Aces High III

[chase4]

Surely the Fuel tanks are already modeled to ignite when hit enough times?

[Murdr]

What About Cannon Rounds?

That should make an impressive fireball.  It's a common special effects gag to use gasoline injected ping-pong balls & blasting caps, or mortars with gas filled plastic bags and a small charge, to make the fireballs you see in movies and tv.  So, my question is, if you have this happening in a two or three hundred mile per hour airflow around a plane, will this actually do much more damage than the cannon round would have done by itself?

I could be wrong here, but I think it would depend on the amount of fuel (or more appropriatly the amount of fuel vapor) in the DT.  If you fired a round through a full drop tank it would either ignite and catch fire of simply start leaking fuel. 

Going by the mythbusters experiments, with repeated attempts, they never got gasoline in a tank to ignite using a standard rifle round.  During a separate attempt using tracer rounds, they did finally get gasoline to ignite in the tank after repeated attempts (the tank was already filled with holes), there was nothing explosive about it.

A round fired into a DT that's mostly vapor could explode the tank shooting shrapnal though the plane.  Not an expert but this would seem to make sense.

Let's examine that scenario.  Given that inside the tank the concentration of gasoline vapors are between 1.4%-7.6% (the explosive limits of gasoline vapors at 1 atmosphere), and it is ignited by a tracer round, where will the rapid expansion of gasses go?  Obviously the path of least resistance, which would be the enterance and exit holes in the tank.  So the question at that point is, would a soft plyable aluminum drop tank skin that already has holes in it, fragment into several deadly pieces of bomb like shrapnal?  Or would it peal open, possiblly even ripping into a few pieces?  From the effect of fireworks on soda cans, I'd think the latter.

Chase, no, drop tanks are not part of the damage model.  I agree it would make sense that they could be caused to leak.  I do not agree that there should be some kind of catastrophic explosion inherent in damaging it.  While physically possible with all factors meeting the right conditions, it is unlikely. 
...and don't call me Shirly

[Motherland]

FWOOM.


^Droptank igniting.

[Gryphons]

Ya Murdr your probably right, it would just blow open the aluminum and produce small amounts of shrapnal.

As for the Mythbusters: I refuse to watch that show after the "Will a plane take off on a conveyor belt?" episode 

[Lukanian-7]

As for the Mythbusters: I refuse to watch that show after the "Will a plane take off on a conveyor belt?" episode 

What Happened?

[AirFlyer]

FWOOM.
(Image removed from quote.)

^Droptank igniting.

Looks like my Zero, were you taking pictures of me flying?!

[SgtPappy]

What Happened?

That episode was a little weird. The myth stated (AFAI remember) that an a/c could not take off if the conveyor belt under it was moving rearwards fast enough to disallow the a/c from moving forward.

The plane, about the same size and type as a piper Cub, was placed not on a conveyor belt but a thin fabric belt. This belt was wide as it was supposed to work as a runway for the a/c taking off. Jamie was in a pickup, towing the belt rearward as the a/c took off forward. The plane was able to take off even as the belt was moving rearwards at the same speed the a/c needed for t/o.

[SD67]

The plane WILL fly

[Gryphons]

What Happened?

Basically they tried to see if an airplane would take off it was placed on a conveyor belt.  They put an ultra light onto a long sheet of fabric and tried to pull the sheet at the same speed as the plane.

Unfortunately for them, they were unable to pull the belt at the same speed as the plane; so the plane had forward motion (which was clearly demonstrated by the fact that it kept passing pylons on the ground); since the plane had forward motion it had airflow over the wings so it flew. 

All they proved was that a plane can take off on a runway; but they didn't seem to realize that.

I really feel sorry for the pilot who was surprised that the plane took off.  He'll see the footage later; realize he had forward motion through the air and feel pretty bad/stupid.

[Pannono]

FWOOM.
(Image removed from quote.)

^Droptank igniting.

109 got owned lol

[bobtom]

They explained that the thrust of the airplane was what moved the plane, not the wheels. People just cant wrap their heads around that......

[ShrkBite]

Fix the Little things first of all, like the convoy going over feilds, the water convoy also going over fields, make the game compatible for every computer. Like make it so my computer can fly like 40 frame rate on Ground Vis, or fly Full Vis in a massive Furball. Then move on to the Bugs and stuff. Then on to all the big stuff yall were talking about.  

[Motherland]

109 got owned lol

Nope. He dropped the tank & was able to land.

[Gryphons]

They explained that the thrust of the airplane was what moved the plane, not the wheels. People just cant wrap their heads around that......

At the end of the episode; did they not state that as long as the runway (conveyor belt) was moving at the take off speed of the plane it would take off, even if it had no airflow over the wings?  That's what I took them to be trying to prove, but I missed most of the episode and was filled in by fiance near the end, so we might have misunderstood the myth. Need to see that episode again.

[BnZ]

Um, A plane on some theoretical conveyor belt that DID actually work will STILL develop forward motion precisely because it is not using powered wheels to push itself forward, it is using the thrust of the engine. I dont' think anyone was trying to prove that an airplane can fly with no relative wind, what they were proving was that a conveyor belt cannot stop an airplane from moving forward and developing relative wind. The fact that it will generate forward motion in spite of a treadmill effect is in fact the whole crux of debunking the myth, which I took to be that the plane will simply sit there on the conveyor belt, vainly trying to take off. The plane will always either take off OR run off the end of a conveyor belt of any finite length.

Instead of a conveyor belt, imagine a hypothetical very fast, very long aircraft carrier steaming along at 50 mph in dead calm air. This will have the same effect as a conveyor belt under a plane, but the practicalities involved are more familiar to flight sim buffs, and easier to wrap the mind around. Imagine a plane that can take off at 50mph IAS. Now what happens if the pilot of this plane guns the engine and takes off in the direction the carrier is steaming? We all know this, it will have the same effect as taking off in a 50mph head wind, he will use little deck length indeed . If he takes off and flys at a perfectly steady 50 mph IAS, he can simply fly formation with the carrier until his fuel ran out. If he was over land and had a perfect unceasing 50mph head wind, he could theoretically "hover" over one spot on the runway at 50mph IAS and 0 ground speed until his fuel ran out.

Now imagine the pilot for some reason takes off the wrong way on the carrier. The effect of this is no different than that of a plane sitting on a conveyor belt going backwards. As all can see, this will be exactly like taking off with a 50 mph tail wind. The plane will still generate thrust, it will move forward, and will still eventually take off. Only thing, is, it will take QUITE abit more deck to get airborne, because when he gets to 50 mph IAS, his "ground speed" relative the deck of the carrier will be 100mph!, just like how if he were taking off and flying at 50mph with a 50 mph tail wind, his ground speed would be 100mph.   

Any conveyor belt we can dream up is irrelevant, the plane will generate thrust and airspeed and either take off or run off the end of the conveyor. What the Mythbusters really proved was that the ultra light in question can take off with a slight tail wind within X distance.