Princess of the Skies

[NachtPiloten]

So lets talk about this plane a bit. At 37000 lbs with max fuel and crew it is heavier than fully loaded Do 217s, B25 and B26 etc. At best the engines make 1750 hp each. A Do 217 M1 1750 max take off about 37000 (Eric brown was not impressed at all with this plane - but of course he would have praised the Avro so Eric was not very objective) . B26 2000 hp at 36000lbs - get the picture. Ok so we load her up with say 6000lbs of bombs and we have cow weighing in at 43000. Lets take her off, even with the 90 foot wing span she was not a world beater, really a very poor performer.

Major - that is why see labors to climb at 300-400 feet per minute with 8000lbs of bombs and 50-65% fuel. 100 percent fuel was rarely used and when it is was bomb load was around 4000 (Kirby Book on the Manchester - great resource). The climb rate you have is what it should be not the striped down factory figures.

Getting her to move. Release parking brake. Bring engine rpm up slowly (the moi for the props (being 16 feet) causes the engines to gain rpm slowly). Once the engines are at 2800-2900 or so at 100% throttle I always get her to move even at 45000lbs on grass or concrete w/o WEP. It just takes the engines while to spool up and the props to generate the zero speed thrust needed to get her to go. That being said I use Beckwith's Airwrench to make the flight models, and as good as it is the prop tables do need a bit of manual revising. I have started to mess around with AAM as this program actually lets you code the prop tables more easily. BUT once you increase the zero speed thrust you screw around with climb speeds.

I say all this to whine about how CFS3 does a crappy job with twin engined planes and especially this tub.

However I do say when I use my way to get the plane up she moves at 100 percent throttle at 2900-3000 rpm without wep at load. Really need to get the engine speed up to max before the thrust is enough to move the plane. I will mess around with AAM some and may learn how to revise the prop tables and keep climb as it should.

My advice at 8000lbs of bombs 50-60% fuel - may not get you to Berlin but the Ruhr is well within a full trip and that is where the majority to the early sorties went anyway.

[MajorMagee]

I wasn't trying to say that the model was inaccurate. I was just trying to find out if there was an unintended issue with it being stuck to the pavement.

[NachtPiloten]

Major - never took it that way, sorry if I came across as a jerk. I think that folks really need to grasp that these bombers were in fact lumbering monsters that were pushed to their limits. I just like to try to get them to behave as they were (well at least as well as I can make them).

[NachtPiloten]

Here is the last of the Manchester variants the Mk1a (Mk1b- was just a lightened version). Two fin ala Lancaster 33 foot and three guns. Just uploaded her so should be ready soon.

[Daiwilletti]

Here is the last of the Manchester variants the Mk1a (Mk1b- was just a lightened version). Two fin ala Lancaster 33 foot and three guns. Just uploaded her so should be ready soon.

That could fool people at a quick glance - Lancaster lite!

[MajorMagee]

My career currently has me providing engineering support for aircraft manufacturing. I've covered tanker, cargo, and bomber aircraft so far. It's amazing what a difference modern engines make to the performance. For example the difference between the C-130H, and the C-130J is like night and day in terms of speed, altitude, and range with basically the same airframe from 1954.

[hairyspin]

...the difference between the C-130H, and the C-130J is like night and day in terms of speed, altitude, and range with basically the same airframe from 1954.

In fairness to Winkle Brown, he was sampling German aircraft such as the Do217 by the end of the war when earlier aircraft were outclassed by the late war developments on both sides.

[NachtPiloten]

That is so true. Many of the German designs were started in the late 1930's and well established by 1941, without much new until the jets, Do335 and TA 154. Other than that they were the 1940 design with upgrades only so much you can do with an air frame that was never intended to do what it was being asked to do at the end....

[NachtPiloten]

In fairness to Winkle Brown, he was sampling German aircraft such as the Do217 by the end of the war when earlier aircraft were outclassed by the late war developments on both sides.

But he loved the JU88 G6 even in his words over 400 mph (p 112) this must have been one crazy plane he was riding!

[gecko]

That is so true. Many of the German designs were started in the late 1930's and well established by 1941, without much new until the jets, Do335 and TA 154. Other than that they were the 1940 design with upgrades only so much you can do with an air frame that was never intended to do what it was being asked to do at the end....

Right on Ted. In his book Clash of Wings, Walter J. Boyne devotes one of his introductory chapters to this discussion. Technology development comes in waves, where a design enters service, is improved to its pinnacle, and then stretched beyond it to keep it competitive as long as possible. The axis powers started WWII when they were just about at the peak of their current wave, while the allies where at a much lower point, several years behind, but on the upswing. This meant that generally speaking, over the course of the war German designs were showing their age while allied designs were improving, peaking at a critical point around 1943/44 when German designs were at the their lowest point. Had the war gone longer, the next wave of German designs that was just entering service when the war ended would have matured and given the allies' now aging designs a run for their money.

[MajorMagee]

In engineering we don't have a continuous flow of incrementally better designs coming out over time. We go through periods of relatively stable design concepts, and then there is a brief period where everything fundamentally changes. This principle of design innovation is best illustrated by bridge building technology.

There have been a succession of bridge types; timber, masonry, wrought iron, steel, truss, prestressed concrete, suspension, cable stay, etc. Each successive type took advantage of both design breakthroughs, and advances in materials to span ever increasing distances with higher and higher loads. In each case the state of the art was slowly advanced until there were a few near misses and then a notable catastrophe or two when things got pushed a little too far. That triggered the next wave of innovation to occur, and the old methods were left to history It's almost as if mankind needs to exceed the limits of what we know how to do, before we even want to consider taking on the next round of big improvements.

For example, we really weren't much interested in jet engines during WW2 until compressibility effects above Mach 0.75 put an end to the piston engine's ability to go any further.

When you think about how we train young engineers with the experience of older engineers, and the human nature of wanting to minimize risk, it's not surprising that we make these kind of advancements in big leaps by visionaries (when the timing is right for them to finally be heard) rather than by steady progress within the engineering fraternity.

[Threedp]

Thank you so much for the IA, my choice for the best looking of the Manchester/Lancaster/Lincoln family!