military aircraft

[Cruez]

I wuld have to say that the F4U Corsair and the SR-71 Blackbird are my favorites.

 

Here is a pic of a Corsair and an F18 (I believe) that was at a show in Hickory a few years ago... (I had a camera with next to no zoom)

 

It was pretty cool watching a prop plane and a jet chasing each other.

 

[Airjockie]

I was an F-15c/d crew chief back in 1991, then I worked everything from Cessna's to KingAir's from 1999-2001, then I got a job working on Blackhawks ans Seahawks from 2001-2005, right now I'm just working on S-76's and S-92...2005-present. Commercial Flight operations at Sikorsky Aircraft.

 

It's fun, and keeps me busy.

[Sparks280zt]

I like the P-38 and the b-36 as well. But gotta love the P-61 Black Widow

 

[Sparks280zt]

Almost forgot two other favorties!

 

The wooden Mosquito:

 

 

 

And the B24 Liberator:

[johnc]

My first stepdad flew B24s in North Africa and Italy during WW2. He hated the flying characteristics of the plane but it saved his life a couple times. He later transferred to B26s with 320th and absolutely raved about that aircraft. His squadron would actually go looking to shoot down a few ME109s after they completed their bomb runs. His plane had 8 forward firing .50 cal machine guns in addition to 2 in the top turret and 2 in the tail.

 

[MatMan]

...snip... But gotta love the P-61 Black Widow

 

 

Oh, I forgot about the Black Widow!! What a beauty!

 

I was doing some research and check these out!!!

 

http://www.strategic-air-command.com/aircraft/fighter/f82_twin_mustang.htm

And from a website that mimics this one:

http://unrealaircraft.com/hybrid/f82_mustang.php

 

This website is pretty cool!

http://texasbestgrok.mu.nu/archives/cat_wild_blue_yonder.php

[award280]

Gotta love the F4-U, P-38 and the Spitfire as far as warbirds go.

 

My grandfater was on the development team for the SR-71 so I got a lot of cool info on the Blackbird.

 

I got to crawl through a B-17 once. They look so much bigger in the old newsreel footage. I don't know how those boys did it under those conditions for hours on end.

 

I will always hate the Hornet and Super Hornet for replacing my beloved Tomcat. Oh well, guess it had to happen sometime.

[jgkurz]

I will always hate the Hornet and Super Hornet for replacing my beloved Tomcat. Oh well, guess it had to happen sometime.

 

I couldn't agree more... the Hornet/Super Hornet also replaced the A6E, KA6D and soon the EA6B.

 

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,131740,00.html?ESRC=navy.nl

 

I suppose technology will always move forward but in my opinion we have moved backwards in ability to save cost.

[riverz]

I like the P-38, F-4, and the SR-71. If you ever get the chance you need to go see the collection at evergreen int. in Oregon. The owner of the company started it to fund his collection. Lots of very rare and one of a kind stuff. They even own the spruce goose.

[Tony D]

I had an uncle who flew P51s. Among many of his stories that amazed me as a kid was the account of how he liked to find an excuse to use "combat emergency" power.

 

Seems that his Merlin had a 2-speed gearbox driving its supercharger. Push the throttle all the way forward to break a safety wire and now your supe is in high gear/ boost and you're haulin' ass.

 

According to Uncle there were indicators that the crew could monitor to tell when this feature was used, and it would flag the need for a very much shortened engine rebuild interval. He said that you better have a good story for the crew chief or you were in for a butt-chewing.

 

Airjockie will confirm this, but the F15C/D hasa a similar .020" copper safetywired pair of switches under the port bulkhead slightly aft of the pilot labeled "VMAX" and "ECM"...

 

During my incentive flight, I discussed this with the Captian flying me around, and it really didn't take a lot of arm twisting for him to flip the "VMAX" switch.

 

We were at Full Afterburner (MIL POWER) and when he flipped that switch it was like someone pushed me from behind...with a UPS TRUCK!

 

It was at low altitude, too, over the Sea of Japan, kicking up a sonic roostertail! I got MY taxdollars worth out of that ride. Normally incentive rides take about 30 minutes, mine was over in slightly under 15 minutes.

 

And yeah, first thing the crewchief did was look at that switch and then run to the tailfeathers and steart swearing.

 

Then he called AGE and PLSC and they started the engine change procedure.

 

MUAHAHAHA! That pretty much made up for most of the "bad stuff" that happened while I was in...

