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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?
 
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Aussiegunnerreturns    RE:Larry - from the horses mouth...OBNW and Larry   11/11/2005 11:01:12 PM
Yes, I realise that they were used outside the European theatre as bomber escorts. It is just that the European theatre was the most challenging and obviously they weren't up to coping there.
 
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Aussiegunnerreturns    RE:Larry - from the horses mouth... Larry   11/11/2005 11:06:02 PM
Upon what basis do you say the P-40 was better than the Hurricane at ground attack? As far as I know the "Hurribomber" could carry 2 x 500lb class bombs, vs only 700lb all up on the contemporary models of the P-40 and had 20mm to 40mm cannon armament(as well as mg's), which gave a better kill capability against armour than the P-40's machine guns. Both aicraft were resistant to ground fire, so really it is a tradeoff between the Hurricanes better armament versus the P-40's range. I'd call them about the same against ground targets.
 
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larryjcr    RE:Larry - from the horses mouth... Larry   11/12/2005 1:01:40 PM
Nobody was ever very tempted to use P40s as high alt. escorts in N. Eur. They were needed in N Af. and sent there. No reason to think that they'd have done very well, but note that the Spitfire couldn't do the job at all due to range limits. Tomahawks and Kittyhawks could deliver bombs more accurately than a Hurribomber, also had much better performance at low level. Trials in UK showed Tomahawk MkI equal or better in everything except climb to a NEW Hurricain without the desert air filter. Also was more survivable than Hurri. Hurricains rep for toughness was compared to fragile Spitfire. The Curtiss 'hawks were not in a class with a 'bolt or Lightning, but nothing else was. Was considered remarkably tough by US standards for structure, but not as well armored as P39. List of speeds and ceilings form the appendix of FIGHTERS OVER THE DESERT by Christopher Shores & Hans Ring. Note, speeds & ceilings adjusted for effects of the 'trop' mods used in the desert. Hurricain I (8x.303) 302mph/16k ceil. 28K Hurricain IIA (8x.303) 315/17.5K ceil. 32K Hurricain IIC (4x20mm) 305/18K ceil. 30K Tomahawk IIA (2x.5, 4x.3) 352/15K ceil. 32K Tomahawk IIB (2x.5, 4x.3) 345/15K ceil. 29K Martlet (4x.5) 330/21.5K ceil. 34K Kittyhawk IA (6x.5) 354/15K ceil. 29K Hurricain IID (2x37mm, 2x.303) 276/19K ceil. not given Kittyhawk III (6x.5) 362/15K ceil. 28K Warhawk (Merlin engine) (6x.5) 364/20K ceil. 34.5K Spitfire V (2xsomm, 4x.303) 350/13K ceil. 37K Note that Spitfires arrived only well into '42. The Martlets were operated by FAA, inherited for a block built for a Greek order and inherited by Brititsh.
 
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Heorot    RE:Larry - from the horses mouth... Larry   11/12/2005 1:17:34 PM
That's Hurricane not Hurricain. Mistakes like that make me hesitate to believe that you know what you are talking about. It was not the case that the P40's were needed for N. Africa at this period. ETO was the primary theatre while N Africa was secondary. Aircraft that couldn't compete in the ETO or were obsolescent were the ones that ended up in secondary theatres like N Africa and the Far East.
 
