Highest Dive Speed of any fighter in WW2 - Spitfire

[Replicant]

Hi

I just read that the Spitfire had the highest dive speed of any fighter during WW2.  It was only discovered until tests during the 1950s.  It was down to it's eliptical cross section (don't know if it was b or c version) which made it dive to at least Mach 0.92 and was apparantly better than the later 'laminar-flow' wing.

Anyone know anymore about this?  I heard stories of planes breaking the sound-barrier during WW2 but I don't know if they were true and if the plane survived?!?

Thanks

'Nexx'  

[Karnak]

True.  However there were many planes that accerated into a dive better than the Spit.  The Spit that reached .92 dove from 40,000 ft.  It wasn't that the wings were eliptical, it was that they were thin.

I am not aware of any planes breaking the sound barrier in WWII.  AFAIK the X-1 flown by Chuck Yeager was the first human piloted vehical to break the sound barrier.  X-1's wings were thin too, partly clued in by the Spit's wings.

Sisu

[Pongo]

The xf86a passed the sound barrier several weeks before the xf1 according to wings of fame...


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"Stupids are like flies. they are everywere, but are easy to kill"
RAM

[Dune]

The first recorded man to break the sound barrier was George Welch.  He was a 16 kill ace in the Pacific with the USAAF.  He was one of 6 pilots who got P-40's up when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and shot down 4 IJN planes.

He did it in a F-86 but the USAF sat on the info so the Soviets wouldn't find out how fast the Saber was.

 

In an ironic twist, shortly after Yeager commemorated the 50th anniversary of his feat on October 14, 1997, by replicating the flight in an F-15 Eagle at the age of 73, the Air Force Times reported that a week before Yeager's XS-1 mission, the sound barrier had been broken by George Welch in a prototype P-86 Sabre. This feat was kept secret for even longer than Yeager's, at least originally, because it involved the capabilities of what was soon to become America's front-line fighter (which would in a few years dominate the skies in the Korean War), and also because Welch's supersonic flight had been unplanned and unintentional. All this was apparently forgotten as Yeager's reputation soared. Yeager was an active duty Air Force officer while Welch was a civilian employee of North American Aviation, but considering how soon after the war as all this had taken place, Welch presumably still retained a reserve commission and would have been eligible for the Medal of Honor under the same criteria by which Charles Lindbergh received it. