old man emu

Isn't the technique when taking off or landing a taildragger to look roughly 45 degrees ahead and to the side to keep the path of the aircraft parallel to the side of the runway to so you know the aircraft is going straight? With lack of forward vision, you could use the same technique to line up with the runway when on Finals.

Frank Whittle was robbed of financial gain by Rolls Royce and Rover, the big English makers. For once the Yanks didn't steal something. The technology was given to them because at the time England was too busy building its fighter defences based on the Merlin and other existing British engine designs. The Yanks were not in the War at that time, so had the industrial capacity to do the development. General Electric took on the job and from the English data and their development work, they developed their own engine. It wasn't until the fall of Germany that the Yanks got their hands on the ME-262 to see what the Germans had done.

At the time that Bell was developing the P-59, supersonic flight wasn't a goal of the aerodynamic development, so the typical subsonic wind tunnel was sufficient. A cruise speed of 325 kts was lower than the P-51, but the cause was that the initial GE engine was under-powered. 

3 hours ago, onetrack said:

Probably just thought it was just a waste of good military money.

Actually, one of the reasons that wing tunnels are used is to reduce the research and development costs of a project. Bell got all the way through to producing a flying prototype before it was found not to meet expectations. If the wind tunnel data had been developed, the USA might have been fielding jet fighters by the second half of 1944. 

When you look at the numerous aircraft models that Bell built, you get the impression that apart from the Airacobra, Kingcobra, B29 Superfortress, B-47 helicopter, Bell Aircraft was more involved in experimental work up to the passing of its founder Lawrence Bell in 1956. After the company was purchased by Textron in 1960, a subsidiary, Bell Aerospace Textron, concentrated on developing things for NASA.

Regarding the P-59, it was plagued by a basic lack of knowledge in the industry of the performance of jet engines which had an effect on the aerodynamics necessary to design the airframe. The airframe design process further  suffered because the head of the USAAF, General Henry "Hap" Arnold, had forbidden use of wind tunnels to test and optimize the design, but later relented somewhat, only allowing the group to use the low-speed tunnel at Wright Field, Ohio. Bell engineers could only guess at the performance characteristics. 

A Vari-Eze sounds different because the prop is disturbing the sound waves coming from the exhaust pipes.

My grandson used to have great fun by standing in front of a circulation fan making a monotone sound with his voice and projecting it towards the rotating fan blades.

23 hours ago, facthunter said:

It's a lot like a Republic "Seabee"  Nev

Form follows function.

If a post-WWII picture of a now-historic plane wasn't taken with Marshall's hangar in the background, the plane was never in Australia

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

I don't think they have nice lines myself but whatever rocks your boat.

Yep, they would not win a beauty contest,  but it is what it is. But if you want to dance amongst the clouds you won't be looking at something on the catwalk. Like your unattached female cousin, ugly as sin, but has a wonderful personality.

There might have been a tincture of exaggeration in my post, but what you can see on the inside does look like the airframe was made the Glorious Revolution Tractor and Aerotech Factory 4.

What you fail to mention is that these planes, for strength, make a brick shithouse look like a nylon one-man-tent. None of your 1/2" OD chrome-moly, it looks like they are made from 2" scaffolding tube.

10 hours ago, jackc said:

The Centurion Tank used the lower horsepower version called Meteor MK4B V12 650hp. 

The Merlin tank engines used in the tanks did not have the superchargers of the aircraft engines, simply because they did not need them for the job the engine was doing. Fast forward to 13:00 in this video for a description of the engines used in the earlier Cromwell tank.

Loved the incident of picking up  the crew of a Yankee heavy and having to taxi home because it was overloaded and couldn't get off the water. Then when the Yanks were off loaded the Walrus was too full of water to take off, so carry on taxying.

Launching a Walrus and other stuff

Poor Frank Whittle.

What Rolls Royce and Rover in England, and General Electric in the USA did to Whittle makes the Rape of Nanking look like a tea party in a nunnery for a bishop.

Fast forward to 42:30 and watch from there. He paid the price of loyalty to his Country.

 Saw this video a couple of weeks ago. Problem with this aircraft was that it flew beautifully with the pod attached, but handling on the return flight without it was horrible.

Gee there were a lot of aeroplanes from different manufacturers which had a similar appearance, especially the nose.

Let's go fly one.

Lady MacRobert donates £25,000 towards a Stirling bomber after losing her 3 sons in the war who were all in the R.A.F. (Royal Air Force). Inscription on the side - 'MacRobert's Reply' with the family crest. Video shows of the crew, receiving a briefing about the donation by Lady MacRobert, camera pans up to the bomber and down to the crew again. They walk towards the aeroplane and get in. It starts up and taxis then takes off.

https://www.britishpathe.com/video/macroberts-reply/

The plane had serial number N6086. The plane was handed over to her crew at RAF Wyton on October 10, 1941, with Lady MacRobert attending the naming ceremony. It was assigned to No. XV Squadron and was given the code "LS-F" ("LS", the squadron code for No. 15 Squadron, and "F for Freddie"). The aircraft flew twelve missions, from October 1941 through January 1942. On 7 February 1942, the plane veered off during take-off at RAF Peterhead, and collided with a damaged Supermarine Spitfire.

Lady MacRobert also sponsored four Hawker Hurricanes, three named after her sons and the fourth honouring the fighting spirit of the Russian allies. They were handed over to No. 94 Squadron, in which Sir Roderic had served, in Egypt on 19 September 1942.

 Sir Iain, Sir Roderic and Sir Alasdair ,third,  fourth and fifth from camera respectively

50 minutes ago, red750 said:

Back to the Wellington.....

Duke, Town or boot?

Wimpy is even halal.

   Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros 

The Comoros is a volcanic archipelago off Africa’s east coast, in the warm Indian Ocean waters of the Mozambique Channel.

This wouldn't do for the Colonel.

76 SQUADRON GROUND PERSONNEL IN FRONT OF A P.40 WITH NOSE ART.

I'm sure that the scenes involving ground crew going about their tasks were staged. Can you imagine doing strenuous work while wearing full uniform and headgear? Or is it an example of British military discipline taken to the extreme?

17 hours ago, Cosmick said:

Landing in fog with thousands of liters of fuel being burnt each side of the runway to see and dissipate fog

FIDO Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation (which was sometimes referred to as "Fog Intense Dispersal Operation" or "Fog, Intense Dispersal Of") was a system used for dispersing fog and pea soup fog (dense smog) from an airfield so that aircraft could land safely. The device was developed for British RAF bomber stations, allowing the landing of aircraft returning from raids over Germany in poor visibility by burning fuel in rows on either side of the runway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_Investigation_and_Dispersal_Operation

If you watch the film towards the end when the use of FIDO is shown, you see someone put a tag with the drawing of a dog on it beside the name of an airfield where FIDO was available.

America and Japan might not have been in military conflict in the late 1930's, but they surely were in economic conflict. An accusation (probably after 1941) of some dread dead should be looked upon as wartime propaganda.