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#151
September 18th 03, 07:42 PM
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Peter Stickney wrote:
I'm back, but an ahem, "flying visit" Trade Show season for us is coming up, and I've just shaken off a 48 hour attack of the 24 Hour Ebola... In article , Guy Alcala writes: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised wrote: snip I've managed to latch onto a few Spitfire Pilot's Notes. Specifically, the Mk V/Seafire II/III, the Mk XII, the Mk XIV, and the Seafire Fr. 46. (No Mk IX yet, dangit!) I'll gove more exact quotes tomorrow, but I'll sum up a bit here, as appropriate. snip Spit XIV tank sequence comments Two at a time, not in squadron/wing formations, and not having to take off in IFR conditions and climb above clouds on instruments. It was recommended to send them to Malta singly, but Park preferred two so that if one had problems, the other would have some idea where the a/c went down, so they might have some chance of rescuing the pilot. Oddly enough, the Spit V notes has an appendix to th handling instruction for the 29 gallon fuselage tank/170 gallon super drop tank combination. A few salient points: The aircraft is restricted to straight and level flight until the drop tank and the rear fuselage tank are empty. There are a lot of warning about how setting the fuel cocks wrong will case teh system to siphon fuel overboard. The sequence of use was to take off on the main tanks, switch to the drop tank and run it dry (indicated by the engine cutting out - the Spitfure Fuel gages must have been designed by the same bloke who did the MG oil gage. Lucas, I think his name was.) The the rear tank is emptied, (Same fuel gage), then the mains. The drop tank may be jettisoned at any time, as long as you're straight and level, empty, full, or in between. Nothing but straght and level until the rear fuselage tank empties. So - while it appears that the 29 gallon tank wa only intended to be used with the 170 gallon tank for the Malta reinforcements, there's really no reason why it might not have been considered, with the proviso that you couldn't fly a real formation, or engage in combat until it was empty, or that it couldn't be used with one of the smaller "combat" tanks. Note though, that the 90 imp. gallon tank is also restricted to straight and level flight. That's a bit more flexible than I thought it would be. I don't understand your conclusion. The pilot's notes essentially say it can't be used for combat, which is exactly the _inflexibility_ I've been talking about. Did I get lost somewhere? BTW, that fuel usage sequence sounds like a pure ferry setup for max. range, unless the fuel feeds are vastly different between the Mk. V and later a/c. You'd want to empty the drop first and retain the internal fuel, so that you could drop the external tank for minimum drag if the winds were worse than predicted. Otherwise, for handling purposes you'd want to empty the aft tank first, as with the Spit XIV notes. snip much Gavin/Guy back and forth 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. I think the Mk. IX could probably have gotten away with a 29 gallon tank or something in that range, even with the original tail. I have serious doubts that the Mk. V could have. Tuttle's comments imply negative longitudinal stability with ANY fuel in the tank, and that means it is of no help to us for increasing fighter combat radius. We could put the same fuel in a larger drop tank (at somewhat higher drag, to be sure), say 120 gallons; the handling will be better than with the rear tank, and it's a much simpler solution. See above. I was rather surprised myself. The 90 gallon tank is pretty much out as anything but a ferry tank, I'm not sure what you mean by this. It seems to have been carried for combat missions fairly routinely by Spits VIII/IX/XVI (indeed, the handling trials of the Spit XIV say the a/c has no range without one, although that a/c admittedly has a more forward Cg than the Merlin Spits), and while you certainly wouldn't want to get in combat with the thing attached, it doesn't seem to have made the a/c longitudinally unstable by itself (neutral, maybe), when full. It was certainly less Cg shift than carrying 66 or 75 gallons aft of the pilot's armor plate. but an intermediate choice of a 50 or 60 gallon tank would provide the same fuel capacity over the 30 gallon combat tank as the aft fuselage tank would, without much in the way of bad effects. (Didn't the Hurricane use a 50 gallon teardrop or torpedo shaped tank? It might even be less draggy than the 30 gallon blister. Guy 
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#153
September 21st 03, 06:04 AM
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In article ,
(The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) writes: On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 01:38:38 -0400, (Peter Stickney) wrote: I'm back, but an ahem, "flying visit" Trade Show season for us is coming up, and I've just shaken off a 48 hour attack of the 24 Hour Ebola... The excuses an engineer will come up with in order to lock himself into a darkened room with his slide rule.... Well, we all have our faults. I've managed to latch onto a few Spitfire Pilot's Notes. Specifically, the Mk V/Seafire II/III, the Mk XII, the Mk XIV, and the Seafire Fr. 46. (No Mk IX yet, dangit!) I'll gove more exact quotes tomorrow, but I'll sum up a bit here, as appropriate. Peter, I've scanned the whole Mk IX Pilot's Notes for you and Guy, but my last attempt to send you extracts bounced due to lack of space on your mail account. I can't put them up on a website at the moment, so I can only email them. Contact me at - if you have another account I could send the scans to you at. I do, and I shall. [rear tank in Mk XIV] So, it was there, and it was a somewhat useful amount of fuel, but it really wasn't considered a good thing. The FR XIV was the only XIV to get rear tanks, the fighter version with rear tanks mutated into the Mk XVIII when it started to be produced on the XIV production lines in the summer of 1945. There's no doubt that that this represents further evidence of institutional RAF intolerance to longitudinal instability caused by rear fuselage tanks to my mind, and it reflects the post-war position as indicated by Pilot's Notes instructions for other versions of Spit with the rear tanks. I can certainly accept that this institutional intolerance existed, as I have been asserting that from the start of my contributions to this thread, but as I've said to ACdre Alcala, that intolerance needs to be balanced against operational need: the the case of the Spit IX/XVI and Mustang IV, the RAF accepted rear fuselage tankage at the price of instability for pressing operational reasons. As soon as the war ends and those operational reasons no longer apply, the institutional norm will obviously reassert itself. Where I think we should be careful is using post-war, peacetime evidence of this dynamic and reading it back into operational service requirements where evidence exists that the RAF was prepared to compromise their attitude. I'd love to see the Pilot's Notes for the Mustang IV, as I suspect they will have some interesting comments on handling and use of the rear-fuselage tank. Would you settle for the RAF Mustang III Pilot's Notes? I managed to land a copy of those, as well. WRT the fuselage tank, the procedures and warnings are teh same as those for the USAAF: Burn teh fuselage tanks down below 40 gallons before switching to the drops, and avoid fighter-type maneuvers befire then. It's interesting to note the difference in the wording, between the two aircraft. The Spit is definitely in the "Don't do anything!" category, and the Mustang is in the "We really don't recommend this, but..." form. No admittedly, the Mustang's fuel tank position is much better, in terms of its effect on stability, and the Mustang was a bit more stable than the Spit to begin with. I wonder how much of this is the manufacturer's bias leaking through. [snip Spit V with 170 gal overload tank and 29 gal rear fuselage tank] Nothing but straght and level until the rear fuselage tank empties. Yes, but this is for an aircraft in ferry trim, and I don't think any larger conclusions can be safely drawn when it's CoG standard was so different from ordinary aircraft (no cannon, radios repositioned, etc) True, but ferry trim in thas case includes the 1225# Mondo-Pregnant-Guppy ferry tank, which had its own bad effects. Adding the Hispano guns actually moves teh CG forward - those long barrels & springs & things add weight forward, so that will make things better. The Browning Guns have most of their weight in the breech, and move teh CG aft. So, A Spit Vc with 2 Hispanos could still work. So - while it appears that the 29 gallon tank wa only intended to be used with the 170 gallon tank for the Malta reinforcements, there's really no reason why it might not have been considered, with the proviso that you couldn't fly a real formation, or engage in combat until it was empty, or that it couldn't be used with one of the smaller "combat" tanks. Note though, that the 90 imp. gallon tank is also restricted to straight and level flight. That's a bit more flexible than I thought it would be. My thinking was for an extra 29 gallons for early formation flight on the climb for maybe 20 minutes, with any remainder contributing to the flight reserve fuel load. As Guy has pointed out, rear fuselage tankage capacity which comes at the expense of stability cannot be considered optimal or even tolerable for combat conditions. In response my contention is that the requirement is for endurance coverage of long oversea flights out over the North Sea to potential combat areas over Holland and Germany in the summer of 1943, and the 29 gallon tank in addition to the 90 gallon drop tank would increase the operational radius in this respect, even if the combat endurance when the aircraft got there was minimal. Actuall, the 29 gallons would basically get you through your 20 minutes form-up and climb. Merlins tend to be a bit thirsty at that point, burning something on the order of 80-100 Imp. Gal/Hr. The 90 gallon tank is pretty much useless as a combat tank. Again, no maneuvering flight allowed, and teh tank's to be punched off immediately when emptied. Not much use if you're in Bad Guy Country. A 29 gallon fuselage tank, combined with a less-disruptive and more tactically useful 50 or 60 gallon tank will give about the same amount of fuel as the 90 gallon tank, without (after the fuselage tank's been used) the combat restrictions, and the extra drag of teh 90 gallon tank. But was it? After all, with no armament, the Cg moved forward. No radio (mounted aft of where the cameras would be) moves it forward