Posted on 10/06/2016 9:54:54 AM PDT by DFG
American World War Two hero Chuck Yeager has launched an extraordinary attack against Britain, saying its people are ‘nasty’ and ‘arrogant’. The 93-year-old, who was the first man to break the sound barrier when he worked as a US test pilot, has recently taken to social media. And judging from his first attempts he is no mood to let age mellow him.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
My Dad flew with him and said he was an outstanding pilot. He didn’t discuss him outside of flying. My Mom did (they were in his squadron)...and she was NOT impressed.
His reputation at Edwards, as a person, was that of an arrogant ass. Or, in my Mom’s words, “His poop didn’t stink, and if you doubted it, he’d tell you!”
Wheaties Welch did indeed exceed mach 1 in a dive while test flying the F-86. The first?? Open to speculation.
That is how you win wars. Know any leaders we have now with that kind of motivation?
There is no doubt that Britain got in over its head fighting Germany back in the day. It is also a fact that the USSR got itself into pretty much the same pickle. But dissing Britain over that glosses over the fact thatThe result was that although Britain got its fat in the fire and needed us to get it out for them, we needed Britain. And FDR did everything he could to keep Britain in the war. And he did the same for the USSR, for the same sort of reason. Germany with Russia’s resources would have been far tougher than Germany already was without them. When Stalin convinced Harry Hopkins (despite the conventional wisdom to the contrary) that the USSR would hold out for at least a year, FDR did what he could to enable it to last a lot longer than that.
- the US did not want war with Germany - even after the German conquest of France - any more than did the Britons who cheered Neville Chamberlain’s “peace in our time.” And cheer they did, just as Americans polled 4-1 against entering the fray.But . . .
- FDR (or any other responsible leader) could not view the possibility of a NAZI Britain (with its Royal Navy) with equanimity. Can you say, "existential threat?”
Think how tough it was to invade Europe as it was. Without the beating the Wehrmacht was taking on “der Ostfront,” invasion of Europe would have been “too hard” by far. The A-bomb would have turned the tide, but that would have been after an intolerable additional several months of V-2 bombardment of London. And until it worked, the A-bomb still seemed speculative. As was America’s ability to develop it before the renowned science of Germany.
At the end, America had the most chips - but because of FDR’s socialism, that did not translate into the Pax Americana which it might have. Given Coolidge economics, the US economy would have been substantially bigger in 1938 than in fact it was. And economic power was America’s edge in WWII; alone we produced more materiel than all the Axis powers combined, in just about every category (except submarines - but even there, America made much bigger, longer range subs). Make allowance for the superiority of German tanks - and of the (relatively few flight hours delivered by the) Me-262 - but still, it isn’t close. And with strong economics going in - and without the time required to teach New Dealers what strong economics actually consist of - the disparity would have been even greater.
Nuremburg?
The snowflakes of today wouldn’t have survived D-Day let alone the crossing to Normandy.
Nuremburg Would have never happened. New would have lost and we’d be speaking German.
*** “President Fumblebutt” ***
New one ... wonder if there is someone that has found the time to catalog every reference to the current POS CINC in the same descriptive terms?
That would be hours of entertaining reading
*** “Perhaps his personality had something to do with that, too” ***
He was a Warrior, not a media Hack.
Met Brits and Aussies in the Military (BEST BAR FIGHTS EVER!)
Kinda felt left out some times cause the Brits and Aussies would concentrate on each other
Danged Aussies were scary ... one guy had a broken leg (Compound Fracture, Bone sticking out of his Thigh), punched the Medics and climbed over the Fence to get back in the Fray ... Medics easily caught him, punched him back a bunch of times and then had to tie him down to a stretcher, and he still wouldn’t quit.
I have Friends from England and Friends from Australia (none from France) they Choose to Live Here
Thanks C_i_C. I never knew that. Very nice explanation. There are some incredibly knowledgeable people here at FR.
I’ve seen the videos (on YT) of the rocket tests done by Kelly Johnson on scale models of the wings and tail of the F-104. As you no doubt know, they discovered much about — the effect of putting a wingtip-mounted fuel tank or missile on a thin wing; sometimes these blew off almost instantly due to the type of positive feedback effect you describe.
I didn’t know these effects were showing up on the P-38, but I’m also not surprised; that airplane was utterly unconventional, in addition to being beautiful.
Now that’s just crazy tough.
Aileron reversal was the problem for which the P-38 was known. In principle the plane might be controlled by “merely” doing something that you were trained and experienced at doing the opposite of. Pretty neat trick if you can actually do that in the heat of the moment . . .I would not attribute that facet of the P-38 to its unconventional layout; it would seem that it could have been avoided, or ameliorated. But, once you have a plane that is proven to work, and it has limitations as all designs have limitations . . .
Neither the Germans - nor the British, who were officially asked to evaluate it - thought much of the P-38. It had range, but its unconventional design put a lot of mass outboard, rather than on the center line as in a single-engine design. And that naturally would result in less ability to start or stop a roll. And the aileron reversal issue compromised the ability of its pilots to exploit its dive capability as much as you would think.
OTOH the plane was popular in the Pacific theater because its range and multiengine reliability, dive capability, and especially the unique advantage of mounting its guns, rather than an engine, on the centerline, matched or overmatched, the only fighter the Japanese produced in quantity.
The latter advantage was, essentially, unique to the P-38; conventional wing mounted armament has to be canted inward, so that the left and right inboard guns converged at one range, and other pairs of guns converged at different ranges. The P-38 had four .50 cal machine guns and two 20mm cannon - all center-mounted and firing straight ahead - and effective out to 1000 yards. The Japanese Zero had far less firepower; the two 20mm cannon could be, and operationally were, operated independently of its only two, only .30 caliber, wing mounted machine guns. AFAIK the muzzle velocity of the 20 mm guns must have been lower - thus requiring a different aim point depending on target range - than that of the 30 cal ones. Otherwise, turning off half your firepower in combat would seem to make little sense.
The reason I speculate the heavier caliber fired a slower muzzle velocity is that - all else equal - you need a barrel length proportional to the caliber in order to get the same muzzle velocity. IOW, if you design a good 30 cal, and make the barrel as long as practical (weight and all else considered) its muzzle velocity will be higher than that of an independently designed 20 mm, which would need a less-practical barrel length to attain the same muzzle velocity. Even in the case of the P-38, the muzzle velocity of the 20 mm was distinctly lower than that of its .50 cal. The muzzle velocity of the .30 cal Japanese machine gun might have contrasted even more sharply with that of their 20 mm.
The upshot is that the value of the P-38 critically depended on the characteristics of the adversary it faced. Against the Zero it had advantages it could exploit, and pretty good ability to keep out of disadvantageous engagement circumstances. Against German fighters, not so much.
“All the foreigners are upset because the eight years of President Fumblebutt are coming to an end.”
Interesting, too, as Foxnews.com has all but stopped reporting on anything happening outside America and our domestic enemies’ coup attempt.
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