SOH P-61 project

[warchild]

No worries about hijacking Don.. You see, its real easy to take a single plane and put it under a microscope and rip the guts out of it, but no matter how deep you look into it, you can never ever hope to gain any real understanding of it till you see the world it occupied.. So what do Strega Bear and Dago red have to do with a P-61?? Lots..
When i was building the Iris p-40 i came across a memo from Allison Detroit to some field commander in Africa, giving him their blessing on pushing the manifold pressure of those engines up to 62 inches i believe.. That was a wake up call for me.. You see, back then, the crew chiefs on almost every plane there was, did "everything" they could to make sure their plane was going to get their pilot back home in one piece with as little work as possible to be done on the plane afterwards.. Lazy mans logic.. But the poignant truth of the matter is that, there were no stock planes in world war two. Every single one of them was tweaked twisted or modified in some way. Whatever it took to make it better than what it was when they had been given to them.. The P-61 was no exception, and sixty years later the competition between the P-61 and Mossie is STILL heavily debated and argued over.. Strega, Bear, Red and all the others, grew out of that environment. They are as much a part of the legacy of the P-61 as the A-37, Ac-119, AC-130 and A-10 are. It isnt hijacking. Its opening a door to see a much bigger world.

[warchild]

I'm beginning to appreciate why the military was worried about this plane overshooting its intended targets, and the reason they put spoilers on the C model.. Figuring out how to slow this thing down without changing the rest of the plane is turning out to be extremely challenging.. Being over 7000 pounds heavier than a B-25 and with about the same drag as a P-38, this thing makes full use of newtons first law.. Its a hell bound freight train with wings, and i'm beginning to think that nothing can slow it down..

[PRB]

Just finished reading a book by an A-20 driver named Joseph Rutter in the Pacific called Wreaking Havoc (Havoc, get it?) I love books like this, first person accounts of what it was like to actually be there. He didn't get to the war until 1944, but his story is no less fascinating than those who were there from the start. His unit, the 312TH Bomb Group, moved up to the Philippines in late 1944, after the Leyte landings in October. It's there that he and his shipmates got their first look at the big P-61 Black Widow. He was not impressed. He thought it looked “ungainly” and too big to be of much use as a fighter, not to mention his distrust of the “fancy pants” technology that purported to make this new ship a so-called “night fighter.” He described a night in which he and fellow pilots were gathered around a radio listening to a P-61 crew and a ground station as it tried to vector the Widow onto a Japaneses bomber droning over the field. His account was kind of funny. They were all making jokes about the P-61's inability to find the target, despite the ground station's unflagging attempt to make it happen. At one point the P-61 pilot was heard saying he had the target in sight, which resulted in a cheer from the 312TH BG kibitzers gathered around the radio. Next, they all saw a bright fireball appear in the sky, to which they again cheered. Then, the P-61 pilot was heard relaying that his left engine had just exploded, and caught on fire, and that he was returning home, causing another enthusiastic cheer from from the 312TH BG sidelines! You gotta love it!

[warchild]

:::LOL:: i do love it.. Laughed even harder when i saw a pic of the A-20 with crewmen on her.. That thing was HUGE..

[warchild]

No real surprises in this one.. I adjusted the roll moment downward to give more control over the amount the plane rolls when you jink the stick.. Also adjusted pitch rate damping upward to help with keeping the nose from pitching up as easily as it was doing.. everything else is pretty much the same..
)Pam

[N2056]

At the end of the weekend festivities...