again. And quite early, they got external fuel, in 30 gal. blister tanks under the wings. Not only that, but a PR Spit wasn't expected to be maneuvering - It's job was to be as high as possiblem where nobody had any maneuver margin. They'd get to height as soon as possible after tankeoff, and stay there. On the other hand they were required to evade contact with manoevreability when required. PR pilots were always expected to drop external tanks on contact. Yabbut, evading contact with maneuverability in this context consists of seeing the Me (Fw's aren't going to get that high) coming up, and making a course correction such that the interceptor has to make a major change to cut you off. The changing again. Where there wasn't much of a speed advantage, they can't get up to height in time to catch you, amd, with an Me 109, you can very well run him out of gas. If ye does goet up high, dogfighting isn't the high-G high-powered affair that it is in the thicker air below 20,000'. Instantaneous G isn't very high - on the order of 1.5-2 G, at best, and speed bleedoff is pretty high. It's more of an Elephant Ballet than cut-and-thrust fencing. A good chunk of the aft fuel would get burned off in the climb. It's also worth noting that the PR Spits had no disposable load other than fuel. On the fighter Spits, the ammunition was aft of the CG, (but not too much) and contributed to any stability problems. There's also the issue of aft ballast, which varied greatly over the life of the Spitfire, and over the lifespan of individual marks. The V is a case in point, and where the equipment loading becomes bewildering. Yep. The thing with teh ballast, though, is that since its fixed, its effects are predictable. It's teh shifting of weight around that's the problem. See above. I was rather surprised myself. The 90 gallon tank is pretty much out as anything but a ferry tank, Ah, but it was actually used by Spitfires and Seafires (with even worse CoG issues than the Spit V) in combat operations. Examples include Salerno and Normandy. There was a slipper-tank version and a later torpedo-tank version. I suspect they would have been used despite the tank shortcomings: the stability problems would lessen as the fuel was consumed, and the 8th AF fighters demonstrated that unpressurised, unreliable paper-mache tanks still could give a useful benefit to escort radius. Still a big drag hit, though. the USAAF 108 gallon tanks weren't, strictly speaking, paper-mache, they were "fiber impregnated with resin", or, in more modern terms, epoxy over a cardboard form. but an intermediate choice of a 50 or 60 gallon tank would provide the same fuel capacity over the 30 gallon combat tank as the aft fuselage tank would, without much in the way of bad effects. (Didn't the Hurricane use a 50 gallon teardrop or torpedo shaped tank? It might even be less draggy than the 30 gallon blister. They actually used a 45 gallon slipper tank as well as the 30 and 90 gallon versions. The 44 gallon Hurricane tank was an unpressurised, unjettisonable ferry tank, with one carried beneath each wing to give 88 gallons ferry capacity. I have actually seen a photo of a Spitfire on Malta with an improvised 2 x 44 gallon fuselage tank, although I suspect this was a local modification made possible due to the presence of old Hurricane ferry tanks from ferry flights from Cyrenaica and the lack of the newer slipper tanks until later in 1942. Whatever happened, the tanks were going to be jettisoned before initiating combat, so I don't think the 90 gallon tanks - which should be substantially emptied and consequently lighter before the aircraft got to the prospective combat area anyway - would in those circumstances impose as much of a performance restriction as we might suppose. True - I was thinking in terms of a way to add 90 gallons to a Mk V's fuel capacity (Which would be about 50% of total fuel anyway) withoug the stability and drag penalties that the 90 gallon tanks imposed. (It's not much good being an escort fighter if you cruise slower than the bombers that you're escorting.) To my ming, 29-30 gallons internal, with another 60 or so external would about do it, especially if the 60 gallon tank has no restrictions. Remember, I'm not asserting that any of this was an optimal solution for long-range escorting, or could have competed with aircraft that were better suited to expanding their internal fuel capacity. I'm trying to work along the lines that would be dictated by operational neccessity and addressed with existing equipment and experience in certain circumstances. Well, in htat case, gin up a 60 gallon tank, and add teh 2 13-gallon leadig edge tanks. The 80 gallon tank would give you about 40% of teh total fuel, allowing it to be empty before the target area is reached, and the 13 gallon tanks can be swapped in as a Deport-level job. They fit in the leading edge outboard of the 20mm gun bays. but inboard of the .303s, and slotted in between a pair of ribs. That sort of sheet-metal work would be well within what they could do withoug a need fr a factory-level rebuild. -- Pete Stickney A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures. -- Daniel Webster
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#154
September 21st 03, 12:10 PM
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Subject: More long-range Spitfires and daylight Bomber Command raids,
