Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
Fighters, Bombers and Recon Discussion Board
   Return to Topic Page
Subject: How to fix the design defects of the Spitfire airplane of WW-II.
Shooter    5/26/2005 5:12:16 PM
Given 20-20 hind sight, It is easy to see where R.M. went wrong with the Spitfire! The following list of items is my idea of how they should have done it, IF THEY HAD READ ANY OF THE COMMON TEXTS instead of designing a newer SPAD for the last war! 1. Start with the late Seafire or even better the Martin Baker MB-5! they have contra props and wide track gear. The MB-5 also has a much higher LOS out of the pit forward. This is also one of the Spits larger problems. 2. Change the shape/planform of the wing and eppinage from eliptical to trapiziodal. The eliptical surfaces caused the construction time and cost of the Spitfire to be more than double that of the Mustang and almost as much as the P-38. 3. Reduce the wing cord and thus area by 35-40%! This reduction in surface aria will increase the cruising speed substantialy! This is probably the single biggest defect in the design. The change in aspect ratio will also help fuel ecconomy! 4. To compensate for the increased landing and take off speeds install triple slotted fowler flaps with a long hinge extension. This gives a huge increase in wing area and changes the camber for supirior "DOG FIGHT" ability, should you ever need it! ( because the pilot really screwed up!) At full extension and deflection, they would reduce the landing speed by 11~13MPH? (Slip Stick calcs!) 5. Remove the wing mounted radiators and install a body duct like the P-51 or MB-5! This one change would add ~35MPH to the plane? 6. use the single stage griphon engine and install a "Turbo-charger" like the P-38 and Most American Bombers had. This would increase power and save weight, both significant contributers to performance. 7. Remove the guns from the wings! This would lower the polar moment of rotation and give the plane snappier rates of roll! It also makes room for "wet wings" with much more fuel. A chronic Spit problem. It also fixes the Spit's gunnery problem of designed in dispersion! 8. Install the Gun(s) in the nose! Either fireing threw the prop boss/hub or on either side 180 degrees either side of the prop CL. This fixes the afore mentioned dispersion problem. One bigger gun between the cilinder banks or upto four 20MMs beside the engine or both, depending on what your mission needs were! 9. Make a new gun based on the American 28MM or 1.1" Naval AA ammo! This shell was particuarly destructive, had a very high MV and BC and was all ready in service. A re-engineered copy of the existing gun to reduce weight and increase RoF is a faily simple task. Pay the Americans for it if British spring technology is not up to the task! it also frees up much needed production capasity for other things. 10. Design a new drawn steel "Mine" shell for the above gun! Spend the money to load it with RDX instead of the TNT used for the first 4/5s of the war. 11. Pay North American or Lockheed to design it for you, since the Supermarine staff was to tied up fixing the origional spitfire design to get it done any time soon. Did I miss anything?
 
Quote    Reply

Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest
Shooter    RE:Engines   10/20/2005 12:42:34 AM
Just because X number of squadrons used it, does not state how much they used or how often.
 
Quote    Reply

Shooter    RE:Engines   10/20/2005 12:50:11 AM
To OBNW; Where did you get this from? Please list the source, author and page! I at least listed the book, author and page! >>SHOOTER ok here a post to counter your claim of 1771 kills in the eto by P38 USA records show that the the P38 scored IN TOTAL during the years 41 to 45 a total A2A kills of 2602 in all theaters so if your claim that 1771 leaves only 931 a2a kill in the MTO PTO and all other theaters is this your claim?<< If you say it is a valid statistic from a good source, I have no reason to dought you or it. BUT WHAT IS THE SOURCE, AUTHOR and PAGE? >>and because no one can provide reference doesnt meant that your unsupported claims are true it means that they are no more valid than the other. << This is pure rubbish! My claims are from impecable sources, well documented and acurately refferanced. I listed the Source, Author and Page when I posted something like the stats we argue about now. See origional post to confirm this! Therefore there is a very real differance between claims and statistics.
 
