Survivability in Combat

Let's take two planes going on low level support missions. They will have to
fly through heavy ground fire including small arms fire. One plane is equipped
with a radial engine,. let's say an R-2800. The other with a jet engine. Which
plane would have a better chance of survival inder these conditions?. Opinions?

Regards,


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

In article ,
(ArtKramr) wrote:

Let's take two planes going on low level support missions. They will have to
fly through heavy ground fire including small arms fire. One plane is
equipped
with a radial engine,. let's say an R-2800. The other with a jet engine.
Which
plane would have a better chance of survival inder these conditions?.
Opinions?

I'm going with the jet. Would rather have speed to limit time in the
danger zone than a rugged radial that can take a hit, but is slow enough
to assure being hit.

But for "cool" factor the round engine wins. (Jets are for kids)

--
Dale L. Falk

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing
as simply messing around with airplanes.

http://home.gci.net/~sncdfalk/flying.html

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Let's take two planes going on low level support missions. They will have
to
fly through heavy ground fire including small arms fire. One plane is
equipped
with a radial engine,. let's say an R-2800. The other with a jet engine.
Which
plane would have a better chance of survival inder these conditions?.
Opinions?

Regards,

The one who manages to avoid getting hit of course!!!
:-)

I would imagine after the last thread on radials that your point here might
be that the radials have been known to take hits even to the point of taking
out several cylinders and God knows what else and return home, as opposed to
a jet engine where the dynamic balance of the compressor and turbine
sections are so delicate.
Honestly Art, I think it's a crap shoot. I know guys who flew wounded jets
home to the boat with most of the parts banging away inside the engine and
the aircraft shaking so badly it threatened to come apart.
There are so many variables in this equation that it's really hard to make a
call. For example, are the run in speeds the same? (Time in the kill zone)
These things usually boil down to who gets lucky and who doesn't. Who takes
what hit, how many, what caliber, and where on the airframe. This is just
one of those subjects that can go every which way but loose.
I know one guy who would tell you that if he had a choice of any bird in the
world to go strafing in, it would be a Jug. He didn't like the plumbing on
the inlines for low work. Ed will probably tell you that on the target run
itself it's a crap shoot, but that there's nothing alive that can catch a
Thud on a level run going in and going out...jink or no jink, especially if
there's a drink on the bar waiting :-)).
It's interesting that of the two examples I'm coming up with here, both
involve The Republic Airplane and Brick Manufacturing Company. :-))
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired
For personal email, please replace
the z's with e's.
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt

Speed is life.


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Let's take two planes going on low level support missions. They will have
to
fly through heavy ground fire including small arms fire. One plane is
equipped
with a radial engine,. let's say an R-2800. The other with a jet engine.
Which
plane would have a better chance of survival inder these conditions?.
Opinions?

Regards,


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

"Dudley Henriques" wrote:

I would imagine after the last thread on radials that your point here might
be that the radials have been known to take hits even to the point of taking
out several cylinders and God knows what else and return home, as opposed to
a jet engine where the dynamic balance of the compressor and turbine
sections are so delicate.
Honestly Art, I think it's a crap shoot. I know guys who flew wounded jets
home to the boat with most of the parts banging away inside the engine and
the aircraft shaking so badly it threatened to come apart.
There are so many variables in this equation that it's really hard to make a
call. For example, are the run in speeds the same? (Time in the kill zone)
These things usually boil down to who gets lucky and who doesn't. Who takes
what hit, how many, what caliber, and where on the airframe. This is just
one of those subjects that can go every which way but loose.
I know one guy who would tell you that if he had a choice of any bird in the
world to go strafing in, it would be a Jug. He didn't like the plumbing on
the inlines for low work. Ed will probably tell you that on the target run
itself it's a crap shoot, but that there's nothing alive that can catch a
Thud on a level run going in and going out...jink or no jink, especially if
there's a drink on the bar waiting :-)).
It's interesting that of the two examples I'm coming up with here, both
involve The Republic Airplane and Brick Manufacturing Company. :-))

A-1 Skyraider w/badass Irishman/Germanic/English/etc. etc. pirate...

-Mike ('nuff said) Marron

Some fragments of a post made few years ago by
(ALEXEI GRETCHIKHINE) about Su-25 Frogfoot survivability in Afghanistan:

Quote
.... One particular Su-25 (actually preproduction T-8-15 or Blue 15) flown by
Colonel Alexander V. Rutskoj was damaged by AAA and two (!) AIM-9L
Sidewinders launched by Pakistani F-16s. Both times the aircraft brought
pilot back to base. It was "refurbished" in Tbilisi and after receiving new
paint job and bort number Blue 301 it was displayed in Paris in 1989. It was
further modified for the weapon trials which included S-240 and S-25 330 mm
unguided rockets. This aircraft currently on display at Khodynka Museum.

