More long-range Spitfires and daylight Bomber Command raids, with added nationalistic abuse (was: #1 Jet of World War II)

"TJ" wrote:

That's because the ASW variant is the TU-142. Under treaty specs the US
agreed that the variant was not a bomber and isn't accountable. Even the
TU-95RT was limited to it's primary mission and not classed as a bomber.

Thanks for the explanation. What does "...isn't accountable" mean?

-Mike Marron

(Grantland) wrote:
Mike Marron wrote:

Does a surveillance/photo/recce/anti-submarine mission make
the Tu-95 Bear NOT a bomber?

Dumb question. Dumb poster.

Sorry. It was modeled after the type of rhetorical "Mensa Quiz"
question from the previous Shacklebomber-is-not-a-bomber posters.

-Mike Marron

In article , Paul J. Adam
writes
Does that make the P-3 Orion a bomber?

Nimrod carries Sidewinders, does that make it a fighter?

--
John

John Halliwell wrote:

Nimrod carries Sidewinders, does that make it a fighter?

Speaking of Nimrod "disaster", see below:

"The interesting aspect of the market was the very high barriers to
entry. The U.K., which had been using Shackleton BOMBERS
[emphasis mine] equipped with surplus Fairey Gannett radars for
AEW, wished to avoid a multibillion-dollar acquisition of modern U.S.
replacements. The U.K. tried to develop its own system, based on
the Comet jetliner. The Nimrod AEW.3 was an unmitigated disaster
and inevitably led to a U.K. acquisition of seven E-3s in 1986. This
was the only concerted effort to develop an alternative to the two
dominant U.S. systems."

[Aerospace America May 2001]

-Mike Marron

In article ,
Greg Hennessy writes:
On Sun, 14 Sep 2003 23:37:54 -0400, (Peter Stickney)
wrote:


Oh, I dunno. As the Shackleton folks used to say when the RAF was
considering reconstituting the remaing Shack AEW Squadron as a
Canberra outfit, "Eight Screws beats two blow-jobs any time."


Was there serious consideration given to hanging that skyraider radar on a
canberra ?

Not really, The APS-20 would require a bit more space for operators,
displays, plotting boards and the like than the Cranberry could
provide.

The quote BTW, is from a flight suit shoulder patch from the RAF's AEW
Squadron.
The RAF Intercept Controller that I got the patch from (A Shackleton
crewman doing a technical evaluation visit to Sanders Assoc. back in
the days when IC's were New and Zippy, like, say, 1979, told me that
the reason behin it was that the RAF was considering disbanding the
AEW squadron, and reconstituting it as a Defence Evaluation Squadron,
using ECM equipped Canberras,

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

In article ,
Mike Marron writes:
"TJ" wrote:

That's because the ASW variant is the TU-142. Under treaty specs the US
agreed that the variant was not a bomber and isn't accountable. Even the
TU-95RT was limited to it's primary mission and not classed as a bomber.

Thanks for the explanation. What does "...isn't accountable" mean?

It means that it doesn't get counted as a bomber or strategic missile
launcher when totting up the numbers for (them) SALT and (now) START
compliance. Of course, that business as always a bit dodgy.
For examples, Tu-22Ms (Backfires) with the AAR probe were considered
as Strategic Bombers, but the same T-22M with the probe unbolted &
sitting in the back of the hangar wasn't. Or the Minuteman III ICBM
was considered to cary 5 warheads instead of 3, because somebody'd
made a short range launch of one carrying 5 instrument packages.

It's all very lawyerly.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

In article ,
Guy Alcala writes:
Peter Stickney wrote:

snip

"Quest for Performance", L.K. Loftin, NASA History Office, 1985,
available online, has a quite good explanation and analysis of the
directions that designing high performance airplanes took through the
first 80 or so years. The data tables list the following values for
the various airplanes.

