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Bugatti 100P Rebuilt: The Plane That Could've Turned the Battle of Britain
concertina226 writes "A team of engineers is working together to recreate the Bugatti Veyron (or Bugatti 100P), an art deco-era fighter plane designed for World War II that would have broken the air speed record in 1940 — only the plane was never flown. Featuring forward pitched wings, a zero-drag cooling system and automated flight control assistance, plane was capable of reaching an air speed of 500mph, which would have made it the fastest and most advanced plane of its time."
Right.
"Bugatti, who had gained French citizenship between the two wars, decided to hide the craft in pieces in crates in a barn in the French countryside to prevent it from being discovered by the Nazis."
Learn to read.
If the main thing about this aircraft is it's high speed, it seems odd to me that the replica is going to be powered by engines which will only allow it to reach a fraction of the quoted max speed
Dimensionally identical to the original, but will only go 200mph instead of 500mph. I'm sure they could source an engine(s) to make it go the original 500mph if they wanted to.
I get the computer controlled part, since forward swept wings are inherently unstable, but not how such control was going to be accomplished in 1939. Also, this 500mph historical plane, with modern fabrication and knowledge, is going to be limited to 200mph because they could only manage to fit 400HP of engine in it. And yet the original was supposed to fly 2.5 times as fast with only 2.25x the horsepower? Drag doesn't scale that way.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I'm curious - what exactly does "computer-directed flight control" mean for a plane from 1939?
I bet maintenance would've been a bitch. I might have been able to fly fast, but there might also have been a lot of "hanger queens" too. The design is meaningless if you can't keep the planes in the air.
Proverbs 21:19
Even by Slashdot standards, this is one of the dumbest headlines, ever.
Bugatti was no Nazi. He lived and worked in pre-war France, and was not a Nazi supporter at all. The reason the thing did not fly back then was because Bugatti, who had build the plane in France prior to it being invaded by Nazi Germany, successfully hid it from the invaders so they would not get their hands on it. Or rather, the technology used in it: in any case, the plane in the form it was built was never, ever, a "Nazi plane". Nor would it have been useful at all as a warplane: this thing, amazing as it is, is a pure racer, with zero capabilities for being armed. Nor would it probably have been much good in a dogfight, either: that crate was built to be fast, with everything else being a secondary consideration.
This headline is pure drivel, and really should be corrected ASAP.
From TFU:
"The Bugatti 100P was not ready in time for the September 1939 deadline to enter the Coupe Deutsch aircraft race, ... If the Germans had been able to get hold of the Bugatti, it is believed that the plane could have outperformed the British Supermarine Spitfire planes during the Battle of Britain."
Incredible how unrealistic/sensationalist how people can be. The prototype was not ready in Sept 39, it was hidden in France and hence can only be found there by the Germans after May 1940 and still it is assumed to take part in the Battle of Britain on the summer of 1940? And according to the title it is even supposed to win the war at that time???
The caption for the lead photo in the article, showing a sleek, double-propeller-driven aircraft:
"A group of airplane enthusiasts have rebuilt the Bugatti 100P, an advanced fighter jet from 1940".
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
It's as if the internet is full of wack jobs. Do you not know when to use its? Do you know it exists, its?
As usual, linking to the people who actually know what they are talking about would have helped.
Instead we have a story with the headline "WWII Bugatti 100P Plane Rebuilt: Jet Fighter that Could Have Won Battle of Britain for the Nazis" in bold print directly over a photograph of a plane with a propeller.
Amazingly enough, even the Daily Fail article which the International Business Times cribbed for this story contained more accurate information.
Computer directed flight control in 1940? Must have been a very large plane.
Germany had, for all intents and purposes, won the Battle of Britain before Hitler decided to change the successful tactic of attacking primarily military targets to civilian targets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_335 could potentially beat the shit out of RAF .. and so could ME 262 . Just consider the allies lucky .. they were not built in large numbers ...
It wasn't a Nazi plane.
it was Italian
History, facts and performance from the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) which has the original on display.
http://www.airventuremuseum.or...