Quote    Reply

Shooter    RE:Engines   10/20/2005 12:58:31 AM
OBNW=>>the spit was mannufactured in ex car plants with workforces that spent the nights in air raid shelters, yet the quality of finish was excelent, whilst not the spotless finish of lockeed in there posh govenmental bulit plant in safe Conus with its well fed workforce living in nice safe houses 1000 miles from any treat, i doubt if lockeed could have produced anything at all if they had to operate in the same enviroment as supermarine had to.<< Shooter; It was >3000 miles not 1000, The reason Spits were such shoddy planes is that they WERE made in car plants! SEE YOUR POST ABOVE FOR DETAILS! Look at many of the thousands of Spitfire pictures published! Look close at the visable defects to see what I mean. If we can see it in a foto from the war how glairing must it be? Your entire post gives the excuses why they were so bad, then states that Lockheed would have been lucky to have done as well and finnishes up with a miss statement about the distance from the war. RIGHT!
 
Quote    Reply

Shooter    RE:Engines   10/20/2005 1:07:25 AM
Nice post Larry! My research at Daton shows that most problems with the P-38 were related to the Turbo or inlet plumbing and even so those failure rates were less than the equivilant Spitfire rates! RR's own manuals for the merlin and grifon engines state TBOs of 100-150 Hours. This figure was redused conciderably by use of full throttle, requiring new plugs EVERY TIME THE ENGINE WAS RUN SO! The Allison TBO from any one of the planes service manuals was 3-400 hours! The Ruskies flew them much longer because spairs were so hard to get. The MAIN differance was because of the Alison's PENT ROOF combustion chamber was much more efficiant and less prone to detonation! The -119/134 serries Allisons needed only 90-95" of boost to make more power than the POST WAR Merlin or WAR SERVICE Griffon did at 105" boost!!!! (See the pilots manual for the F-82 twin Mustang to find this for yourself!)
 
Quote    Reply

Shooter    RE:Engines - Larry   10/20/2005 1:24:23 AM
I would look to the number of sourties divided by the total number of aircraft made to determine some sort of "rate of reliability". While it has been over twenty years since I last computed those numbers based on figures from a museum in Duxford?, P-38s flew more sourties per plane per year of service than Spitfires did. It does not matter which theater of opps you look into, the rate, including all the failures was twice or three times the Spit's figures. Remember they made less than 10,000 P-38s and more than 20,000 Spitfires! Finaly, Alaska is colder at sea level in winter than Europe is at 30,000' in the same month! There is much to be said that ETO P-38 problems could be traced to infirior British FUEL! Finnaly P-39s with Alison engines did not suffer so many troubles with out the TURBO CHARGERS!
 
Quote    Reply

oldbutnotwise    RE:Engines - Larry   10/20/2005 3:33:37 PM
shooter you have never provided chapter and verse for your statements so dont demand other people do it. the fuel in P38 was provided by the US and mixed by US personnel with fuel industry experts drafted in to ensure they followed instruction, this idea it was the fuel has been disproved on many ocasions and was an excuse roled out to try and explain the failure of us equipement. as for sorties where is your evidence? I have a friend at cosford and he disagrees with your statement, he rekons that the P38 actually flew less missions than the spit in any given time period. as for the twin mustang have you read its history? it was built to use merlins and was forced (against north american's advice but were forced by its parent company GM who just so happened to own alison) to use alisons, its reliability rate was appaling and was hated by its pilots. as for using them without turbos well you remove the turbo any engine will be more reliable (and less powerfull too)
 
Quote    Reply

Shooter    RE:Engines - Larry/OBNW   10/22/2005 12:37:56 AM
OBNW>shooter you have never provided chapter and verse for your statements so dont demand other people do it. See the Title/Author/Page numbers in my last two posts! You are also right about the P/F-82's engines. They were terrible! But their only defect was GM's refusal to put backfire screens in the intake manifolds. When NAA did this in their test plane, all problems whent out the door! See Schmued's book Mustange Designer, chapter on the F-82! (Note that I have posted titel and author and section if not page numbers again!) That it was the AAC that required the use of Allison engines not GM which did not want the recip buisness because they felt that the future was in Turbines is also missed by your post. On page 232 of Wagoner's book, American Combat Planes, it lists the sourties, victories and losses of various fighters in the ETO durring WW-II. Since this is the forth time that I have posted this refferance, I think you could have looked it up by now. I refer you to my origional post and the 10-12 items that could be improved on the Spitfire. Could you please refrain from pointless arguments on trivial things and talk about the items on that list?
 