 

To John C's comment about the B36, it's a damn impressive machine. I went in, on and all around the one on Static Display at Chanute AFB in the mid-80's. The SP's were called more than once when maggots caught us inside, but we always escaped! I made a detour to show my son the thing, but the base was decommissioned, and they had moved that thing somewhere... It really was a cool bird to play around in!

[Dtsnlvrs]

My all time fav...The Phantom II. Dad, Step Dad, and Grandfather all flew, and it was the first plane I worked on in the AF.

 

http://http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1439581367

 

 

Second to that I would say the A-26A/B-26K Counter Invader flown out of Nakom Phanom over The Trail. Step Dad did his first tour in them...Call sign for the Squadron was "Nimrod" and his tail number was 666.

 

[Gareth]

You always have to wonder what the P38 could have been had they pulled the Allisons out and put in a pair of Merlins.

 

Or better yet, Griffon engines.

 

Yeah, the P-38 would perform much better with the Merlins. The Army Air Force guys were disappointed with the early P-38's performance on higher altitudes, just because the Allison lacked a supercharger at first. The Griffon was a truly great engine (basically similar to the Merlin, but MUCH larger) but because of its size it would ruin the flight characteristics of any light fighter plane. I once talked with a Polish colonel, who used to fly de Havilland Mosquitos during the war, and he told me that with larger engines it would never be such a pleasure to fly. Even with the older Merlins, the Mosquito was able to outrun almost any German fighter on high altitudes. No wonder why their losses were so small, in comparison to single seat fighters...

 

I had an uncle who flew P51s. Among many of his stories that amazed me as a kid was the account of how he liked to find an excuse to use "combat emergency" power.

 

Seems that his Merlin had a 2-speed gearbox driving its supercharger. Push the throttle all the way forward to break a safety wire and now your supe is in high gear/ boost and you're haulin' ass.

 

I wish I had an uncle like that! The device you mentioned wasn't exactly a "gearbox" in our (automotive) understanding. As far as I know, it was a certain type of clutch that engaged each speed of the supercharger, resulting in different boost levels (it's the same kind of effect that you would get by changing the supercharger pulley while driving). A similar device was used in a twincharged Lancia Delta S4, which disengaged the supercharger after full turbocharger boost was reached. Instead of having a Roots type supercharger, the Merlin had a centrifugal one, which was great on higher RPMs - with the constant engine speeds in an airplane, it must have worked really well.

 

Without a doubt WW2 aviation provided a great amount of engine technology that we take for granted today.

 

Exactly! Even in the early 1940's, Daimler Benz used direct (mechanical!) injection. Both the Allies and Axis powers experimented with different kinds of boost - without the WWII, we would still be in turbocharger stone age (superchargers are a different story, auto makers used them in the 20's and 30's - like the Blower Bentley). The Germans also used GM-1 (nitrous oxide) and MW50 (methanol-water) injection systems for adding power. FW-190s were also equipped with a slight overboost feature similar to the P-51s, but called Erhöhte Notleistung ("Emergency high power"). I think I don't need to mention all the American achievment in the field of turbo, water-methanol and nitrous technology - take the P-47 for example. It is also great that the US guys took a lesson from the German and Japanese researches after the war, and evaluated every possible type of aircraft. The second World War resulted in a huge leap forward in engine technology.

 

Back to the "Favourite planes" topic, I've always had a special place for one plane in my heart...

 

 

Guess I don't have to explain anything. I've only seen two of them - one is a partially restored G-6 excavated from a muddy lake (I don't think it's ever going to fly again), and another one WAS a Hispano Ha-1112 - the one that Mark Hanna crashed in...

[Pop N Wood]

The two speed gear box on the Merlin blowers were designed to be shifted manually at a specific altitude. This was needed to try to keep the boost constant with changing altitude. I have read accounts from WWII pilots who said you had to be careful operating the aircraft at altitudes near the blower shift point because performance suffered. The British actually had several different variants of Spitfires optimized to operate at different altitudes.

 

The German DB601 had a variable speed hydraulically driven centrifugal supercharger that automatically adjusted the blower speed with altitude. The German engine’s fuel injection was also self adjusting. They said it made flying the ME109 quite a bit more simple in comparison to the Merlin craft where the pilot had to manage the supercharger and even had a control to adjust the fuel mixture. They said the German machine basically had a throttle and a stick.

 

War Emergency Power did allow the machine to use extra boost, but I am not sure how that played with the need to shift blower speed with altitude anyway. I know on later variants the WEP switch activated nitrous oxide and water injection. They said the engine was good for about 10 minutes at WEP before it needed to be rebuilt.