Mary-Ann Russon, Technology Reporter for the International Business Times UK, believes in them, while both don't exactly exist.
Twin props on a jet. Now that's innovative.
I guess pusher props would get too hot from the jet wash.....
Unbelievably bad !
The Bugatti 100 wasn't a JET , much less an "advanced fighter jet". (Note to the author: Jet isn't synonym with combat aircraft).
It wouldn't be computer controlled . No computers with the right size and speed for controlling an aircraft where available (also, for the size, the control surfaces would be "muscle" powered, as where all aircraft of comparable size and era).
Being on the prototype stage, it would not ever be combat ready and in wide operational use for it to make any difference on the Battle of Britain (The prototypes for the Spitfire and the bf109 had first flights in 1936 and 1935 , operational around 1938 and 1937).
Compared to the previous issues, the "zero-drag cooling system" is of little consequence.
Also, no excuse for the author not being an "expert" on the subject .
Some basic fact checking ("oh, look it s got a propeller" or "when was the first flight control computer introduced ?") would keep the piece honest. (but would certainly intrude upon the the sensationalist tone).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_335 could potentially beat the shit out of RAF .. and so could ME 262 . Just consider the allies lucky .. they were not built in large numbers ...
They also lacked range. By the time they flew to London, they only had enough fuel to stay for a matter of minutes before returning to base. The RAF Spitfires were flying from local airfields, so could spend much more time in the fight. The really decisive fighter of WWII was the American P51 Mustang, not because it was the fastest, or most maneuverable, but because it could carry large external fuel tanks, greatly extending its range. It could accompany bombers from England to Berlin, or from the Marianas to Tokyo. It is not the best fighter than wins, but the best fighter that actually shows up for the fight.
The Germans lost the battle for many reasons. They were losing aircraft fast, not just in combat but due to maintenance needed. Planes have to be pulled out of the line and refurbished every so often. They can't fight forever. Unknown to the Germans, the British were far out producing them in fighter aircraft. Almost double the production. The problem the British faced was a lack of pilots to man those aircraft, and a degradation of the support infrastructure. Same as pilots, the ground crew, maintenance and airfield engineers were wearing out. But, so were the German ones. It turned into a battle of attrition. The Germans were deeper to begin with, but the British were losing less over time. The Germans eventually broke first. Their change in tactics was to cover the wearing out of their air force.
From the looks of it, it would have a fuel range barely enough to cross the Channel.
I also have doubts about the top speed, given the wave drag of the leading edges. However, that's a maybe. With the motorcycle engines instead of (for instance) a pair of turbocharged racing engines the replica is going to be flying at only 40% of the original's planned Mach number so a lot of things are going to be very different. On the other hand, some aeronautical engineering grad student could probably do a nice paper on simulated performance of the original.
By the way: the Spitfire cooling system was not only dragless, it produced thrust.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
My God, Slashdot has gone to shit over the years. That kind of unresearched clickbait nonsense would not have made a post 10 years ago.
The aircraft in the picture is:
1. Too small.
2. Unarmed.
3. Unarmored.
Let's explain:
Once you add armament and armor, the Bugatti would be a LOT slower. Probably slower than the Bf-109 that set the 469mph record.
To compensate, you'd need a bigger engine. The 109, which was a small fighter to begin with (half the size of a P-51 and a third the size of a P-47), was already running a big engine for its size and barely had enough room to upgrade to the DB605 during the middle of the war. This Bugatti is tiny. It's powered by two 4.9L engines that produce 450hp each. In 1940, the 109 had the DB601 with a displacement of 34L and produced ~1200hp. By 1945, the DB605 was up to 37L and produced about 1800hp.
The Bugatti wouldn't be big enough to run an engine that big, and while I'm sure one of you is going to ask "but it doesn't need to"... yes it does. If it's to carry enough fuel, armaments, and ammunition, it needs to have an engine that can propel it forward at combat speeds with all that extra weight, and an airframe that can hold all that. You don't get a lunar lander to the moon in Kerbal Space Program with a pair of solid fuel boosters, and you don't get an armed and armored fighter to loiter over Britain for an hour with two 4.9L engines. Not happening. Physics disagrees.
