WW II plane buffs?

Beanbag said:
The Spanish air force flew 104's as well, and didn't lose a single one.

The F104 just wasn't a forgiving aircraft. It was literally about a decade or two ahead of its time, a case of Kelly Johnson giving the pilots exactly what they asked for. They have one at the Cavenaugh flight museum, and it amazes me just how tiny it is, compared to most jet aircraft of that and the present era.

A quote I've heard attributed to the F104 by a supposed F104 pilot is, that if you make a single mistake in an F104, it will be the last mistake you make in that plane. If you're lucky, you might get to make another mistake in another plane later.

Beanbag
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And there was 1970s record made out of it

Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters

http://www.starfarer.net/captlock.html
 
Saturday a flight of 4 Mustangs flew over the house in line abreast...Our annual airshow is coming to town!

While in college in the 70s I worked a couple of summers at MCAS El Toro in a USMC training squadron QA shop. Amongst the T-28s in the maintenance hanger was a Vought F4U Corsair that was being rebuilt. I got to crawl all over it. I have often wondered whatever happened to that old bird.
 
Huttosaurus said:
Yes, along with the CASA built Heinkel 111s (also merlin powered) and Ju-52s. IIRC all three types were still on the active inventory of the Spanish Air Force at the time, and loaned to the production company for the duration of filming.
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Actually what happened was that the whole fleet was retired by the Ejercito del Aire just as the film went into production and the production company bought them. Apparently, when put together with the Spitfires and Hurricanes, the film production company owned the 35th largest air force in the world. It's all described in Leonard Mosley's book about the making of the film
 
The Spanish -109s use the Rolls Royce Merlin.
The originals had the inverted motors..
 

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I Ratant said:
The Spanish -109s use the Rolls Royce Merlin.
The originals had the inverted motors..
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I was going to say "it looks like its got a Merlin" but dismissed it as my own nationalistic bias.

I have to say they look better with the inverted-V engines. They look meaner.
 
The Merlin lacks the cannon that fires through the center of the prop, that is characteristic of the motors in the Messerschmitts.
And on the Buchon swings a 4-bladed prop.
 
Excellent, thanks for the correction! My apologies.

(though I am a little annoyed they call it a BF-109 on the website.)
 
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I Ratant said:
The Merlin lacks the cannon that fires through the center of the prop, that is characteristic of the motors in the Messerschmitts.
And on the Buchon swings a 4-bladed prop.
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Ahh... but not all of them!

Of the Emil's, only the E-2 had a motorkanone and this was unsuccessful. Only the F series and later characteristically carried a motorkanone.
 
Dcdrac said:
This is my fave whacked out Ww2 plane of all

Bachem Ba 349 Natter (Viper)

http://www.world-war-2-planes.com/Ba-349.html
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From the wikipedia article on Lothar Sieber, the first (only?) test pilot
It is assumed that during the vertical drop, with the engine firing, Sieber inadvertently also became the first human to break the sound barrier.
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and from the main wikipdeia article it suggests that he may have died from the acceleration causing something like a basal skull fracture.

There's an image of a full size diorama at the Sieber page that's rather handsome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothar_Sieber
 
I Ratant said:
Noise.
The noise kept the F-104 in the air.
When the noise stopped, it plummeted.
If that occurred as the plane was passing through 20,000 feet over the end of the runway, it could make the runway in the plummet.
Otherwise, eject, eject, eject.
Belly landing the thing with the ventral fin would be fatal.
The Luftwaffe was flying it outside the envelope the other nations were, which contributed to the appalling loss rate they experienced.
Like the MiG-21, it was an airfield perimeter defense airplane, nothing more.
One of my friends flying F-8s for the Marines said they'd fly over an F-104 base taunting the flyboys... knowing the -104s couldn't get to and land safely after.
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The Danish Air Force had in all 51 og them and 12 crashed. I believe that the Starfighter got it's bad reputation very early. I read an article written by Roland Beaumont a British testpilot that were in USA and tried some of the "Century Fighters". According to him the early engine had a nasty habit of "flaming out" and did so espescially when the plane came in for landing. This, coupled with the very unfortunate ejection seat in the first planes named the plane "The Widow Maker". It seemed that some genious had decided that a pilot could not use a normal ejection seat at Mach 2 so the early seats ejected DOWNWARDS. Not reassuring if the plane flames out at the landing approach.
 
I Ratant said:
Noise.
The noise kept the F-104 in the air.
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It was noisy, that's for sure. ;)

When the noise stopped, it plummeted.
If that occurred as the plane was passing through 20,000 feet over the end of the runway, it could make the runway in the plummet.
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Actually, at the speed of a rifle-bullet, even plummeting would take it surprisingly far.

Otherwise, eject, eject, eject.
Belly landing the thing with the ventral fin would be fatal.
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That and the high landing speed. Not recommended.

Like the MiG-21, it was an airfield perimeter defense airplane, nothing more.
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Not exactly. The F104 was built to early post-war doctrine; being much enchanted with tne fancy new guided missiles, some military authorities got the idea that the fighter of the future would be tasked simply with bringing missiles within firing range of the enemy as quickly as possible.

The F104 was ideally suited for this. However, as it was soon to turn out, there was a bit more to aeral combat than just that. The F104 remained a workable zoom and boom fighter for a while, and in the ground attack role, it performed till the size and precision of the available ordenance made it unsuitable.

As airfield perimeter defence, it was not suitable, unless your airfield was the size of Texas (the rumoured turning radius. In reality, it was some 25 miles).

Hans
 
At high speeds, all turning radii are large, with the largeness depending on the plane.
When we were simulating the SST for the US competition at Lockheed, at Mach 2.7, the acceptable g-loading for the passenger made a turn about 300 miles in diameter.
A 180° turn begun over LA would finish over Vegas.
The push-over from the high-Mach climb to cruise would tend to put the passengers on the ceiling.
Darryl Greenamyer suggested doing a positive-g roll at the transition... of course, the passengers might not care to see the earth move around like that. :)
 
Didn't the HE111s used in the Battle of Britain film have merlins in them too?
 
Ove said:
TThis, coupled with the very unfortunate ejection seat in the first planes named the plane "The Widow Maker".
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The B-26 Marauder earned the same moniker early in its history too, though in the end it was to prove itself a fully capable aircraft.
 
I Ratant said:
The Merlin lacks the cannon that fires through the center of the prop, that is characteristic of the motors in the Messerschmitts.
And on the Buchon swings a 4-bladed prop.
Click to expand...

Although on the models prior to the F series, the center MG FF cannon was virtually always omitted because it was so prone to jamming after a few rounds. The F series (my favorite) finally solved this issue and MG 151 15mm guns were first reliably installed, then upgraded to MG 151 20mm cannons starting with the F-4. The wing mounted MG FFs were then deleted from production examples, although Adolph Galland had a couple of F-4s equipped with custom armament, one with 13mm guns in the cowl replacing the 7.92mm guns, and one with a pair of MG FFs fitted in the wing.
 
Dcdrac said:
Didn't the HE111s used in the Battle of Britain film have merlins in them too?
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Yes. In fact several years ago I was on board one (on the ground) that had been the personal transport of Francisco Franco.
 
Corsair 115 said:
The B-26 Marauder earned the same moniker early in its history too, though in the end it was to prove itself a fully capable aircraft.
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Ah yes, the Flying Prostitute. So named, according to legend, because its wings were so small relative to the rest of the plane that it had no obvious means by which to support itself.

Dave
 
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