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

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised wrote:

On Sun, 21 Sep 2003 00:12:09 -0400, (Peter
Stickney) wrote:

A couple of points - the Warwick has always struck me as one of those
"It's nice, but why?" airplanes.

Good point. The Lancaster and Halifax were in production and had been
operationally proven by the time the Warwick started to appear. I
presume it clung on due to some production commonality with the
Wellington plant which allowed Vickers at Brooklands to cling on to
stubbornly turning out at least a few of their own design before the
MAP could bear down on them and get them to change over to Lancasters.

It really didn't do anything that
other airplanes did better.

Or even as well.

By the time it came off the line, the
RAF's Medium bombers were teh B-25 and B-26, (Excuse me, Mitchell and
Marauder) except in those parts of teh world where the Wellington was
still viable. The Oceam Patrol stull has being handled by the
Catalina, the Sunderland, the Liberator, the Fortress, and the
U.S. Navy's patrol forces. So why all the effort? Was it an
Industrial Policy Effort to keep Vicker's Geodesic Structures skill
up to par, in case there was an urgent need to rebuild the R-100?

Probably due to all the expense and effort of getting the original
machine tools on line to produce the Wimpey airframes. Writing off
that stock would have been painful after all the problems they had in
1937-39 actually reaching Wimpey production targets.

As for the Stirlig's wing thickness. It's not all that bad, really.
It's just, lke the B-24 and the Davis Wing, that they stuck it onto
that godawful fuselage. (Which ended up being mainly empty space,
anyway.)

It's waaay thicker than the Lib wing - the wing root is practically as
deep as the fuselage. I suspect, knowing wartime working practices at
Shorts, that t was used as a bunk for snoozing workmen during
construction.

It's not like Critical Mach Number improvement is going to be
high on the list of Stirling Improvements. As for teh altitude
perfomance of the Hercules, in the VI and XVI models, they really
weren't all that different than the corresponding Merlin XX-24 series,
epsecially in terms of cruise power.

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.

Guy

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]

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.

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.

Gavin Bailey

--

Another user rings. "I need more space" he says.
"Well, why not move to Texas?", I ask. - The ******* Operator From Hell

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