landed 3
point in the Bearcat.
It was and still is a wonderful airplane!
I think I can say with some degree of certainty that Streak wouldn't
**** on the tires of the Bear, it was THAT pretty!!
D

--
Dudley Henriques

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
news
Morgans wrote:
"Dudley Henriques" wrote

The 51 was a fine airplane, and it worked well at all altitudes but it
was nearing the end of its run at the end of the war.
I loved the airplane and flew it often but for me, flying the F8F
Bearcat one sunny afternoon in December, redefined the meaning of the
term "prop fighter performance".
In my opinion, if the war had lingered on and the Bear had been mass
produced for both theaters, the F8F would have not seen its match
anywhere.

Interesting. I had never heard that expressed, before.

Would the F8F had the legs to do the long range bomber escort missions?

How about top speeds; was it as fast, or faster than the 51?
The Bear had VERY short legs and even with the drop tank would never have
made it as a long range fighter.
In close, intercept, and shoot it down fast was the Bear's prime intended
function.

Designed to defeat Kamikazes' at a distance, no?

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote

You don't mean the little Macchis from the fifties, do you? They were
high wing but kind of swept forwards.

Nope, and I'll be darned if I could find it, even with a while searching for
it. I remember it from an article in AOPA, I think. It was probably 5-7
years ago. On the cover, as I recall.

It looked a lot like this, but it was not this one:

http://www.ldap.cz/en/mfi.htm

I could be all wrong, but I thought it was an Italian design, that had been
certified for a while in like form, anyway. I thought it had a name like
Cappra, or something.
--
Jim in NC