Incidentally, the 109's already small size was one of the major problems for the Germans during the Battle of Britain. It didn't have the fuel capacity to stay over London for anything more than 15-20 minutes and still be able to return to France.
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
I'm actually surprised they're trying this; I wouldn't want to be the first one to take it up. Two things that are almost guaranteed trouble in aircraft are counter-rotating propellers and especially shaft-driven propellers. I see insufficient rear control surfaces (what are they going to do when they start to hit compressibility?), poor-to-no stability, and almost impossible emergency exit. The concept of an aircraft with poor visibility and no room for fuel or weapons as a fighter is laughable. They're not testing Bugatti's concept, because they're not powering it sufficiently to test the one thing it might have been good at - speed.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
FUCK BETA.
Yes the Bugatti beta from 1939 is designed to dupe anon cowards into registering as /. members. This design is to win the "Beta Battle" for smart phone interfaces. If /. had this "Beta" back in 1939 it could have won the iPad/iPhone forum interface wars!
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
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Why does the submitter think the Veyron is this airplane (the 100p)? Even the linked site acknowledges that the Veyron is a car:
http://google.com/search?q=site%3Abugatti100p.com+Veyron
And the P-51 also happened to have plenty of fight in it, aside from the range. Superb aircraft.
Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est.
Having only 900hp total with 2 engines while other fighters of that era had between 1000hp and 1500hp with only one engine.
In times of war you don't want some high tech complex machine like this, you want clever and simple design, easy to repair and reliable.
Try it! Library of Babel
woulda-shoulda-coulda.
It's a valid contraction, so why the hissy fit?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
First, thanks for linking a page with autoplaying video, LOVE THAT.
Second: combat aircraft are about much, much more than speed. Note this line: "...The reigning air speed record of the time was 469mph, set by a German Messerschmitt plane in 1939...." That was the plane that LOST the Battle of Britain, by the way.
The Bf109 was 10% faster than the Spitfire during the Battle of Britain anyway, an even faster plane - assuming it would remain so, after the addition of reasonable fuel tanks, armor, guns, ammunition, and a fighting canopy - would have helped how?
Note, the power/weight ratio for this racing plane, 3.44 lbs/hp, is precisely the same (curious?) as the unloaded combat Spitfire. Wing loading is much less, but if we presume the addition of 1000+ lbs of combat-necessary weight, that would be rather worse.
No, this is a clever design, a very pretty bird, and will be interesting to see fly. I would be a little nervous, without seeing the wind-tunnel results, of flat spins and yaw control generally, not to mention forward-swept wings being notoriously twitchy in practice.
-Styopa
It kinda reminds me of a Goa'uld Death Glider. So it's really a good thing the Nazis didn't find it.
The Gloster Meteor could have beat the shit out of the Dornier Do 335: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Germans were lucky they were forbidden to fly over German territory.
And don't forget the limited range of the German fighters.
The Battle of Britain was more the battle for southeast Britain. Unless RAF Fighter Command cooperated, by staying in a losing fight, there was basically no way for the Luftwaffe to seize and maintain air superiority in support of a seaborne invasion.
The RAF had plenty of bases north or west of the Luftwaffe fighter's effective range; so if the attrition started going too badly against the RAF they had the option of temporarily pulling back to train up additional units, but could still surge forward if / when the invasion began. And Luftwaffe bombers would get shredded trying daylight unescorted raids against those more distant airbases.
Ultimately, as painful as it might have been to people on the ground in that southwest portion of Britain, the Luftwaffe could only inflict a level of attrition that the RAF was willing to accept. It would be quite different if the Luftwaffe had the range to put fighters over any part of the UK, because then the RAF has to come up and fight, or its units get destroyed on the ground by fighter sweeps or escorted tactical bombing missions; though at least it would still have the option of training new pilots in Canada - so it wouldn't be quite as bad off as the Luftwaffe was by the end of the war where there was a good chance a trainee pilot would be shot down by Allied fighters before finishing flight training.