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oldbutnotwise    RE:Larry - from the horses mouth... Larry   11/12/2005 1:18:20 PM
Larry - lets look at the P40 for the BOB. 1, the p40(no suffix) entered service in april 1940, so 800 by the satrt of the BOB is unlikely wouldnt you say? 2, the original P40 has 2x .5 nose guns and no wing guns, hardley a heavy firepower (especially since the .5 had a 40% reduction in rof due to syncronisation) 3, the first p40 had no armour or self sealing tanks - standard on all RAF fightes by April 40 4, the P40 was slower than a 109E by some 30mph, it was also slower in a dive, slower to climb(both normal and zoom) it turned slower and rolled slower. In all it was completely out classsed by the 109(so much so that even the P40F model of 1942 was still outclassed by the same 109E's operating in the MTO let alone thew F's used in central europe.) this is before to take into account that the performance of the p40 deteriated with altitude and by the time the p40 got to the 15000-20000ft the germans were operating at they were completely outclassed. 4, the p40 was not a ground attack aircraft, check on its specs, the p40 wasnt equiped with bomb racks untill the F model of 42. so in conclusion, if you were to fight the BOB with P40 the tactics you needed to change were. 1, to get the germans to delay untill at least 41 till you got some P40s built. 2, to get them to fly a lot lower so that they at least came in at the altitude that p40 performed best at. 3, get them agree not to dogfight with your p40s good luck ps when you say tat the P40F's in the desert were the equal of hurricanes what your saying is that it took till 42 to match an aircraft that had its developement halted at 1940 level? the hurricane was regarded as second string by 1942 yet it replaced p40 squadrons so that must make the p40 third string! I have no problem with the truely great ww2 US planes - P51's P38's B29's b25's its this attitude that all the us output was great when it wasnt. by the way the botha was a pile of junk, it was quickly relegated to recon work in non dangerous locations. and was replaced as quickly as possible as it was regarded as a death trap. the standard coastal command flying boat was the sunderland which was a very capable aircraft that served till the end of the war and beyond, the catalina was use in conjunction with not as a replacement of the sunderland, all other coastal command flying boats were obsolete well before the war started. the main land based aircraft was the anson an ex civil airliner pressed into service as it was cheap to build. daylight bombing! well I agree that the RAF did daylight bomb and it was a disaster. but my point was that that the RAF heavies (wellington whitney etc) were designed and built as night bombers, that in the early days they got used as day bombers does not mean that this was thier intended role, the RAF day bombed in 39-40 because they had an agreement with the germans not to bomb civilians, now this meant that night bombing was out because, at the level of 1940 techonolgy, bombing at night they were lucky to bomb the right city let alone to avoid hitting civies. so all bombing was day bombing (the heavy bomber missions to german cities were performed at night but these were only dropping leaflets!!!!) and got pasted as trenchard predicted.
 
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oldbutnotwise    RE:How to fix the design defects of the Spitfire airplane of WW-II.   11/12/2005 1:23:54 PM
One thing that has struck me, if shooter is correct that nose guns are better than wing guns then why did the P40 which started life with twin .5 in the nose end up with all its guns being wing mounted? now the spit was designed with nose guns so you could have argued that supermarine got it wrong, however if the nose guns were that much better why did no one complain when they deleted them from the p40? surely the pilots that flew them would have been saying "hey give me back my nose guns these wing guns are no way as good"
 
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Aussiegunnerreturns    RE:Larry - from the horses mouth... Larry   11/12/2005 2:45:14 PM
"It was not the case that the P40's were needed for N. Africa at this period. ETO was the primary theatre while N Africa was secondary. Aircraft that couldn't compete in the ETO or were obsolescent were the ones that ended up in secondary theatres like N Africa and the Far East." A fact bourne out by the early dominance of Hurricanes, as well as P-40's in this theatre and the late arrival of Spitfires.
 
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Aussiegunnerreturns    RE:Larry - from the horses mouth... Larry   11/12/2005 2:51:08 PM
"Nobody was ever very tempted to use P40s as high alt. escorts in N. Eur. They were needed in N Af. and sent there. No reason to think that they'd have done very well, but note that the Spitfire couldn't do the job at all due to range limits." The point that I was making is that you have been saying that the P-40 could have won the Battle of Britain, which was fought at high altitude. The fact that the type had the range to escort bomber missions in Europe that were performed at equally high altitudes, but wasn't, is a pretty strong indication that the airforces that used the P-40 wouldn't have had the same faith in its ability to win the BOB that you do. "Tomahawks and Kittyhawks could deliver bombs more accurately than a Hurribomber" On what objective basis can you say that?
 
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larryjcr    RE:Larry - from the horses mouth... Larry   11/12/2005 5:10:28 PM
Last first: the high altitude of the B17s was rather higher than the altitudes flown by BoB German bombers. Second, for escort you need to operate at that height, to intercept you only need to get up there and fall on what's below you. Second-- As I said before, this was a comparison of capabilities and tacitcs. I was not addressing logistics, as I said earlier. The fact that the a/c wouldn't have been available in fact is moot to my arguement. My point was that greater endurance, even with inferior performance, was an advantage in interception!! Both the Hurricane (Yes, I was using an alternate spelling acceptable for the storm after which the a/c was named) and the 'hawks were good, stable a/c, but the Hurri was designed as a medium altitude interceptor, not for ground attack, while the 'hawks were intended for what the RAF would have called 'Army Cooperation' from the drawing board.
 
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larryjcr    RE:Larry - from the horses mouth... Larry   11/12/2005 5:14:31 PM
It wasn't that better a/c weren't needed in N Africa, but that the RAF gave absolute priority to home defense, which was understandable. The 'hawks wouldn't have been sent if there had still been any real threat of a cross channel invasion. That would have been a situation they'd have been good for. The Spitfire Vs began to arrive in meaningful numbers mainly after the home squadrons began to convert to MkIXs, freeing up a lot of used MkVs.
 
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