SOH P-61 project

[SkippyBing]

she did all those jobs very well with the exception of night time operations, and that was all the fault of the radar, and not the plane or the crews.. When put up against a machine whos design is totally dedicated to one job, of course the mossy is gonna be lacking. it wasnt an even competition.

Yeah, I guess the 600+ kills by the night-fighter Mosquito were a fluke...

[warchild]

NO. Not a fluke. But a testament to the men who flew them. The radar they used in the mossy was primitive compared to the scr720. Frankly, its a wonder it even worked at all. It just stands as a greater testament of the ingenuity and determination of the mossy crews..
Pam

[hairyspin]

...The radar they used in the mossy was primitive compared to the scr720. Frankly, its a wonder it even worked at all...

Hmmm. The AI MkIV radar was much less sophisticated, but Mossies were nightfighting with it from January 1942 - and others from late 1940.

A Beaufighter nightfighter pilot reminisced:-

"In late 1940 they told us we would take off in total darkness, be guided to a target, find and destroy the target and return in total darkness. We thought they were mad, but in just a few months we did just that."

Yes the crews were determined, but the ingenuity was with the scientists and engineers who first made AI radar possible and toiled unceasingly to make it work effectively.

The SCR720 (AI Mk.X) entered service in 1944. Radar development in the intervening years was like moving from a Model T to a Saab. Please don't knock the Model T when your only options are the colour black or a 20+ year wait for a Saab to appear.

[warchild]

I'm not. In fact, i believe we're saying the very same thing, just that my handling of it isnt quite as erudite.. Your right, it WAS a model T compared to the P-61s Saab. Now what could the Mossy crews have done if they had had a Saab available hmm?? I imagine quite a bit more. Thats not to diminish the early works of the British scientists and engineers who invented radar in the first place, the scr-720 was after all, an updated version of the original mossy radar. That says a lot about their work right there. They did incredible work. Please understand, I'm not making Judgment calls. My quad core is SO much better than my Apple III was.. But then, the Apple III was released in 1982. My Quad core is only four years old.. Its the same type of comparison..

[hairyspin]

A little story and I'm done:-





A British museum exhibits an early Chain Home radar set and the display shows an authentic 1940-era image. An elderly lady totters up to it, takes a single glance at the incomprehensible signal line and says "Ah yes, about 30 aircraft at 25 miles range." An attendant asks her incredulously "How do you know? I'm told that is what it shows, but I'm hanged if I can make it out."

"I used to operate these, dear!" she answers.

Now back to topic!

If Robert runs into problems exporting his VC model to FSX - due to lots of polys, big textures etc - he might find the following thread on FSDeveloper useful:- Gmax - poly limit See especially post #12.

[CWOJackson]

While both were night fighters, in their own rights, they're worlds apart in the same rights. Although an excellent aircraft, the Mossie was still an aircraft that had a radar added into it. The Widow was a radar system that had a weapons system built around it.

[N2056]

Hairyspin...thanks for the link. I actually saw that one, and in fact there was another there that I participated in recently (I check the site daily). I have been pretty successful with my exports lately, so I must have learned something.

[warchild]

Hairyspin..
Thanks for that image. Its awesome.. Thats definately a type A display. The widow had one of those in the aft RO compartment, paired with a Type C display which showed vertical deflection.between the two they could pinpoint an object in the air for up to six miles.There was also a type C display in the pilots compartment that was a smaller version of the one in the back.. They only had a six mile range, but that was usually plenty, also, the Type C display had a nasty habit of displaying a necklace effect when near water. Ut woyld basically create a "necklace" of returns around the edge of the display and sometimes covering parts of the screen making it impossible to distinguish a bogey from the water..
Our problem here has been finding someone who will code these two types of displays. But i keep hoping..
Pam

[AndyG43]

Although an excellent aircraft, the Mossie was still an aircraft that had a radar added into it.

Sorry, bit of thread hijack, as Henry isn't available to do this ......