The USA held back the use of VT (proximity) fuses over enemy territory until the Battle of the Bulge. To prevent a dud from being recovered and reverse engineered by the Germans. There would have been less risk of this when used over British territory.
Have gnu, will travel.
Just a comment on the comments... plz 'scuse.
This is interesting history and technology, and I love articles about them both. However, all the posts here seem to be arguing the finer points of whether some difference in technology, such as this plane, would have spurred a different outcome to the Battle of Britain if not the entire war. Well, short answer, no. The simple fact about why Britain, with American help, won the Battle of Britain as well as the war in Europe hinges on one giant fact. Massive manufacturing. They could build more planes in a day than Germany could in a month. Ask any pilot in England at the time about that. They will tell you, though they saw all their planes destroyed one day the very next morning brand new ones would be ready to go. Ask them if they were ever, ever, without a plane and they will tell ya, never. Not once.
Arguing the finer points of technology is always fun, but don't let that muddle your sense of reality or history.
One other fact of serious consideration is this, how many could the Germans have built if they went all in on building them? One of the decisive factors in WWII was the greater production capability of the U.S. over Germany. By the end of the war, the U.S. was building more tanks each month than Germany had over the course of the entire war.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Its actually lack of fuel. Since the US Air force is no longer flying high compression/ high powered piston engine planes, the availability of proper fuel is extremely limited. Leaded fuel plus toluene (I think).
TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
Planes had to have a significant range - even drop fuel tanks had to be planned for (complicated plumbing + extra drag/weight at takeoff). .50 caliber only - and 6 to 8 of those in a plane - that is a lot of weight. The ME262 had 4 20 mm guns/cannons. Are you going to shoot through the props? if not, then you needed wing mounted guns. If so, you needed mechanism to keep from shooting the prop off the plane OR an engine/gearbox that allowed shooting through the tip of the propeller.
Need to carry significant armament - like a few 30ish calibre machine guns (7.62 mm). By the end of the war the US was pretty much
Finally, naturally aspirated engines might make for a good low level racer, but at 30,000ft, you need turbo or supercharging to keep things alive. More weight, more cooling
TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
It would be quite different if the Luftwaffe had the range to put fighters over any part of the UK, because then the RAF has to come up and fight, or its units get destroyed on the ground by fighter sweeps or escorted tactical bombing missions; though at least it would still have the option of training new pilots in Canada
Or Arizona. Falcon Field is now Mesa Municipal Airport, but they kept the old hall as a historical site. The hassle of getting flight trainees clear from Britain to Arizona 70+ years ago is minor compared to having more than 300 days of flying weather every year.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
it would still have the option of training new pilots in Canada
Which they were already doing (Which you probably knew or you wouldn't have mentioned it.)
I actually grew up within walking distance of one that stayed operational as a municipal airport. Coincidentally 15 years ago I met a British veteran who had trained there towards the end of the war. He had fond memories of his posting to Canada.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
The P-51 also shot down quite a few ME 262's because the tactics and maneuverability limitations made the ME 262's predictable. They brought overwhelming speed to the fight but little else. The P-51's even downed a few Russian Migs at the beginning of the Korean war before the US fielded jet fighters in any numbers.
It wasn't a Nazi plane. it was Italian
French, Italian, whatever.
I am not a crackpot.
It wasn't a Nazi plane. it was Italian
Bugatti was Italian, living in France and proposing to build his plane for the French. So it might have been in use against the Luftwaffe in the fight for France. I don't know how the person who wrote the headline gets from there to the Battle of Britian unless the only things he or she knows about the time is that and Pearl Harbor and the bomb.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
The P-51 also shot down quite a few ME 262's because the tactics and maneuverability limitations made the ME 262's predictable.