Quote    Reply

flamingknives    RE:How to fix the design defects of the Spitfire airplane of WW-II.   10/22/2005 5:29:10 AM
Might as well go over this again, I'm bored. 1) Start with a plane 5 years more advanced. sound advice. So why wasn't the Mustang at Pearl? 2) The wing also made the spitfire what it was. No way of telling what it would be like with a different planform 3) Ditto 2 4) Were they sufficiently mature at that time? A quick search indicates that the first aircraft to be so fitted was the 727. 5) Maybe. 6) Again, using later technology. Only later marks of the Griffon were superior to the Merlin. Would it have been easily possible to fit a turbo to a Griffon? 7) The Mustang had wing tanks and wing guns. 8) Firing through the prop, however you do it, is a pain in the arse 9) Make a new gun? Genius! That wouldn't take up much resources at all! 10) Design what you can build, not what would be nice. If you don't have the capacity to make cannon shells in high grade steel, you don't do it. Same goes for explosive types. 11) Not very likely. Would the isolationist mood of the US govt. at the time allowed it? Most, if not all, of your points are based on hindsight and analysis some time later. Not THE COMMON TEXTS OF THE TIME!!!111! I take it that it's Wagner's "American Combat Planes" you have, as his "american Combat Planes of the 20th Century" has no such table in it. A strange ommision
 
Quote    Reply

oldbutnotwise    RE:How to fix the design defects of the Spitfire airplane of WW-II.   10/22/2005 8:54:16 AM
OK shooter lets go over the same ground 1. Start with the late Seafire or even better the Martin Baker MB-5! they have contra props and wide track gear. The MB-5 also has a much higher LOS out of the pit forward. This is also one of the Spits larger problems. ok the answers- lets go further and fit a jet engine and swept wings as this was only 2-3 years leter than the mb5 and the mb5 was 5 years later than the spit. wide track means thicker wings = reduced perfomance this is the reason why if you look at designs of the time they fall into three areas, thick wing but wide track ie hurricane - thin wing but narrow track spitfire/Me109 or fuselage mount ie F4 in addition yoou have to make the wing stronger around the pivots extra wieght at a time when weight saving was paramount. 2. Change the shape/planform of the wing and eppinage from eliptical to trapiziodal. The eliptical surfaces caused the construction time and cost of the Spitfire to be more than double that of the Mustang and almost as much as the P-38. the elipical wing is proabably the best wing shape for sub sonic flight, yes the trapiziodal wing is cheaper/quicker to build but as supply of spits always exceeded supply of pilots that wasnt an issue. the trap wing is less efficient at combat manuvers and would have seriously hampered the performance of the spit, in fact a trap wing would have meant in all likleyhood that the spit would not have been able to be developed to the extent it was. it was only after extensive wind tunnel testing that the efficient trap wing was later produced, most trap wings rely on purte hp to overcome there problems 3. Reduce the wing cord and thus area by 35-40%! This reduction in surface aria will increase the cruising speed substantialy! This is probably the single biggest defect in the design. The change in aspect ratio will also help fuel ecconomy! but the spit was designed as a SHORT RANGE interceptor increased crusing speed and longer range were not design specifications, it wasnt required to fly to germany it was designed to intercept german aircraft over kent, the spit was actually designed with 70 gallons more fuel than the specification required and the air minstry nearly asked for that tank to be removed to maximise performance, the reduction in wing area also increases wing loading and that is depremental to handling 4. To compensate for the increased landing and take off speeds install triple slotted fowler flaps with a long hinge extension. This gives a huge increase in wing area and changes the camber for supirior "DOG FIGHT" ability, should you ever need it! ( because the pilot really screwed up!) At full extension and deflection, they would reduce the landing speed by 11~13MPH? (Slip Stick calcs!) fowler flaps were large and heavy in the 30's and very slow to operate, this was fine on bombers and such but a bad thing on a fighter the slipt flap on the spit was considered the best trailing edge flap for small aircraft, what would have been an advantage was leading edge flaps as per the 109, however as the germans found out whilst this was a boon in combat only the most experianced pilots used them, and in the arealy years of the war the RAF was populated with bearly trained pilots, the old adage keep it simple stupid was best kept in mind. 5. Remove the wing mounted radiators and install a body duct like the P-51 or MB-5! This one change would add ~35MPH to the plane? the body ducted rad was not new the hurricane had it, wwhat was new was the descovery in US wind tunnels that by careful design you could create thrust from the exhusting hot air, as this descovery was 5 years away it would not have helped the spit. the rads on the spits were actually more efficient than that on the mb5/Mustang from an aero point of view it was only the boost by thust effect on the later aircraft that meant the increase in drag was less than the gain in thrust. 6. use the single stage griphon engine and install a "Turbo-charger" like the P-38 and Most American Bombers had. This would increase power and save weight, both significant contributers to performance. as ther was no Griphon engine in 1937 you would have had a airframe waiting for an engine not a effective fighter i would say. as to the turbo! whilst turbo were availible in 37 they were big heavy and inefficient, the best were US and the US govenment refused export licenses. even those were bulky, requiring a lot of space, and were very difficult to operate (as early P38 found out, not untill they electrically controlled units of 43 was the turbo a practical option in a fighter) in addition they make the airacraft vunrable to gunfire, the additional tubing of a turbo takes up a lot of space (30% of a p38 springs to mind but i am likely wrong on that) and while a hit in this ducting is not fatal it does cause a noticable reduction in power, just when you least need it as to increasing power, not sure I agree s
 