Airplane: Aspect Ratio Wing Loading Cruise Speed L/Dmax
B-17G 7.58 38.7 182 12.7
B-24J 11.55 53.4 215 12.9
B-29 11.50 69.1 253 16.8

Altitudes in cases would be 25,000', (Critical Altitude for the
turbosupercharged engines, in each case) and all speeds are True
Airspeed.

Something appears seriously wrong with the B-17G cruise speed. At 25,000 feet, 182 TAS
works out to only 124 CAS, and we know the a/c normally cruised at 150-160 IAS (TAS about
215-240 at typical bombing altitudes) and climbed at about 130-140 IAS, vs. 160-180 IAS
cruise for the B-24. There's no way the position error is that high, and compressiblity
error is just 1-2% at that speed and altitude.

I just went and rechecked, and every source I have for the B-17G says
182 TAS @ 25,000, including Wagner, who gets his data from the
Aorcraft Characteristics Summaries.
My RAF Fortess II (B-17F) manual gives best cruise as 140 IAS, which
give a shade under 210 TAS at 25,000. This is backed up by the B-17F
Range Chart page that's posted on Zeno's Warbirds site. The G was, of
course, much dirtier, what with the chin turret, and, in the later
models, the bulged cheek gun windows & such. While 125 IAS seems a bit
on the low side, it wouldn't be impossible.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

Peter Stickney wrote:

In article ,
Guy Alcala writes:
Peter Stickney wrote:

snip

"Quest for Performance", L.K. Loftin, NASA History Office, 1985,
available online, has a quite good explanation and analysis of the
directions that designing high performance airplanes took through the
first 80 or so years. The data tables list the following values for
the various airplanes.

Airplane: Aspect Ratio Wing Loading Cruise Speed L/Dmax
B-17G 7.58 38.7 182 12.7
B-24J 11.55 53.4 215 12.9
B-29 11.50 69.1 253 16.8

Altitudes in cases would be 25,000', (Critical Altitude for the
turbosupercharged engines, in each case) and all speeds are True
Airspeed.

Something appears seriously wrong with the B-17G cruise speed. At 25,000 feet, 182 TAS
works out to only 124 CAS, and we know the a/c normally cruised at 150-160 IAS (TAS about
215-240 at typical bombing altitudes) and climbed at about 130-140 IAS, vs. 160-180 IAS
cruise for the B-24. There's no way the position error is that high, and compressiblity
error is just 1-2% at that speed and altitude.

I just went and rechecked, and every source I have for the B-17G says
182 TAS @ 25,000, including Wagner, who gets his data from the
Aorcraft Characteristics Summaries.

From what I recall, Wagner shows the same 1,850 miles in 8.7 hours @ 25kft. for the B-17G that
Caidin gives, or an average of 212 mph. OTOH, AFAIR neither says that this was at Vbr.

My RAF Fortess II (B-17F) manual gives best cruise as 140 IAS, which
give a shade under 210 TAS at 25,000. This is backed up by the B-17F
Range Chart page that's posted on Zeno's Warbirds site.

Are we looking at the same chart?

http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/Images/B-17/17TRC.gif


The G was, of
course, much dirtier, what with the chin turret, and, in the later
models, the bulged cheek gun windows & such. While 125 IAS seems a bit
on the low side, it wouldn't be impossible.

OTOH, the late Gs (maybe all? I forget) also had the fixed waist windows, partially
compensating. But they were unquestionably draggier than the Fs. Still, combat formation was
flown at 150-160 IAS in the G (the a/c on the inside of the turn might get down to 135-140).
And watching the B-17 Flight Operations video, it's stated that best range speed, at least at
10,000 feet on 91 octane fuel, is 150 IAS. A puzzlement. I can see them wanting to fly well
above stall and maybe somewhat above best range speed to allow for bumpy air in formation, but
the same video says to climb at 135 IAS, or 160 IAS when IFR. These are for the F model, so
maybe the G really is much less. But they flew them in combat at 150-160, as with the Fs. The
B-24 speeds seem a bit low as well, but a lot closer to actual combat usage.