The P-51 pilots learned to linger near the German airfields and shoot the ME262s down when they were trying to land, slow and low on gas.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
And it also helped that the Luftwaffe was just about out of skilled pilots, chronically short of fuel, lacking in materials for the jet engines, etc. A case of "plenty good enough" combined with every other advantage except nose to nose superiority.
Note however that GP's post was wrong in ignoring the fact that the ME-262 also brought serious stooping power to the fight with FOUR 30mm cannon, along with rockets. You really, really did not want to be in front of one of these.
Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est.
The wops were on the krauts' side.
For a while, at least.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Superb aircraft.
Oh, indeed. And the story of its origin is wonderful. In 1940 the British wanted North American Aviation to produce Curtiss P-40 Warhawks under license, but NAA thought they could make a better aircraft faster. And the first P-51 rolled out 102 days after the contract was signed, and first flew 47 days after that. It took a few years of upgrades and revsions to turn it into the best piston-engined fighter of the war, but compare that initial design and development cycle to the years and even decades it takes to get anything built these days.
Interesting tech note: the P-51's distinctive radiator/oil cooler actually added speed to the plane: cool air came in the front, and the hot air exiting the back added some jet-like thrust.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
In 1940? How, by dropping blueprints of it and making the RAF laugh themselves to death?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That would suggest an excellent application in surprise ground-strafing missions against targets without air support, but all the guns in the world aren't worth much if your target can readily avoid being in front of you and you have to outrun your own anti-air support to exercise your primary advantage.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
And yet, they succeeded to launch over 3,000 strategically ineffective V-2s, which were complex to build, expensive, and used materials and chemical production capacity that could have been put to "better" use. Freeman Dyson famously said "the V-2 program was almost as good as if Hitler had adopted a policy of unilateral disarmament", and according to Albert Speer, if Germany would have steered the V-2 research more towards development of their radar-guided SAMs, and used the resources made available by doing so (as well as by scrapping the V-1s) to build more Me 262s, it might have been able to prevent the allies from gaining air superiority over its territory and bombing its military production capacity into pieces. This in turn would have made it much harder for the allies to waltz through Germany. Even then, there's no way the Germans alone could have won against most of the rest of the world, but they might have been able to make the battle for Germany expensive enough to negotiate more favorable conditions for surrender, or perhaps even an armistice. (Assuming they also succeeded to keep airplane-dropped nukes out through military or diplomatic means.)
Its seems like the world has to thank Hitler's maniacal obsession with offensive strategy, tactics and weaponry for the relative quick ending of fighting in Europe.
There is a thing called a motorjet or thermojet which was invented in the early 20th Century and was a fore-runner of the gas turbine.
In the days before most people realised that a self-sustaining gas turbine was possible, someone came up with the idea of using a reciprocating piston engine with a ducted fan or propeller to compress air and to inject fuel and burn in in the compressed air stream (like an afterburner on a modern jet engine).
Stick Men
RTFA. It was a French plane. Buggati had moved to France, and the plane's development was paid for by the French.
Will
RTFA. Bugatti hid the plane before the Germans invaded. If they had found it, and made use of the technology Bugatti had developed, the Germans would probably have succeeded in their attacks on London.
Will
True indeed, but there's pretty strong evidence that the Me-262 was not just some lumbering, flying artillery piece. Plenty of pilot's logs and tests by the US and UK suggest that it was a potentially deadly opponent, except for the laundry list of problems I posted earlier.
And for the record, the P-51D and later marks onward were IMO the best of breed overall during the war. Speed, firepower, maneuverability, range, manufacturability, etc.
Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est.
I'd prefer recreations on some of the Horton Ho aircraft. The Horton Ho 229 would have been an amazing aircraft. I guess we (the Allied side) were lucky they never made it to production.
The only full size of the Horton Ho 229 I know of was a replica airframe to evaluate its radar signature.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Its seems like the world has to thank Hitler's maniacal obsession with offensive strategy, tactics and weaponry for the relative quick ending of fighting in Europe.
One of the oddest things we see when we get into these conversations is that way too many people seem to think "If Hitler had done this, the Nazi's would have won the war."
