If you could change something about your favorite ride?

[F4UDOA]

Boards have been a bit slow (for me anyway) and I was trying to think of something different in the way of discussion.

Stricktly IRL if you were an aircraft designer in the 1940's what would you have done differently with the technology available at the time to improve your favorite mount?

I luv the F4U but frankly there are a few things that I will never understand the "why" as to how the thing was built.

For instance

1. The bubble canopy was installed on the FG-1 in mid 1944. Why not continue it in production?  

2. Why not use a paddle four blade prop to absorb some of that HP? It would have raised climb by at least a few hundred FPM.

3. Why not use a more elliptical wing shape to reduce induced drag?

4. Why not use a more laminar wing to reduce drag?

Any comments or thoughts? What about your favorite rides?

This is one thread I don't have to worry about being hijacked by the luftwabbles since they think Willie Mess and Kurt Tank were perfect anyway.

Here is the FG-1(F4U-1) with the Bubble canopy.

[Broes]

Definitly some of the anwsers are: "Cheaper or easier to produce"

I wondered why the hell the US was sending Shermans to europe to fight panzers/tigers. Till I saw the total cost/manhours needed to build a tiger compared to a sherman.... 300.000 manhours compared to 25.000 manhours.

Broes

[Rafe35]

Originally posted by F4UDOA
1. The bubble canopy was installed on the FG-1 in mid 1944. Why not continue it in production?

I wish I could tell you about that, but it surely would be nice to have bubble canopy for both F4U and FG, but believe they were reject by either Vought Aircraft Company or US Navy(NATC or Naval Air Test Central).

Also, I still do not have a clue about XF4U-3A/XF4U-3B which it is a High Altitude fighter like P-51D and it has turbocharger of P&W R-2800-14, but why did Vought abandon them?  The Vought F4U-3 project was abandoned even though Goodyear used it to transform 13 FG-1As into FG-3 which were used as test beds.

Weird thing.

[GRUNHERZ]

Bf109: (F model and forward - I consider the 109 E to be a design disaster and not worth wasting time on)

Improved roll rate. Why this wasnt done before the K4  is beyond me considering they had the excellent example of FW190 to see the advantages.

Improved high speed elevator control. Same..

Earlier adoption of erla haube.

Cleaner mounting of MG131. Galland had an F model with extremely clean MG131 armament mounting, not the big bulges of the G6..

Fixed landing gear geometry. 109 gear is actually wider than spitfire's, but the wheel geometry was off and this gave 109 the bad reputation for ground handling.

Fully enclosed wheel wells.

Internal wing mounted MG151/MK108 cannon.

Most of these improvements were seen   on the K series but then it was too late.

New, larger wing with inward retracting gear.

Move draggy under engine oil cooler into the wing radiator spaces.

Less vertical windshield.

Fw190:

Early use of DB603 engine.  This really blows my mind. FW was ready to start production of a 450mph top speed  4000fpm climbing  FW190 with this engine and 3 cannon, 2 heavy MG armament by late 1942, with service entry in early 1943....  But the powers to be decided aginst it at the time... Instead they only got a slower Jumo powered 190D9 with weaker armament into service 1.5 years later in late 1944...

Bigger wing or a general program of ligtening the plane to counter growing wing loading.

Removal of pointless 7.92mm cowl MG and related ammo and equipment's worth of weight and drag.  Could have put a better supercharger in there to help the BMW 801 engine at alt. Could have use space for even more 20mm ammo. Or just left it empty and enjoy seval hundred pounds less weight..

Better flap system for 190.

[artik]

Originally posted by Rafe35
I wish I could tell you about that, but it surely would be nice to have bubble canopy for both F4U and FG, but believe they were reject by either Vought Aircraft Company or US Navy(NATC or Naval Air Test Central).

Also, I still do not have a clue about XF4U-3A/XF4U-3B which it is a High Altitude fighter like P-51D and it has turbocharger of P&W R-2800-14, but why did Vought abandon them?  The Vought F4U-3 project was abandoned even though Goodyear used it to transform 13 FG-1As into FG-3 which were used as test beds.

Weird thing.

About High altitude F4Us I've heard that the project was closed due the lack of high altitude japanieese fighers. There wasn't need in it..... thats all - that what I've read is some source.