Quote    Reply

Shooter    RE:How to fix the design defects of the Spitfire airplane of WW-II.   10/23/2005 1:25:17 AM
I never wanted to "ADD BITS" from planes six years newer, just use design points from prior planes. Every item on that list predated the spit by years. Every one! I listed examples to convey the ideas involved not the factiod from a later plane. 1. Contra props predate the Spitfire by several years from an Italian seaplane racer. The landing gear disposition pivoting in instead of out make for a thinner wing as the tires can submerge into the fuse. The wing is already stressed to 6 or more G and this makes it better in every way. The Spit and Me-109 were clearly products of defective thought processes. 2. The eliptical wing is only marginaly more efficiant than a trapiziodal planform. Think small single diget numbers. 2~3% at the outside. Yet if it had been done there would have been twice as many Spits in the battle of britan. maby three times as many. 3. Reduce the wing area to increase wing loading. The plane gets faster but is less maneuverable. This is a good thing. 4. The flaps are the single biggest strech but were available in 1929, IF you were willing to spend the money. Another excuse of penny wise and pound foolish. 5. The wing rads were notoriously bad aerodynamicaly! Not only did they cause turbulence in critical locations, they added weight and length to the plumbing and thus vulnerability. 6. The griffon was not ready yet but was available before the hottest merlins. I conceed that this is one item that would be to advanced for the early marks. But the type R was there in 1931? 7/8. As long as we are redisigning the engine/mount put the guns in the nose. There are many examples of this and they all predate the Spitfire. Including the 20MM Hispano instalation. Make the wings wet! The increased fuel was desperately needed and if the mission was short dry tanks weigh nothing more than dry wings. 9. The new gun idea is not as far fetched as it might seam in 1935. The 1.1" was a particuarly neet ammo for 1928? IIRC! The origional weapon was crap but I never said to use it, just build a new gun. When I looked for a revolutionary weapon this was the only pre-existing ammo/weapon that fit the bill. Hi MV/BC and leathality! 10. This last is a swipe at brit wartime policies of "The best is the enimy of good enough!" Why continue to use TNT when everyone else switched to RDX a decade ago? And aluminized RDX in 1940? 11. This last is also a swipe at British policies because anyone who read the books writen by all the "ACES" after WW-I would have known that the Spit and planes like it were obsolite before they ever flew! Read Severiski's book on the why and how of the P-35/47? Or Kelly Johnsons book/interviews about the P-38. While you cling to the notion that the Spit was a great plane statistics say this isn't so. Either of the P-39/40 would have done a much better job in the BoB and since I know that you will all dought this, I propose a war game for money to test the theory. I'll give good odds if there are any takers.
 
Quote    Reply



 Latest
 News
 
 Most
 Read
 
 Most
 Commented
 Hot
 Topics