The Mosquito was a "fast bomber", that was also an excellent night fighter, intruder, fighter bomber, maritime strike aircraft, pathfinder, photo-recce, passenger (BOAC), carrier-borne torpedo bomber and target tug; later versions could carry the same bombload to Berlin, with only 2 crew members, as a B-17 with 11 crew members - and it could be considered an early 'stealth' aircraft because of the wooden construction, and definitely the original MRCA!!


Which is not to detract from the Widow, which was (as has been pointed out elsewhere) designed from the outset as a weapons system with a particular job in mind, a job it did very well & very effectively. And I'm rather looking forward to seeing this project come to fruition.

[fliger747]

One of the Silent Service (Pacific) sub sims did a pretty good recreation of both Type A and PPI scopes. The thing to remember about radar of the era was that it was much more acccurate in range rather than bearing. Good enough for intercept work and knowing if you were in firing range.

T

[warchild]

Thanks Tom. I'm gonna have to check that out...
The other confusion is with IFF. That wasnt introduced until the P-61C. The P-61B didnt really have any frills to it outside of the night binoculars which would draw a dotted outline around the target. It was cumbersome and i believe ( but may be wrong ) that most pilots found the feature more of an annoyance than anything else.

Afraid the P-61 just wasnt designed for carrying passengers ( unless you strap them under the wings ::lol:; )

The one thing that the P-61 and the Mossy really have in common, is the politics during development. When DeHavilland proposed the Mossy, the government thought he wa a raving lunatic. A Plywood plane?? ridiculous.. Guess DeHavilland showed them who was ridiculous eh?? The nice thing is that the British were able to finally admit that the Mossy was a superior plane. I'm afraid the politics behind the P-61 never did end..

The difinitive work on the P-61 history and all of the politics that plagued it is a book by Miroslav Bolous which can be found here http://www.ianallanpublishing.com/no...-reporter.html . Its one of the best resources ive seen on the P-61 and has been my main reference throughout this project..

[OleBoy]

Why this topic keeps getting side swiped and not strictly on the subject is a question that comes to mind. The P-61. Someone keeps hanging the wrong sign above the door. All the added mish mash is just more to read that's really not relevant.

[PRB]

It's amazing how have we have come with radar technology since the SCR-720 and others systems of WW-II. On the other hand, it's interesting how some things either don't change, or get “rediscovered”. The FA-18 came out during the 1980s, and it had a great radar, the APG-65. It didn't have a c-scope, of course, it had something much better, right? Well, in 1990-ish, the Lot 12 version of the FA-18C came out with something called Multi-Source Integration. The software combined all the sensor sources to present a better “picture” of the air-to-air situation to the pilot. So IFF data, AWACS data, and on-board radar data were combined and all that stuff was displayed on one display. So it wasn't simply a radar display anymore, but an “air-to-air display”, see? One of the new “formats” all this stuff was presented on was called the “Azimuth/Elevation display”, Az/El, for short, which is, more or less, a c-scope!

[warchild]

Why this topic keeps getting side swiped and not strictly on the subject is a question that comes to mind. The P-61. Someone keeps hanging the wrong sign above the door. All the added mish mash is just more to read that's really not relevant.

You have a good point Oleboy. And a good question. I guess the best answer however is that the Mossy is very much a part of the P-61s History. Many american commanders wanted the Mossy as a replacement for the Beaufighters. Two things saved the P-61 however, the first was a contest between a Mossy and a P-61 in which the P-61 outperformed the mossy, and the second was the realisation that the mossy wasnt designed for 93% humidity at 120 degrees temperatures with sand and wind storms that sand blaster paunt off the metal planes that were exposed to it already.. The south pacific would have destroyed a mossy and turned it into a lump of moldy wood real fast..
In the end, both met a relatively inglorious end, and neither was ever fully appreciated for its plae un history until later. Oddly, to this day, theres a debate that goes on and on and on about which plane is really the better plane. I'm not prepared to join that debate, nor do i have any interest in it..

[AndyG43]

And as my contribution was obviously not appreciated, I'll make this my final post in the FSX forum. Mods, would you please remove my comments from this thread, as it appears to have been inappropriate. Thank you.

Good luck with the P-61 project gents, looking forward to the results.