Its as if the Allies were somehow not capable of any innovation, and would just stood still for the superior German technology to tear them apart. Not too many seem to acknowledge that the Allies were developing jet fighters also.
Britain had the Gloster Meteor and de Havilland Vampire. The US had the Lockheed P-80, (eventually the F-80) which had come close to being deployed in the war, some were in Europe right before VE day.
Point is, resources won the war. If the war had continued, the Allies would have been able to counter the ME262 in short order - the first P-80's were designed and built in 143 days. War makes for fast evolution of fighting machines, and the Germans were not the only smart people.
Any air superiority the Nazis would have gained using an air force of jets would have been quickly lost as the Allies could have swamped the ME262's, with jet fighters of their own. A longer war perhaps, but similar results.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
You sir, are obviously not an American!!
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
Let's assign blame where it is due. TFA linked makes these (mis)statements. Our illustrious editorial staff just picked it up and ran with it. Like a frat pledge brought out on his first snipe hunt, sack and flashlight in hand.
Have gnu, will travel.
If they had found it, and made use of the technology Bugatti had developed, the Germans would probably have succeeded in their attacks on London.
German raids failed for a number of reasons. The problem is, even had they succeeded in bombing London more, it still wouldn't have changed the course of war. As far as I remember, Nazis were extremely lousy at picking military and industrial targets - e.g., they never concentrated on a single branch of British industry, but bombed them rather randomly, thus effectively guaranteeing that the British war effort would never be completely deprived of any single kind of resource (beyond the need of import stuff from the US, of course).
Ezekiel 23:20
The problem I have with that is that it's easy to design a superb warplane on paper. Actually making the thing into a decent weapon is a whole lot harder. If the only full-sized example of an aircraft was a replica airframe, I'm not going to make claims on how it would have done in combat.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
TFA, line 1:
A team of engineers is working together to recreate the Bugatti Veyron (or Bugatti 100P), an art deco-era fighter plane ....
Have gnu, will travel.
But even with that, they were reportedly pretty close to breaking the RAF, when they decided to change tactics and let them rebuild near the end of 1940.
So it would have had about 900 hp, required two enormous drive shafts (never good for your P/W), used fixed pitch props, was built of wood so you're compound curves suck, and this was supposed to reach 500 mph?
Total BS.
Props, pistons and shafts don't like each other, every aircraft that tried it either failed to mature or was a mediocre performer. P-39. BD-5. etc. The singular exception is the Pfiel, which took the most of war to get working.
Spitfires would have eaten this thing's breakfast.
The really decisive fighter of WWII was the American P51 Mustang
Well that all depends on your timeframe. Later on, perhaps, but at the Battle of Britain, the UK stood alone and was in immediate danger of being invaded. If that had happened it would likely have fallen as the UK didn't have the war industry at that time to defend on land. The technical superiority of the Spitfire (& to some extent Hurricane, not as good a plane but in far greater numbers) at that point in time saved the UK from invasion since air superiority couldn't be achieved.
I think "preventing invasion" could be described as fairly decisive...
Even then, there's no way the Germans alone could have won against most of the rest of the world, but they might have been able to make the battle for Germany expensive enough to negotiate more favorable conditions for surrender (...)
Yes. I should have used "ability to train", or "ability to continue to train", instead of "option of training".
I did know they did flight training in Canada, and didn't mean to imply otherwise.
I agree totally.
At least we know the Horton Ho flying wings were at least inspiration for later aircraft.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
he headline is awkward:
WWII Bugatti 100P Plane Rebuilt: Jet Fighter that Could Have Won Battle of Britain for the Nazis
but I can see where it comes from.
FTA:" ...so when the Second World War began, Bugatti, who had gained French citizenship between the two wars, decided to hide the craft in pieces in crates in a barn in the French countryside to prevent it from being discovered by the Nazis.
The French government knew about the plane, and it is believed that one of Hitler's ministers, Albert Speer, also knew of the plane's existence.