Here are few more stories highlighting Su-25 roughness:

-Major Rubalov's Su-25 was hit in the engine which surged and flooded an
engine bay with fuel, the cockpit was shattered, buster controls are gone
and major's face covered with blood. None of the dials in the cockpit worked
and his wingman guided him to the final approach. After belly landing, major
rushed away from the Su-25 fearing that plane going to explode. After
figuring that this is not going to happen, he got back to the aircraft and
cut the engine.

-Another Su-25 was on fire which burned out most of the wiring and 95% of
horizontal tail controls. In few moments before the landing, fire short cut
the gear release wires and Su-25 made "conventional" landing.

-Lieutenant Golubtsov's Su-25 lost half of its rudder along with breaks.
After landing his a/c ended up off runaway and rolled into adjacent mine
field. He was forced to wait in the cockpit till mine squad cleared his way
out.

-One Su-25 brought a missile in the engine which failed to detonate. (SAM?)

-Rutskoi's Su-25 was hit by AAA (ZGU) when a missile (Blowpipe) hit right
engine (head on - it "turned off" the engine though the intake). Second AAA
finally managed to shot it down. This is a second Frogfoot he flew (not the
preproduction T-8-15 Blue 15 which was damaged twice). Rutskoi spent some
time as Pakistani POW and was shortly exchanged.
....
End quote
--

Nele

NULLA ROSA SINE SPINA

On Sun, 07 Dec 2003 02:15:49 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:

International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired

Dudley, would you post a brief bio for us? I think I recall P-51s, but
I don't have any notion of your career. When were you in the
USAF/USAAF? For whom a commercial pilot? Where taught?

Thanks!

all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Let's take two planes going on low level support missions. They will
have to
fly through heavy ground fire including small arms fire. One plane
is equipped
with a radial engine,. let's say an R-2800. The other with a jet
engine. Which
plane would have a better chance of survival inder these
conditions?. Opinions?

Regards,


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer



Much of the Structure of a Gas turbine is thinner than that of the
rugged engine blocks, cylinder and heads required on piston engines
and thus penetration into a vital component by projectiles may be more
likely however gas turbines can be quite tough. The central casting
of which the shaft and combustion chambers are suspended is quite
solid and centrifugal compressors can be very rugged.

It might be possible to obtain data as to how influential compressor
type is on combat ruggedness.

I suppose that the best comparison might be to assume an aircraft such
as the B26,A26 or B29 had of been equipped with a turboprop like the
Rolls Royce Dart. (Fokker when designing the F27 (built latter by
Fairchild) resisted American Airlines's pressure to use the PW2800.)

This engine would have about 1/2rd the weight and I suspect 1/2 to
volume of the PW2800 and this in itself would reduce its chance of
being hit. The two stage centrifugal compressor was very rugged and
for the weight saved you could wrap the engine in armor.

The Allison T53 gas turbine used on the UH-1 Iroquois and many other
aircraft had a reputation for ruggedness. It kept operating with
objects like bolts ingested and stuck in the compressor. This engine
had as a first stage an axial compressor, a second stage centrifugal
stage that led to a double reverse flow combustion chamber.

The Germans seemed to have had a concern with debris ingestion
(presumably after a hit on a target) in the Jumo 004B engine of the
Me 262. For ground handling and safety reasons wire baskets had been
developed to prevent unfortunate ground crewman being ingested. The
aircraft was tested in flight with the baskets attached and apparently
suffered no reduction in performance.

The concern of 'combat ruggedness' was one reason that the RLM
technocrat Helmuth Schelp (who mapped out Germany's 15 year gas
turbine development program in 1938?) specified that the Heinkel
Hirth He S11 1300kg turbo-jet was to have a 'diagonal compressor'.
This is essentially a centrifugal compressor faired such that the air
flow exits axially (backward) instead of radialy (outward). The air
is then impinged upon a stator to get a degree of axial compression.
In the He S11 there were then 3 subsequently axial stages.

The beauty is that the ruggedness of centrifugal compressor in object
ingestion and turbulent airflow as a first stage can be combined with
subsequently more axial stages of higher efficiency. (Thus He S11
aircraft designees had very flexible air intake shapes e.g. slits in
wing leading edges )

The efficiency at the operating point for the axial unit of the Jumo
004B was 0.79. For the hybrid diagonal-axial He S11 it was 0.8. By
the time the He S11 entered production in 1945 the diagonal compressor
for the BMW 003C the HERMESO I was achieving 0.85 on the test stand
and the HERMESO II of the BMW 004D was expected to achieve 0.91. (By
this time the Germans were converting to more efficient reaction type
axial compressors over the impulse type axial seen on the Jumo 004B
and BMW 003A then in service) so they sacrificed a lot to achieve this
diagonal/compressor on the He S11.