[ra]

Slighty OT.   I've always thought that the US wasted a lot of resources developing different fighters to do the same thing.  In 20/20 hindsight, couldn't almost all of the US fighter needs have been met by the F4U?  An Air Corps version could have been made by removing the naval equipment of folding wings, etc.;  it would then have been much lighter with room for more fuel.  With some minor mods versions of it could have served in the place of the P-38, P-51, and P-47, thus saving lots of development efforts.

Of course at the time different companies were develping their fighters for different reasons, so no one could have known that in the end one fighter could potentially meet all the needs of the US.

ra

[GScholz]

Seriously though, I'd stiffen up the wings of the 190 to get rid of those nasty snap rolls, and add slats to help with high AoA handling. Depending on theatre of operation I might add a high-alt blower instead of the mid-alt one. Other than that the 190 series was pretty much perfect for its time.

[GRUNHERZ]

I really dont like that fake design.

[GScholz]

Why not?

[GRUNHERZ]

Bent wingtips, elongated spinner, weird nose profile for a DB engine, central cowl cannon, oil cooler scoop, radiator shape, canopy design and  position, Me262 tail surfaces etc.. Intrestingly enough it doesnt seem to have alierons, instead it looks to have spoilers for roll control..
 
Basically it looks odd to me.

[F4UDOA]

Good stuff,

Gscholz,

Is that a real A/C or a concept drawing? Looks Italian to me.

GRUNHERZ,

I know what you mean with the fully enclosed wheels. The F4U-1 did that with the tail wheel and arrestor hook. When they finally closed it, it gained about 10MPH. WTF were they thinking about?

The people who built the Spit should be beaten. That radiator cost them dearly. And they had the Mustang to copy all along. I'll never understand.

Rafe,

The reason I have ever heard for the F4U-3 not being in production is that the F4U-4 was very close in performance and was cheaper, lighter and had the mechanical turbo charger which wasn't as tempermental as the supercharger so they went with the F4U-4 instead.

RA,

I think it would have done great in Europe but they would have had to raise the critical alt to combat 109's above 25K. Also the cruise on the F4U would have suffered unless heavy DT's were used. It didn't have the internal Fuel capacity of the P-47.

FYI, It was General George Marshall that squashed the F4U being used in Europe BTW. They were going to use it prior to D-Day to destroy V-1 sites with Tiny Tims but the Army was fighting the Navy almost as much as the Germans. So Marshall squashed the plan siting his quote "No Jarheads in Europe" plan. This is written about in Barret Tillmans book on the F4U. That is why the Navy tested the F4U against the FW190 prior to D-DAY. Marshall really screwed up some interesting dogfight stories I'd say.

[RTSigma]

I wish my P-51 would have heavier firepower than the .50 cals as well as armor plating behind the pilot.

[ra]

I think it would have done great in Europe but they would have had to raise the critical alt to combat 109's above 25K. Also the cruise on the F4U would have suffered unless heavy DT's were used. It didn't have the internal Fuel capacity of the P-47.

Yes, it would have needed better lungs for Europe.  I don't know if there was any way to do that without adding significant weight.

But it probably could have carried much more fuel in the wings than the 120 gallons of the F4U-1 with all the folding hardware removed.  Republic managed to put a lot of fuel in the new Jug wings of the P-47N.

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by F4UDOA


GRUNHERZ,

The people who built the Spit should be beaten. That radiator cost them dearly. And they had the Mustang to copy all along. I'll never understand.

Even without the mustang they had the mosquito to look at with its wing LE mounted radiators.  And those early mosquitos were faster than early spits..

In fact that really shocks me about the late war German twins, that they didnt copy the mosquito radiators. Heck even the P38 could hacve benefited from his setup.  

I imagine the Me410 and He219 could have gained an easy 20mph with such a radiator design..  This woyld really have worked great since the german DB engines were so much cleaner t cowl than merlins - at least until the special low profile merlins designed for the DH hornet.

[Karnak]

I'd change the RAF sabotage of the Mossie from 1938 through 1943.  If they hadn't fought against it all that time there would have been Mossies in the air in 1940 and with a massive ramp up in production there would have been enough to go around by 1942.  As it was there were never enough to supply everybody who wanted them.  I'd have Curtiss decide to build them too, instead of just thinking about it.

Aircraftwise I would give it a higher priority on getting top of the line Merlins for whichever role it was to be used for.  A Mossie FB.VI with Merlin 66s would be awesome.

I would also have the cockpit designed along German or American lines.  The Fw190 and P-51 have incredibly well thoughtout cockpits compared to the adhoc crap the British put together.  Only the P-38 stands out as having a worse cockpit layout than the Mossie.