Posted on 10/02/2019 9:30:38 AM PDT by McGruff
The Collins Foundation had these planes in Nashua, NH last weekend.
A guy in my office and his buddies flew on these planes from Lewiston, ME to Nashua last Friday. He was on the B-24 Liberator. Two of his buddies flew on this B-17.
Terrible loss of life and plane but it could have been much worse. Apparently the pilot(s) saved lives.
If this was a car I’d say it sounds like a fuel delivery problem. The engines were starving for fuel and losing power or quitting altogether. They might have tried to divert what little fuel pressure they had to two or three engines so they could land. That anyone lived is a testimony to their efforts.
Such a shame. I toured this very B17 years ago when it came to a local airport here in Monmouth County, NJ.
Engine Number 4 at takeoff, according to what I read.
B-17G (chin turret).
Sad.
Unexpected differential thrust.
Plane could easily fly on 3 with no bomb load and reduced crew.
It certainly was close to perfect, both in engineering and aesthetic.
It’s belly radiator not only added little drag, but contributed 4 MPH in jet thrust (hot exhaust). The laminar-flow wing (thickest at 50% chord instead of 33%, to delay onset of drag) was the first great success for that NACA cross section.
Don Berlin and the P-40 get no credit, but in my opinion, the P-51 was in some real sense an updated P-40. (Any good engineer draws from past successful designs.)
The UK wanted North American to build the P-40 under license. NA refused, but offered to make their own fighter, even though they had not built a combat plane before. The UK, miffed, said, You have three months. NA had a prototype, sans engine, in 117 days!
Although inline, low-wing fighters tended to be similar, the dimensions and layout of the P-40 and P-51 are unusually similar: length, span, wing area, and planform are very closely matched. Significantly, the XP-40 also had a belly radiator - but, unfortunately, the military forced Berlin to move it to the chin, increasing frontal drag.
Berlin coveted the Rolls Royce Merlin XX for his Curtiss Warhawk, but North American got it.
As great as the Mustang was, it would not have succeeded so well without the two-stage Merlin engine, courtesy of Great Britain. The Allison P-51, P-51A, and A-36 were good, but not great.
My father was a Navy flyer, and later an aircraft/rocket designer. He rarely talked about his work (top secret), but he once told me:
“Back then, if it looked good, it flew well.” The Mustang looked very good, and flew very well. (The same can be said for the Spitfire, FW-190, and Zero.)
The major flaw in the Mustang was that its ailerons stiffened at high speed. Corsair pilots used that to beat Mustang pilots in mock combats at high altitude (above 20,000 feet) and high speed. The F4U was not as maneuverable or control-coordinated overall, but it was very fast, flew very high, and had exceptionally responsive ailerons, all the way up to its high terminal velocity.
Yes. The B-17 was an extremely robust design, and a pilot’s airplane.
You can only stay in a holding pattern so long
You’re right about the Merlin engine, it made the plane what it was.
The Allison just wasn’t up to the task.
Thanks for the P-51 analysis. I love this stuff.
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