The British style centrifugal compressors, the double sided impeller
types, must have been much more rugged than the axial types they
Germans preferred (for their low frontal area and ease of
installation)

However a shrapnel or bullet hole in the post combustion area of a
combustion chamber in either type of engine would have been fatal as a
flame would be expelled that would eventually melt or burn through
something. A holed combustion chamber or rocker cover was unlikely
to be fatal in an air cooled radial.

The answer clearly is to try and armor parts of the Jet engine, e.g.
the Chance Vought A7 used silicon carbide. Jets are free of the
oil.water cooler problems of piston engines.




The

Subject: Survivability in Combat
From: "Dudley Henriques"
Date: 12/6/03 6:15 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: . net


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Let's take two planes going on low level support missions. They will have
to
fly through heavy ground fire including small arms fire. One plane is
equipped
with a radial engine,. let's say an R-2800. The other with a jet engine.
Which
plane would have a better chance of survival inder these conditions?.
Opinions?

Regards,

The one who manages to avoid getting hit of course!!!
:-)

I would imagine after the last thread on radials that your point here might
be that the radials have been known to take hits even to the point of taking
out several cylinders and God knows what else and return home, as opposed to
a jet engine where the dynamic balance of the compressor and turbine
sections are so delicate.
Honestly Art, I think it's a crap shoot. I know guys who flew wounded jets
home to the boat with most of the parts banging away inside the engine and
the aircraft shaking so badly it threatened to come apart.
There are so many variables in this equation that it's really hard to make a
call. For example, are the run in speeds the same? (Time in the kill zone)
These things usually boil down to who gets lucky and who doesn't. Who takes
what hit, how many, what caliber, and where on the airframe. This is just
one of those subjects that can go every which way but loose.
I know one guy who would tell you that if he had a choice of any bird in the
world to go strafing in, it would be a Jug. He didn't like the plumbing on
the inlines for low work. Ed will probably tell you that on the target run
itself it's a crap shoot, but that there's nothing alive that can catch a
Thud on a level run going in and going out...jink or no jink, especially if
there's a drink on the bar waiting :-)).
It's interesting that of the two examples I'm coming up with here, both
involve The Republic Airplane and Brick Manufacturing Company. :-))
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired
For personal email, please replace
the z's with e's.
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt



I have no experience flying jets in combat, so I was just looking for some
expert opinions on the subject. But I heard a lot about a few pebbles on a
runway wrecking jet engines, so I was just wondering how they would do in low
level combat. Thanks for your reply.

Regards,

Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Subject: Survivability in Combat
From: "Nele VII" AP
Date: 12/6/03 11:19 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Some fragments of a post made few years ago by
(ALEXEI GRETCHIKHINE) about Su-25 Frogfoot survivability in Afghanistan:

Quote
... One particular Su-25 (actually preproduction T-8-15 or Blue 15) flown by
Colonel Alexander V. Rutskoj was damaged by AAA and two (!) AIM-9L
Sidewinders launched by Pakistani F-16s. Both times the aircraft brought
pilot back to base. It was "refurbished" in Tbilisi and after receiving new
paint job and bort number Blue 301 it was displayed in Paris in 1989. It was
further modified for the weapon trials which included S-240 and S-25 330 mm
unguided rockets. This aircraft currently on display at Khodynka Museum.

Here are few more stories highlighting Su-25 roughness:

-Major Rubalov's Su-25 was hit in the engine which surged and flooded an
engine bay with fuel, the cockpit was shattered, buster controls are gone
and major's face covered with blood. None of the dials in the cockpit worked
and his wingman guided him to the final approach. After belly landing, major
rushed away from the Su-25 fearing that plane going to explode. After
figuring that this is not going to happen, he got back to the aircraft and
cut the engine.

-Another Su-25 was on fire which burned out most of the wiring and 95% of
horizontal tail controls. In few moments before the landing, fire short cut
the gear release wires and Su-25 made "conventional" landing.

-Lieutenant Golubtsov's Su-25 lost half of its rudder along with breaks.
After landing his a/c ended up off runaway and rolled into adjacent mine
field. He was forced to wait in the cockpit till mine squad cleared his way
out.

-One Su-25 brought a missile in the engine which failed to detonate. (SAM?)

-Rutskoi's Su-25 was hit by AAA (ZGU) when a missile (Blowpipe) hit right
engine (head on - it "turned off" the engine though the intake). Second AAA
finally managed to shot it down. This is a second Frogfoot he flew (not the
preproduction T-8-15 Blue 15 which was damaged twice). Rutskoi spent some
time as Pakistani POW and was shortly exchanged.
...
End quote
--

Nele

NULLA ROSA SINE SPINA



Thanks for that informative reply.But would it have done better with radials?
I guess we will never know.

Regards,


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer