WW II plane buffs?

[Corsair 115]

I mostly do more modern stuff these days, but did a lot of the WWII classics as a kid, and occasionally go back to them now. Here's a 1/72 P-47 and 1/32 Lysander I did in the last couple of years or so ...

When I was a youngster I had a 1/24 model Corsair (complete with retracting gear and folding wings) and a 1/48 B-17. Had a few other 1/48 scale models too (Avenger, Spitfire, Devastator, and Hellcat if I recall properly).

 

[KDLarsen]

For what it's worth, there's a project on to salvage and restore a downed Heinkel He 219^WP from shallow water off the Northern coast of Denmark. Not too many of those around these days.

 

[MRC_Hans]

My father flew a B-17 during the war, so I grew up being a plane buff. I must have had two dozen plane models hanging by threads from my bedroom ceiling.

The P-51D has to be the sexiest plane ever built. Great curves. If I had a few million dollars I'd get my license and buy a Mustang. A guy can dream, cant' he?

Did you see the thread about the 20 Spitfires found in Burma?
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=234160

Steve S

Whhe why did I miss that thread? And this one for 5 days. OK, travelling.

On the flyability of the preserved Spits: I don't know if it will apply to these, but the problem with many Spitfires is that the rivets used for them (a magnesium aluminium alloy) will become brittle with time, so on some restoration jobs, they have had to replace all (!!!) the rivets.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Just wondering if anyone else gets into these history-wise. My fav was by far the P-51 but love em all. Folke-Wulf (sp?) was a bad ass too. B-17 of course a classic and B-29 despite its late entry due to its big role in ending it all but while I get into all the planes, I esp loved the fighters. Corsairs also a fav, that gull wing made it so cool-looking in such a distinctive way. baa baa.

The ME109 has its own shark-like beauty, also. .... In the original configuration, that is; nearly all flying examples today have Merlin engines, and the Merlin installation gives them a clumsy look. (Actually, very early examples initially had Merlins, also).

Hans

To wit:

 

[MRC_Hans]

I've got these two books that are really good. They contain pretty much every plane that was in service. The more obscure planes might get half a page to a full page. Major planes get about 6 to 9 pages. They've got photos, color profiles, full-color 3-views, 3/4-angle skeleton drawings, performance specs, and info about the various variants.

http://www.amazon.com/American-Warp...3727/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334892949&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Warplanes-Luf...8102/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334892854&sr=8-1

Steve S

Nice. I think I have both of them......
Plus a shelf-full of others.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

One I was fascinated by was the Blohm & Voss asymmetric BV 141

The Germans made some pretty crazy stuff, especially towards the end of the war, when they were getting desparate.

Hans

 

[Damien Evans]

Interesting story. The commanding officer (Cyril Clowes) seems to have been a fall guy despite the success

So was Brigadier Arnold Potts, whose crime was to fight a heroic fighting retreat against the Japanese on the Kokoda Track despite being outnumbered around 5 to 1*. For some reason being successful in New Guinea was bad for Generals careers. Of course, the guys who sent them there with inadequate men and intelligence (especially on Kokoda) never saw one bit of punishment for their failures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Potts



*Of course, the guy they replaced him with, Brigadier Selwyn Porter immediately continued the same policy, and a couple of weeks later the Japanese gave up on the attack on Port Moresby, having run out of supplies due in large part to the delaying tactics of Arnold Potts and the 39th Militia Battalion before him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokoda_Track_campaign
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Brigade_(Australia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/39th_Battalion_(Australia)

 

[MRC_Hans]

Boulton Paul Defiant.

Obsolete before it flew.

It had no forward fifing guns.

It was designed at a time when a Fighter had a very short range and only a pair of machine guns as armament.

In the even of war it was anticipated that waves of bombers would attack and because of the short range of fighters they would be unescorted and relying on their own defences.

the Defiant was designed to fly up underneath the bomber formations and to use their turret guns to shoot up into their undersides, if any fighter did show up then the turret guns would shoot them down as well.

By the time the war came the whole idea was obsolete. Fighter had longer range and were a lot faster and better armed.

It did some useful work as a night fighter and saw out it's days as a target tug.

A flight of Defiants had an initial success when a group of ME109s mistook them for Hurricanes and attacked them from six o'clock high . A deadly mistake that the Germans did not repeat.

Hans

 

[Foster Zygote]

The ME109 has its own shark-like beauty, also. .... In the original configuration, that is; nearly all flying examples today have Merlin engines, and the Merlin installation gives them a clumsy look. (Actually, very early examples initially had Merlins, also).

Hans

To wit:

First flight of the Bf-109 V1 prototype was made using a Rolls Royce Kestrel V-12 as the Junkers engines were not yet ready. V2 flew with a Junkers Jumo engine. The Merlin powered versions were built in Spain after the war as the HA-1112.

 

[Comrade Raptor]

I've always had a soft spot for the Fokker D.XXI
They were outdated from the start, but the Finns were sure glad to have them.

Another favorite is the often overlooked Dewoitine D.520.

Nice picks. I actually completely forgot about the D.XXI in this thread, even though it's one of my favourites too.

The D.520, though, is just sublime. I'm a little more partial to the MS.406/410, but the D.520 is fantastic.


If any warbird folks here aren't much into building models but wouldn't mind a few nice birds, I can vouch for the Easy Model 1/72 pre-builts. It's a goodish selection in a lot of interesting markings and decent quality.

I'm not sure I'd pay @$20 full retail for them, but there's a couple of Chinese sellers on eBay who sell them for less and that's where I go to get them in batches. They might be factory seconds, since a few have some small flaws, but you have to look hard for the errors. I haven't bought a full price one, so I'm not sure if these flaws are present in the full price versions.

I've bought about 30 so far, and the only one with a major issue was an Aleutian Tiger P-40e that, for some reason, was missing markings on one side.


ETA: Also, as you might expect, the models are the "swastika deleted" variety. This includes the Finnish-marked aircraft, where the swastikas are either broken lines or replaced by big blue squares.

 

[Alex Cured]

A flight of Defiants had an initial success when a group of ME109s mistook them for Hurricanes and attacked them from six o'clock high . A deadly mistake that the Germans did not repeat.

Hans

it did occur to me that that was its advantage: what ever you do, don't get on it's tail!

 

[MRC_Hans]

First flight of the Bf-109 V1 prototype was made using a Rolls Royce Kestrel V-12 as the Junkers engines were not yet ready. V2 flew with a Junkers Jumo engine. The Merlin powered versions were built in Spain after the war as the HA-1112.

You are right, they were Kestrels.

While we are at the less known, but not necessarily unimportant planes of WW2, I give you the U2, or PO2. Built as a trainer before the war, the robust, easy to fly biplane filled numerous roles during the war, and even after it. Some 40,000 were built.

http://www.hans-egebo.dk/Polikarpof.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polikarpov_Po-2

http://www.google.com/search?q=poli...yFo6Tswad6a2-AQ&ved=0CDUQsAQ&biw=1111&bih=562

I read somewhere that some of the still flying examples have the original engine.

Hans

 

[Alex Cured]

First flight of the Bf-109 V1 prototype was made using a Rolls Royce Kestrel V-12 as the Junkers engines were not yet ready. V2 flew with a Junkers Jumo engine. The Merlin powered versions were built in Spain after the war as the HA-1112.

Interesting. I thought pre-war governments were concerned about German military build ups, so I wonder how that came about? (Perhaps the then British governments were in reality as happy for their technology companies to sell to whoever, as the current one seems to be)

 

[Comrade Raptor]

Still more than a few modellers around, even if the visibility of the hobby isn't quite what it used to be. I'd say the hobby is changing and evolving a little rather than declining, but that's just me. My club has a strong junior section at least.

And it's worth noting that subject selection and quality have never been better.

I wouldn't live long enough (and I'm not old) to finish just the goodies I've seen in the last five years. 1/32 scale has taken right off, with all sorts of unusual subjects. 1/350 scale ships are booming. Even 1/35 armor, which finally features multiple Neubaufahrzeug tanks.

The days of the model section in mass retail seem to be at an end, but I've never seen such lush gardens of kits.

There was even a 1/48 Ju-87 "A" a little while ago! An "A"! I never thought I'd get to see a big-trousered styrene Stuka in any scale.

 

[uk_dave]

Interesting concept developed in 1942.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_V-173

Frisbee anyone?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Interesting concept developed in 1942.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_V-173

Frisbee anyone?

There has been repeated attempts of flying wing configurations. A flying wing has the advantage of lower drag, and it it is large enough it offers unprecedented internal space. However, most practical applications seem to have had snags, sometimes fatal ones. AFAIK, the only sucessfully operative flying wing in aviation history is the B2, and that could be said not to be a true flying wing, in that it has a rudimentary fuselage.

Hans

 

[BaaBaa]

First flight of the Bf-109 V1 prototype was made using a Rolls Royce Kestrel V-12 as the Junkers engines were not yet ready. V2 flew with a Junkers Jumo engine. The Merlin powered versions were built in Spain after the war as the HA-1112.

Were those the Buchons that they used in "The Battle of Britain"?

 

[I Ratant]

The Germans made some pretty crazy stuff, especially towards the end of the war, when they were getting desparate.

Hans

.
The Allied plane designers went to those same extremes, but most never got beyond the paper stage, and remain unknown in their archives.
One blue-sky design that made it was the Lockheed L-133... a seriously state-of-the-art pusher, which lost something in translating into metal, but was sure a fanciful and unlike most of those late war German designs, almost practical.
And the motor for it would have been a quantum leap in jet motors.

 

[dasmiller]

.
The Allied plane designers went to those same extremes, but most never got beyond the paper stage, and remain unknown in their archives.
One blue-sky design that made it was the Lockheed L-133... a seriously state-of-the-art pusher, which lost something in translating into metal, but was sure a fanciful and unlike most of those late war German designs, almost practical.
And the motor for it would have been a quantum leap in jet motors.

Now that's sexy! Thanks, I'd been unaware of it.

 

[I Ratant]

One of the technicians that worked on the first P-80, Lulu Bell, told me they were discouraged by the performance.
Even on the lakebed at Muroc, takeoffs were poor.
One evening, he and another tech looked at the primary fuel filter for the motor, and found it mostly clogged. The motor had been getting its fuel through the bypass around the filter.. not nearly enough to get to the rated performance.
Cleaning that made the airplane perform as expected.
The guy was a walking history of Lockheed Flight Test... he'd hired in the year I was born, and worked on changing the Lockheed Hudson into the bomber version, modifiying the electrics in the Boulton-Paul turret to operate on 60 hz instead of 50 hz.
He was so good at his job, Lockheed bought him a house near Palmdale. And kept him on for many projects as a supervisor.