Attachment 20457

[warchild]

yayyyyyy.. America's hundred Thousand came today .. They called the crew Nacelle "Bulky and Lumpy" .. Bahh.. Its gorgeous. Ok OK, so from the side it DOES resemble a turtle with its head sticking out of the shell, but that just adds to its charm .. Going through all the charts and data and finding areas to focus more intently on. My new throttle quadrants arrived yesterday, and although by the end of the eveningi still wasnt able to set them up exactly as i wanted them because of the difference between their analog signal back to the computer and the X-52s digital signal, i was still able to configure them in a satisfactory way. The only thing i cant do is reduce power on one engine at a time, which is fine as i still have full prop and mixture control..
Theres a ton of detailing yet to be done on the flight modeling. This new book ( which is impressively well done ) and all the other data we've been gathering from around the globe will help me to pinpoint some exact figures and make those changes.. This is gonna get real good ..
Pam

[OleBoy]

At the end of the weekend festivities...

That looks mighty im press ive

[robcap]

At the end of the weekend festivities...

NICE!

[warchild]

I'm not sure that a picture can describe a flight model. Nor am i certain that even if it could, one picture taken at any given moment in a flight would be suitable.. But...
Lots of changes in this version update coming up today or tonight.. It's a major version update so once again we find ourselves leapfrogging from version 3.1 to version 4.0.
The CG has been moved back, and the CL sits a few inches behind it. Lateral and longitudinal stability is rock solid but not a rock.. she doesnt fly on rails..
Theres been a lot o changes in this coming version. about twenty altogether. Its not exact yet, but it's getting there..
Apologies for the size of the pic. I have no way to resize it at the moment.. The numbers on the panel explain everything else..
Pam

[OleBoy]

You must be semi-retired, single, or bored stiff. You really get into this type of stuff. Not meaning that in a derogatory way of course.

[warchild]

You must be semi-retired, single, or bored stiff. You really get into this type of stuff. Not meaning that in a derogatory way of course.

Completely retired and disabled.. .. Actually more retired and just plain lazy than disabled.. i can still walk to the kitchen and make a pot of coffee :;chuckles:: Bad lungs.. outside of a little TV and a bunch of video games making flight models is all i do, and the only reason for the video games is because my brain gets tired after a few hours and my math starts slipping. Too many mistakes can be made.. So i go kill a few monsters instead ::lol:;..

[warchild]

Theres a new readme file also.. i dont know if the speeds and rpms quoted in it are accurate to the manual. I compiled them from my own experience and expect they will need to be changed as we move forward. But at this moment, all major changes are in place ( havent i said that before though?? ) and nothing to do but polish it up. Still, that will take a good while to do.

Qote after quote of pilot comments says that you can fly the real bird with two fingers on the controls, so thats how i set it up.. Set your sensitivities to max and your null zones to zero..
Enjoy
Pam

[fliger747]

Be back to do some looking again soon. Coming along nicely. Glad you got Hunner't Thou, a great reference!

The two fingers would be for straight and level flight, max roll still took a 90 lb force or some such! Typical fighter control loadings in pitch were about 10 lbper G.

Cheers: T

[warchild]

Be back to do some looking again soon. Coming along nicely. Glad you got Hunner't Thou, a great reference!

The two fingers would be for straight and level flight, max roll still took a 90 lb force or some such! Typical fighter control loadings in pitch were about 10 lbper G.

Cheers: T

It'll be good to have you home.. .. Have missed ya.. Guess i forgot to tell folks about needing more than two fingers for anything but straight flight.

Been working on th table for yaw vs mach to adjust the rudder response, but i've got a feeling theres more than that table involved. It'll take a while for me to get that dialed in.

The only number left in the basic dimensional set that may not be exact is the prop diameter. there seems to be some disagreement between reported data on it. Some data places it at being 13 feet wide and other data places it at 12'2". I suppose the difference could be between the Curtiss Electric and the Hamilton Standard props they used on different versions. I also know that removing that 8 inches can make a hell of a difference in performance. Still, the Hamilton was a standard bomber prop, and the Curtiss was a paddle prop with a much wider cord giving it a little bit more of a performance edge over the Hamilton. I havent done anything there yet though. i'm still chawin it over.

On a side note, my MSN messenger is giving me problems and i cant log in, so anyoneneeding to connect with me will need to do it here, on skype or on teamspeak at least for the time being.. sorry..