Guy

On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 00:07:15 -0400, (Peter Stickney)
wrote:



Not really, The APS-20 would require a bit more space for operators,
displays, plotting boards and the like than the Cranberry could
provide.

Thought as much.


greg

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On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 19:58:15 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

Okay, I've got Price's "The Spitfire Story," which is very helpful. Here's
what Wing Commander Tuttle, former head of the PRU, told Price about the
handling of the hand-modified PR.1Ds (normal 84 gallons forward, 114 gallons
in the wing L.E., 29 gallons behind the pilot, plus two cameras further back
(but no radio):

"You could not fly it straight and level for the first half hour or hour after
takeoff. Until you had emptied the rear tank, the aircraft hunted the whole
time. The center of gravity was so far back you couldn't control it. It was
the sort of thing that would never have got in during peacetime, but war is
another matter."

What may be barely acceptable for a PR bird flying solo in VFR conditions by
experienced pilots not making any radical maneuvers, is definitely
unacceptable for formation or combat flying by less experienced pilots.

[I've got that book meself]

But this is precisely the argument against any kind of rearward CoG
movement implied by any rear fuselage tanks. Note that this
configuration included up to two cameras positioned further back in
the fuselage than the fuel tanks, which I assume could only have had
an even more detrimental impact on the CoG than a 29 gallon fuel tank.


I don't think the PR Spits are a valid indicator of what was tolerable
with a fighter profile - e.g. the V's with 29 gallon rear fuselage
tanks (and 170 gallon drop tanks) used for reinforcement flights from
Gibraltar to Malta in October 1942. Now these were not in operational
fighter trim, but they were to be flown by squadron pilots. Equally,
the RAF did regard the instability involved in the 75 gallon rear
fuselage tank in the IX airframe to be tolerable when the operational
need was great enough. Tuttle's comments are identical to Quill's and
Havercroft's on the instabilty problems casued by rear fuselage tanks
in the IXs they tested with them.

Later, the production PR.1Ds had the aft tank removed, the radio reinstalled,
and the L.E. tanks enlarged from 57 to 66.5 gallons each side, to improve the
handling (L.E. tanks were forward of the datum). They also got somewhat
heavier Merlin 45s.

They also began to get drop tanks underneath the fuselage to extend
range. I think it's instructive that until alternative fuel tankage
could be provided in the wings and externally, they did adopt a rear
fuselage tank, and that was in an aircraft with an existing CoG travel
worse than the fighter versions. The CoG problems this caused were
certainly unacceptable for peacetime flight, but then - by the RAF's
standards - so were the rear-fuselage tanks in the later Spit IXs and
XVIs, which were ordered not to be used without direct orders in the
post-war Pilot's Notes. This is also reflected in the decision to
delete the rear-fuselage tank in the RAF's Mustang IIIs. All of this
stems from an institutional attitude and the extent to which it could
be influenced by operational neccessity.

The fact that late production Spitfires did get rear fuselage tanks
which the RAF considered compromised aircraft stability too much for
normal peacetime operation is instructive. If we were to take
Tuttle's comments about peacetime operations as gospel for credible
wartime developments, none of this development in regard of rear
fuselage tanks would have happened at all.

What this counterfactual stems from was the level to which the RAF was
prepared to modify peacetime levels of aircraft stability to meet
operational needs. We know their historic position, but in this case
we are positing a greater operational need for range, in which case we
need to consider what would be a credible reaction. We can all agree
that the Spitfire (and especially the Spit V) had serious constraints
involved in increasing internal tankage, and specifically in the rear
fuselage. I believe it is instructive to observe how far the RAF were
pushed down that route historically, and extrapolate on a reasonable
basis from that.

On that basis, the use of the 29 gallon rear fuselage tank can't be
ruled out on the basis that the RAF preferred not to use it. If we
left it to RAF institutional preference alone there wouldn't have been
any rear fuselage tanks at all, but then nor would there have been PR
Spitfires to start with.

Gavin Bailey

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