If the Germans had been able to get hold of the Bugatti, it is believed that the plane could have outperformed the British Supermarine Spitfire planes during the Battle of Britain."
if the Nazis got a hold of it, they could have defeated Britain in the air
The P-51 also shot down quite a few ME 262's because the tactics and maneuverability limitations made the ME 262's predictable.
The P-51 pilots learned to linger near the German airfields and shoot the ME262s down when they were trying to land, slow and low on gas.
The P-51 pilots quickly learned that the ME 262 had an incredibly long spool up time after take off and were easy pickings for a while after takeoff. Jets were new technology and it was some time before they were able to develop engines that were responsive enough to throttle up quickly.
Also, the CAD was done minus the C and the A.
What part of the following sentence did you not understand?
Even then, there's no way the Germans alone could have won against most of the rest of the world, but they might have been able to make the battle for Germany expensive enough to negotiate more favorable conditions for surrender (...)
The part I missed? That's the part where you assumed that no one ever replies to a post where they aren't disagreeing with you.
Allow me to make myself clear. I was agreeing with you.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
And that theoretical speed is with minimal fuel, no weapons, no armor, no maneuverability, no military radios. In short,
Right.
Then there's that crap about being a jet fighter.
two eight-cylinder 4.9 litre race car engines producing 450 horsepower each
which is only half the horsepower available in real fighter airplanes 5 years later which could only manage 450 mph.
This is one of the more idiotic articles to come down the pike in quite a while.
Infuriate left and right
It took a few years of upgrades and revsions to turn it into the best piston-engined fighter of the war, but compare that initial design and development cycle to the years and even decades it takes to get anything built these days.
Being involved in a real war always helps speed up development of weaponry. Just look at the speed at which new weapon systems were developed in Germany, Britain and Russia during both WW1 and WW2.
The Germans invaded France in May then attempted Britain in July of 1940. Even by WW2 rapid development standards, 2 months is awfully quick to turn an unflyable race prototype into a fully fledged battle-ready fighter aircraft. This is zero chance this would have made a difference to the Battle of Britain even if found.
Let's not worship the P-51 without acknowledging some deadly flaws: P-51 pilots didn't dare get into a low-altitude dogfight. The slogan of Mustang drivers faced with low altitude combat was "Shit and Git!" or more politely "Boom and Zoom!" because even lower grade Luftwaffe fighters could wipe it out in tight turns down low. The supercritical wings of the Mustang were actually a hindrance down low in the thicker air in tight turns. So, while the P-51 with Merlin engine was a game changer, it had its faults.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
A combat plane needs to be able to take a punch as well as to strike out at the enemy. Just like a boxer. Some boxers have "bad" skin and cut easily and take long to heal. That means they can't fight often at all. Some boxers somehow need a huge support staff. Some aircraft are like that as well. They can be high maintenance and require frequent, expensive attention. Some boxers have weak bones in their hands and wrists. They can fight but they can't punch hard enough. And some types of boxers are harder to get in the first place. Bantam weights and heavy weights are rare compared to more mid-range body types. If one views a war plane as one views a boxer things become obvious rather quickly. I wonder how quickly either England or the US could have tooled up to produce large numbers of Bugatti war planes.
Those didn't exist in 1940
We don't believe in radical loony monotheistic religions from the middle east -- we're Christians.
True, All those aircraft made an apperence during the final days .. The ME109 , Hawker Hurricane , F4F wildcat , A6M Zero's took the brunt of the war ..
Hitler lost the day he started the war, for the simple reason that none (or very few) of the territories he invaded actually accepted German rule. All the rest of Europe considered themselves "occupied".
Conquering terrain with your military is easy to do. Conquering the people living there, making them happy and accept your rule as the new, legitimate government, that's the real challenge. It normally won't happen when the people you try to conquer were happy with their previous government. It only happens when they were happy to have their original government overthrown or when they did not have a government, and are happy with the new government. Then and only then did you "win" a war.
the Do335 was a fantastic plane. i can only assume you are underinformed.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
To add to your observations regarding the P-51, it should be noted that its primary adversary were later model Messerschmitt 109s, the superior Focke Wulf 190 never reaching the numbers of production the 109 attained. Hitler had banked all on the 109, expecting a short war decided by quantity more than quality. As a result, the 109's ageing airframe was fitted with ever larger and ever thirstier engines. By late in the war, the 109s which scrambled to meet incoming waves of Allied bombers, escorted by p-51s, had the performance to give the Mustangs a run for their money, but quickly had to go back for more fuel. When the 109 climbed back up to the fray, those same p-51s it had engaged could still be waiting.
