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  1. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    The Boeing 314 Clipper and the one-off Boeing XB-15 had the same wing but the former had better engines. Same goes for the Boeing 309 Stratoliner and the B-17B/C/D. The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser? Let's turn a B-29 into an airliner/cargo plane. Note: The XB-15 spent WW-2 hauling cargo while the...
  2. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    Not a WWII warbird ... The Huges H-1 racer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-1_Racer The P-35 was sorta a derivative and the P-51 had stability probems.
  3. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    I was giving a comparison for just how big an An-2's engine is, FWIW. The Nakajima Sakae used by the Mitsubishi A6M was the first one I thought of. Think engineering trade-offs: You have this much power, here's what you can do with it but you can only do some of it this time.
  4. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    The Nakajima Sakae-12 engines used by the Japaneses A6M2 Zeros in 1942 were only rated for about 940hp. Those were high-performance and highly maneuverable (although lightly-built and fragile) long-range carrier aircraft with no shortage of firepower which gave the US Navy fits for a quite awhile.
  5. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    That big radial engine is a supercharged nine-cylinder radial rated for about 1,000 hp. AN-2 pilots don't care about things like the drag coefficient or stall speed because that engine brute-forces through it.
  6. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    Might be too big for them. They also need STOL. A PBY needs a roughly 2.5 mile stretch of straight smooth water with no obstructions when there's no wind. It ain't STOL.
  7. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    I'd offer both options if I was making a flying boat that size. Turboprops for all the reasons - weight being a big one - they've mostly replaced large piston engines in aircraft designs. The piston engine option: a 9-cyl. 1-row or 14-cyl. 2-row naturally aspirated radial. That's about as...
  8. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    Anyone remember the Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar ... We did make and test a Jetsons-esque a flying saucer. It needed three gas turbines to get 2 people a mere three feet off the ground. Top speed: 35mph. That was just about the most useless "your tax dollars at play" thing to ever disgrace a...
  9. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    Even if it could a whole lot of Eardrum Mk.1 sets would pinpoint about where it is during the middle of the night with sets of Eyeball Mk.1 looking right at it within seconds.
  10. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    Those videos were marketing propaganda. I can hear a train whistle from about a mile away. They sometimes wake me up at night. Those weren't nearly that quiet. Train whistles are also subject to noise regulations describing how loud they should be.
  11. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    Um ... Stuff like that isn't really useable in a tactical situation because it comes with a giant please shoot me sign which which makes the flamboiant and very obvious bullshit used way back when by commanders so their subordinates knew who was in charge look subtle and stealthy.
  12. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    And surprisingly maneuverable at high altitude ... The huge thick wings and empennage needed to get the monsters safely off the ground and up there meant they weren't sluggishly sliding around in the thin air when they needed to dodge an interceptor's gunfire.
  13. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    Except for the Kawasaki Ki-61. The Allies thought those were a licence-built version of something Italian.
  14. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    Back to one of the classics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_Model_D The Army bought one. The Navy bought three. The Navy used one to take off from a ship (14 Nov 1910) and land on a ship (18 Jan 1911). The 112th anniversary of the latter feat is one week away.
  15. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    The F-104 didn't actually suck in that role despite being "almost but not quite entirely unlike tea" to quote Douglas Adams.
  16. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    Fair enough. Compared to what came shortly after the P-80 was completely outclassed. When compared to what came before they outclassed everything in the sky in ways that weren't funny. Berlin and back from England at speeds a P-51 with a wide open throttle can't keep up with? Yes, that's...
  17. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    Lockheed also has a history of wading into the "we're just guessing" unknown and guessing wrong.
  18. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    Are you saying that the P-80 wasn't a good aircraft? It was 60mph faster than an ME-262 at any altitude and the basis for the T-33 ... which was still in service over 50yrs after the P-80 first flew. The biggest problem the early P-80s had was the Allison J-33's tendency to suddenly and...
  19. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    The Lockheed L-188 Electra (better known as the P-3 Orion), P-38 Lightning, P-80 Shooting Star, and F-104 Starfighter all had serious design flaws which needed to be and were somewhat corrected ASAP.
  20. bintananth

    Warbirds Thread

    They are a treat to see when you randomly spot one. Princess saw a pair over Indy around noon on the 11th. She said they were low, slow, not trying to be quiet, and headed towards Eagle Creek Park (a few miles west of where she was). They were almost certainly doing flyovers of Veterans Day...
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