 

One last thing, superchargers and turbochargers were considered Top Secret stuff at the start of the war. They were right up there with radar. I don’t think the Germans ever developed the metallurgy knowledge (or simply lacked the resources) to develop turbochargers during the war.

 

The B36’s were impressive machines, but there was a lot of controversy whether they should have ever been built. The B36 program was an enormously expensive one, and many argued they were so indefensible they would have had little chance of ever accomplishing their mission. There was also a good bit of political scandal that the B36 survived simply because it was a congressman’s pet project. An impressive machine non the less. When it was first built at the end of WWII there where only 2 runways in the whole world strong enought to support the weight of the machine. It was the B36 that spawned the need for multiple tire landing gear.

[Gareth]

Pop N Wood, good writeup on the main Spitfire and Bf-109 maintenance differences! One thing that should be added though is the fact that even with a correct fuel mixture setting, the Rolls Royce SU carburetters would stop under negative g-forces, because of the fuel being pressed to the walls of carb bowls (dunno if it's the correct English term, I'm trying to do my best ). In order to counter that, the British introduced the "Miss Shilling's Orifice". There's a quite good article on Wikipedia about it:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Shilling%27s_orifice

 

One last thing, superchargers and turbochargers were considered Top Secret stuff at the start of the war. They were right up there with radar. I don’t think the Germans ever developed the metallurgy knowledge (or simply lacked the resources) to develop turbochargers during the war.

 

Well, the Germans developed numerous turbocharging devices for many purposes... There were experimental turbocharged Daimler-Benz (DB603S) and Junkers (Jumo 213T) engines for high-altitude use, tough they never made it into production. Aside from the aircraft engines, MAN (Maschinenfabrik-Augsburg-Nürnberg) made Buchigebläse turbocharger systems for U-boot inline 9 cylinder Diesel engines, which proved to be superior to Germaniawerft Kapselgebläse gear-driven superchargers.

[Airjockie]

Airjockie will confirm this, but the F15C/D hasa a similar .020" copper safetywired pair of switches under the port bulkhead slightly aft of the pilot labeled "VMAX" and "ECM"...

 

During my incentive flight, I discussed this with the Captian flying me around, and it really didn't take a lot of arm twisting for him to flip the "VMAX" switch.

 

We were at Full Afterburner (MIL POWER) and when he flipped that switch it was like someone pushed me from behind...with a UPS TRUCK!

 

It was at low altitude, too, over the Sea of Japan, kicking up a sonic roostertail! I got MY taxdollars worth out of that ride. Normally incentive rides take about 30 minutes, mine was over in slightly under 15 minutes.

 

And yeah, first thing the crewchief did was look at that switch and then run to the tailfeathers and steart swearing.

 

Then he called AGE and PLSC and they started the engine change procedure.

 

MUAHAHAHA! That pretty much made up for most of the "bad stuff" that happened while I was in...

 

To John C's comment about the B36, it's a damn impressive machine. I went in, on and all around the one on Static Display at Chanute AFB in the mid-80's. The SP's were called more than once when maggots caught us inside, but we always escaped! I made a detour to show my son the thing, but the base was decommissioned, and they had moved that thing somewhere... It really was a cool bird to play around in!

 

Vmax is true....but I bet that pilot got reammed unless he was a squadron commander. What it basically does is opens the fuel to the engine to where there is no restrictions...and gets the full fuel flow...and jet engines loves fuel....more fuel, more power...and then it's a full engine swap. Only used for outrunning things like scuds and missiles.

[LineC]

My fav is the F22. Currently working on it after a lot of training. Went from F16 to F15C and D model, now F22.

 

Just a engine mech but those F22's are something else. Nobody stands a chance!

 

B1 still scares the sheit out of me at the airshows though!

 

Got my ride in the F15C model with the F100-PW-100 engines. (old)

 

Being a engine guy I know what VMAX is and hate to see it used. It does increase fuel flow but while doing that it increases burner pressure and FTIT(combustion temp). Not a real big increase in thrust but I guess if your trying to get away you need it. (suppose to jettison externals also). Downfall is it rapidly decreases life cycles of the motor also. Every once in a while a jet comes down with the safety wire off the switch and I have to ask him. They know it's wrong to use during training and they always have the excuse "my mask got caught on it".

 

We can get away with boroscoping the engine to look for excess heat damage and blade strain, discoloration blah blah.

 

Ohh well when it shells out at 20k into the next motor it will probaly be my ass anyways.