Just a simple question when you seemed earlier to be discussing "Energy" and form to get it, lose it and utilize it. Isn't it so that while in jet aircraft you can "use the weight" of the aircraft to gain engine efficiency by ramming air to turbine in prop planes you really do not gain almost anything in thrust by diving.
By that I mean that while in a tail chase it is beneficial in a jet to go for 0 Gs for some time to gain speed and thus more thrust so you might actually be able to close the gap to the plane you are pursuing where as in prop planes while accelerating you actually gain nothing by diving because the prop does not benefit from faster airflow but only the effect of drag becomes bigger. Of course you might be able to utilize the excess energy gained by diving in speed that will wear out after a while or try to zoom up to target to get a snap shot but all in all you end up in less energy than by simply flying behind your target and trying to catch it in level flight.
If that is true then it probably has an effect how efficient or inefficient certain "energy transfer" maneuvers are in prop planes and in jets?
***
"I hope all those pancaking 190s were not thinking; "hey, with all those gs, I should be ok!..." For sure it was MUCH better, and slower, than hitting nose first like a frozen-stick Zero.."
If a plane stalls through a turn it doesn't really create as much Gs as it would with flow attached as the Gs in maneuvers are created by the mass changing its direction. A 190 mushing to ground after a dive is unable to change the direction of its mass and thus unable to create much Gs. The theoretical max AoA of its wing profile is around 16 deg but going straight down it could be more so even while totally stalled the wing would certainly decelerate the plane but how much I cannot estimate. I've been in a similar situation even in AH with 190A8 (quite often actually) that while pulling up from a dive the wing stalls and the plane tries to mush into ground and if you do not ease the stick to reattach the flow it will certainly auger. I'm sure many novice 190 pilots fell for that during WW2 and I'm sure other planes did that too, but of course a plane with high wingloading is more prone to that kind of behaviour. The difference to 190s benefit would have been that at least it had a wing that could handle such accelerations without failing but might also be its shortcoming since the pilots learned that you could always trust the wing to be able to handle the load of any kind of maneuvers, but to
keep the load on wing was another matter and in panic many forgot or simply did not know (which is my bet).
***
".50 cals were *quite* deadly in Korea at jet speeds."
Not really. There are even some estimates of how many sure kills they lost because of the ineffectiveness of .50s. The enemies went "down" all right, but damaged, not destroyed and due to distance to Chinese border they often got away to fly another day. The Migs were not very effective since, as seen during WW2, cannon armament requires a skilled shooter, where as with a shotgun you are bound to get more hits but with less effect. The deceleration of a light projectile is bigger than that of a heavy and in jet speeds that has bigger effect on effective range than in prop fighters. Of course that is relative also so that a bullet fired from a jet flies faster and further than that fired from a prop plane but in relation to target flying at same speeds the effective range is shorter. I don' think there's much doubt that with 4 20mms in Sabres the results would have been much better. That is due to old wisdom that while fighting over enemy territory you need to carry armament that will d e s t r o y the enemy and not just cripple him, as if he is able to land you are fighting a losing war on attrition.
-C+
"The bellybutton kissing in this thread is amazing. So is the rudeness towards the O/P." Just what I was thinking too...