with added nationalistic abuse (was: From: (Peter Stickney) Date: 9/20/03 9:12 PM Pacific A couple of points - the Warwick has always struck me as one of those "It's nice, but why?" airplanes. It really didn't do anything that other airplanes did better. By the time it came off the line, the RAF's Medium bombers were teh B-25 and B-26, (Excuse me, Peter as you well know in those days we flew whatever would fly. I never heard of a crew refusing to fly a plane because they didn't like the wing thickness. Every mission we flew was a maximum effort. Everything that could fly did fly. That's why. Arthur Kramer 344th BG 494th BS England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany Visit my WW II B-26 website at: http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer
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#155
September 21st 03, 06:48 PM
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On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 23:07:09 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote: Alan Minyard wrote: On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 05:35:43 GMT, Guy Alcala Ah, well, one more for the killfile. Trolls, loons and (as in this case) just plain rude and crude all get in. Guy And your language in this post would qualify as what? Al Minyard Let's see, not rude and crude (I suppose my posting it publicly rather than privately could be considered rude), nor is it a troll, and I presume you aren't implying that I'm a loon. What did you think it was? Guy I would think that rude would cover it. I was feeling a bit contentious when I wrote that. Al Minyard
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#156
September 22nd 03, 02:17 PM
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In article ,
(ArtKramr) writes: Subject: More long-range Spitfires and daylight Bomber Command raids, with added nationalistic abuse (was: From: (Peter Stickney) Date: 9/20/03 9:12 PM Pacific A couple of points - the Warwick has always struck me as one of those "It's nice, but why?" airplanes. It really didn't do anything that other airplanes did better. By the time it came off the line, the RAF's Medium bombers were teh B-25 and B-26, (Excuse me, Peter as you well know in those days we flew whatever would fly. I never heard of a crew refusing to fly a plane because they didn't like the wing thickness. Every mission we flew was a maximum effort. Everything that could fly did fly. That's why. Art, at the aircrew level, you're absolutely correct. You fly the airplanes that your unit is issued, and you do your damnedest to be effective. And yes, that's the way that it has to be. There's other considerations, though, at higher levels of command. Just as you as an aircrewman have an obligation to use the weapons you have as effectively as possible, to accomplish the tasks of your slice of the war, the people at the higher echelons have the obligation to see that you have the most effective weapons practicable, and are assigned the targets that make the best use of the capabilities of your airplanes and crews toward winning the war. At the mid levels, say, in the World War II case, the Eighth or Nonth Air Force levels, that means making sure that you have the proper aircraft, (For instance, concentrating the on the B-26 for the ETO medium bomber force, rather than the B-25) and making sure that those aircraft are supplied with fuel, parts, weapons and ammunition needed to get the job done, and that the support crews, from the Air Base Civil Engineer to the guy that's scrubbing the garbage cans, is providing a system that means that when a mission is on, all the tasked airplanes and crews are ready to go. (That also means making sure, as much as possible, that losses in both aircrew and airplanes are sustainable - that you're not losing more people and airplanes than you can replace. That was one of the failings of the Lusftwaffe. They could, and did, produce replacement machines for their losses. Basically, in the ETO, the entire Luftaffe fighter force was destroyed and replaced 3 times in 1944. They could replace the machines, but they couldn't, for reasons as varying as the policy of not rotating the Experten home to pass on their knowledge to the new pilots, to the gutting of the flight training system to be wasted trying to fly supply flights to Stalingrad and Tunisia, to the policies about training in general, menat that the Luftwaffe's fighter arm had a thin shell of irreplacable veterans surrounding a soft core of low-time unskilled, and vulnerable New Guys. Each time the Luftwaffe, after husbanding its resources, and launching another futile "hammer blow" that was to knock the RAF and USAAF out of the war, they lost most of the new recruits, and a fair number of the old guys. By 1945, they had airplanes parked all over Germany - on airfields, in forests, under bridges, at repair depots, everywhere. But not anywhere enough pilots to fly them. By that time, they didn't bother repairing damaged airplanes. If the pilot came back, they just issued him a new one. That's unsustainable. So, where I,m going with this ramble, is that, moving back to the highest levels, where the production decisions are made, there's a responsibility to be spending the reseources available (Time, production capacity, raw materials, money) so that the best possible weapons are available to accomplish the missions that you're