The way you quoted my last sentence and started your post suggested otherwise to me, and this being slashdot, it's usually safe to assume the other party didn't fully read one's post. But yeah, in retrospect, your explanation is equally likely. This misunderstanding could easily have been prevented (like, by quoting a more resource-oriented part, or simply starting your post with "Yeah,"), but of course, you didn't think of how your post could be misinterpreted. Thanks for clarifying a posteriori.
If the two engines rev at different speeds, the whole plane will start to roll, faster and faster.
Consider this scenario:
Engine 1 stalls.
Engine 2 has its throttle stuck at wide open (Aircraft engines do this e.g. when linkage breaks: full throttle is safer than no throttle.)
Then the pilot will die a horrible death EVEN BEFORE HITTING THE GOUND.
You can do this with electric engines, not with IC engines.
It's a death trap, and it will not fly.
Bram Stolk http://stolk.org/tlctc/
"Jet fighter", well, no, it's a propellor fighter.
"Computer-directed flight controls" - no computer existed in 1939, except for the people whose job title was "computer" (and who probably used adding machines).
Then there's the question of how it would perform in heavy cloud cover, or rain.
Oh, yeah, and finally, the journalist's enTHUsiasm makes it seems as though they would have wanted the Nazis to win WWII, which I take some exception with.
mark
Also consider if a German pilot was shot down, bailed over the UK he became a POW, the same for an allied pilot, he could be back in the air again a few hours later.
Except the Germans' problem throughout the war was not technology (they had models more advanced than British planes at different points) but production. The British were able to consistently out-produce them in fighters and trained pilots. There were close runs for the British (nearly a shortage of fighter pilots during the heaviest part of the Battle of Britain) but the German losses in men and materiel in proportion to their production were consistently higher throughout the war, and the difference only kept increasing in Britain's favour.
...The P-51's even downed a few Russian Migs at the beginning of the Korean war before the US fielded jet fighters in any numbers.
Really? I wasn't aware that a P-51 ever shot down a Mig. I know Corsairs were known to do that.
One of the oddest things we see when we get into these conversations is that way too many people seem to think "If Hitler had done this, the Nazi's would have won the war."
Its as if the Allies were somehow not capable of any innovation, and would just stood still for the superior German technology to tear them apart. Not too many seem to acknowledge that the Allies were developing jet fighters also.
Don't forget, America developed the atom bomb... if the war in Europe had continued, America had developed a trump card. In hindsight, there is absolutely zero chance of the Nazis ever winning no matter what strategy they tried.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Yes, in the right Universe this plane would have turned the Battle of Britain in favour of the French. Napoleon, Vercingetorix and Joan of Arc would have been standing in Blenheim Palace on top of Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria and Disraeli's dismembered body parts, as they lay strewn amongst the wreckage of their Hurricane, Spitfire and Vauxhall Chevette ornithopter. The giant spice mammoths of the Russian tundra would have been no more after Trotsky's successful assassination of Joseph Stalin left Russia rich and defenceless, and the Japanese giant Iguana monster would be running rampant across Northern America smashing San Francisco to fine dust and weeing on the Washington monument turning the Potomac a bright radiated yellow colour. Cats sleeping with dogs, children refusing to obey their parents and every man wanting to write a book about it.
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Yes there were Mustang pilots with verified Mig kills at the beginning of the conflict. This was before they rolled out the F-9F Panther or the F-86 Sabre. The fact that the Mig pilots were fairly inexperienced on the new jet technology and tactics and were going up against experienced pilots helped even the odds as well.