INTERESTING FACT OF THE DAY

[ophic]

Originally Posted by Luckypants

On aircraft such as the Mosquito or Beaufighter they were mounted in the nose and were very effective.

Good that the guns were, cos the planes weren't

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Luckypants

These issues were mainly present in wing mounted applications forced on the designers by a single engine 'blocking' the fuselage. On aircraft such as the Mosquito or Beaufighter they were mounted in the nose and were very effective.

Mosquito cannon were in the bomb bay, with browning .303s in the nose.

Believe they'd sussed most of these issues by later in the war in the typhoon and tempest, ending up with a pretty formidable attack aircraft.

[Luckypants]

Of course you are correct Chris.

Originally Posted by ophic

Good that the guns were, cos the planes weren't

Um, the Beaufighter might have been a bit of an aeronautical dullard but the Mosquito was a fantastic aircraft, probably the first true fighter/bomber. The sad thing is that, because of the canvas and wood construction, they virtually all rotted away long before the current wish to preserve bits of the past.

[ophic]

Originally Posted by DJFridge

Um, the Beaufighter might have been a bit of an aeronautical dullard but the Mosquito was a fantastic aircraft, probably the first true fighter/bomber. The sad thing is that, because of the canvas and wood construction, they virtually all rotted away long before the current wish to preserve bits of the past.

Yeah I was waiting for someone to bite on that. Some loved them, but it was primarily designed to be fast, and never quite had the edge it was supposed to due to rapidly advancing fighter tech.

Except as a night fighter, where it excelled.

Obviously this isn't my opinion, just something I read about 20-odd years ago.

Some say the Bf 110 was the best twin engined aircraft around at the time...

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by ophic

Some say the Bf 110 was the best twin engined aircraft around at the time...

They'd be wrong, the mossie outclassed it in basically all regards. Another few years of development and an extra 800hp will do that.



On the sort of track of aeronautics and progress, Sir Sydney Camm, a prolific engineer responsible for the Hurricane among many others, started off building free flight gliders when mans first powered flight had barely been made. His career spanned the era from biplanes made of wood and string to supersonic jets. It's amazing to imagine looking back on a career like that, seeing so much change and being part of a lot of it.

well as were on the subject
the new strike fighter made and designed for the americans went into production 4 years ago, 3 years ago the found they could not use them on aircraft carriers (which was the main design brief) because the location of the arrest arm meant upon landing it ripped the undercarriage off , the best bit is they only found this out when running the simulations the year after they started building it even tho they had the specs 4 years previously

Ireland drinks more tea than any other nation on earth. Not per head of population, on a country basis.

On the subject of drinking.

Gin was originally added to tonic water to make it more palatable, not the other way round.

When they were trying to increase the speed of production of Spitfires in the war, they realised going to dome head rivets instead of flat rivets would save significant time. To test how this would perform in the air, they glued split peas to every flat rivet on a Spitfire.

It lost 7 mph due to the extra drag. The idea was cancelled as that 7mph advantage over the Messerschmitt was deemed its primary advantage.

C