assigned. For example, somebody I got to know, a bit, was Gen. Harrison Thyng (Now passed on). He was a very interesting man, with quite a distinguished career, an Ace in both WW 2 and Korea. In WW 2, he was a member of the 36th Fighter Group, one of the first American units to deploy to England. The American fighters available at that time, the P-39 and P-40, weren't considered viable in the cross-channel war going on at that time, and they couldn't escort B-17s into France, let alone Germany. The 36th FG was equipped with Spitfire Mk Vs, and ended up being sent to North Africa as part of Operation Torch. He later flew P-47s in the Pacific. That experience gave him a certain persoective on how Industrial Policy affects Combat Effectiveness. During the Korean War, he was Commander of the 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing, at that time the sole F-86 unit in Korea, flying the only airplane that could meed the Soviet/Chinese/DPRK MiG-15s on an even basis. (75 Sabres vs. 750 or so MiGs) They had everytning hard charging fighter pilots needed - A good airplane, skilled, agressive, experienced pilots, and a lot of targets, They only lacked one thing - - There was a horrendous shortage of spare parts. The 4th FIW was, at that time, only able to keep about half their airplanes Mission Capable. Despite requests through the Usual Channels, the priority for Sabre spares was to Continental U.S. bases units. It's not that spares weren't available, they weren't being sent to where the fighting was. It took a personal message from Thyng to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force that the spares situation was such that "The maintainance of Air Superiority over Korea was in doubt" to shake people loose and get the support that the Far East Air Force needed to flow into that direction. Needless to say, that gave him a bit of persoective on the responsibilities of the command echelons to provide the support needed to see that the tools were available to carry out the assognments they gave. In the situation I mentioned of the VIckers Warwick, It's a question of, in this case, the British government allocating resources efficiently. The Warwick was intended to be the replacement for the Wellington medium bomber. By the earliest time it could possibly be ready, RAF Bomber Command had determined that twin-engined medium bombers weren't suitable for the night bombing campaign. The tactical air forces, who were conducting the medium bombing campaign, knew that airplanes with the performance of the Wellington adn Warwick weren't going to be sustainable in the day bombing that they were using. They used Lend-Lease B-25s and B-26s to accomplish their missions. For some reaon, the Air Ministry continued Warwick production, and they scrambled around looking for someplace to use it. The Warsicks eventually ended up being use as Air-Sea Rescue aircraft, carrying droppable lifeboats. While this was a laudable task, it could also have been (and, in fact was) filled by using the same flying boat types that the RAF Coastal Command used, and by fitting war-wary heavies, such as Lancasters, with lifeboats. Is it worse planning to not build airplanes you know will be useful, or to build airplanes that you know will be useless? -- Pete Stickney A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures. -- Daniel Webster
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#157
September 22nd 03, 04:32 PM
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Subject: More long-range Spitfires and daylight Bomber Command raids,
with added nationalistic abuse (was: From: (Peter Stickney) Date: 9/22/03 6:17 AM Pacific Daylight Time Message-id: Coastal Command used, and by fitting war-wary heavies, such as Lancasters, with lifeboats. Is it worse planning to not build airplanes you know will be useful, or to build airplanes that you know will be useless? -- Pete Stickney Hindsight is 20-20. And here we sit 60 years later viewing the war through rose colored hindsights. But if you and I were senior officers in bomber command coud we have done half as well as they did, or even just as well? And we must consider that a thousand little details and considertations, now long forgotten influenced their decisions. For the time, were they all that wrong? And since in the end, they triumphed, it means that with all theri errors they were more right than wrong. No mean feat in itself. Cut them a ltlle slack. They deserve it. Arthur Kramer 344th BG 494th BS England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany Visit my WW II B-26 website at: http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer
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#158
September 23rd 03, 06:45 PM
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#159
September 24th 03, 10:16 AM
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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
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#160
September 24th 03, 11:26 AM
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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
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| Long-range Spitfires and daylight Bomber Command raids (was: #1 Jet of World War II) | The Revolution Will Not Be Televised | Military Aviation | 20 | August 27th 03 09:14 AM |
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