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Re: [OM] Turning comparisons - OT (long)

Subject: Re: [OM] Turning comparisons - OT (long)
From: Gary Edwards <edwardsg@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 08:58:29 -0600
I was fortunate to have known Paul Bickle when I was involved in soaring.  Paul
retired as the head of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB and
was known as one of the finest flight test engineers ever to hold a clipboard (
He was also the driving force behind lifting bodies - remember the opening
sequence for the Six-Million Dollar Man?).  He spent the WWII years at Wright
Field, then the Army Air Corps flight test and development center.  Over some
beers around the motel pool at a National Soaring Championship in Kansas he
talked about those days.  He and a talented team of engineers spent many months
trying to improve the roll rate of the Mustang.  The maximum roll rate was much
lower than the specification called for, partly due to the modest wing taper
ratio, and partly due to the rather extreme laminar flow airfoil employed in the
wing design.  They did everthing they could think of to improve the roll rate 
but
never brought it up to spec. It doesn't seem to have mattered much in the end, 
as
skilled pilots learned to anticipate and begin turns earlier.  I later read some
NACA reports documenting these studies.

The Spit certainly does turn better, both in the rate at which it rolls in and
the rate of turn that it can sustain (both important in a gunfight). Lower wing
loading, that beautiful elliptical planform, and a traditional non-laminar wing
section all contribute.  The lower wing loading and planform also resulted in
suprelative high altitude performance.  The Spit's weakest point was its lack of
legs.  Paul and his team also spent a lot of time trying to improve the Spit's
range.  They had one shipped to Dayton where they sealed every volume they could
find to make tankage.  Fuel management was nightmare and their work was never
incorporated into production.  The Brits could have done this work themselves,
but were rather busy simultaneously dodging Luftwaffe bombs and producing
airplanes.

Gary Edwards
(an engineer in awe of what those guys did back then with nothing but slide 
rules
and smarts)

Barks wrote:

> >The guy who owns the Spit also owns a Mustag. We would be on the property in
> >the mountains and low in comes this Mustang. What a roar. One time they did
> >a turning comparison Spit vs Mustang. Spit won easily.
> >
> >Foxy
>
> I believe that the Mustang was a hefty machine, larger and heavier
> than the Spitfire.  On the other hand, perhaps the Mustang had more
> fuel on board for the test.  A similar comparison might be the F-16
> and F-15.  The smaller aircraft (apart from being much more
> attractive) is lighter and has a better turn rate and smaller turn
> radius - no bias on my part of course :->.
>
> On the subject of fuel load/comparisons, for the Summer Fair at RAF
> Brüggen in 1998 we raced a Tornado against a TVR Chimaera (British
> sports car).  The Tornado won, but it had the advantage of  a very
> low fuel load - so that it could land immediately - and poor weather
> conditions.  The runway was wet and it was pouring with rain so the
> car had traction problems to surmount, while the aircraft had the
> cold(ish) air to give good performance.  [The car was on the runway,
> the Tornado was on the parallel taxiway which serves as a standby
> runway].
>
> I was seeing fair play so did not take any photos - sorry.
>
> Chris
>
> ~~~~~ ><>
> Chris Barker
> mailto:cmib@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
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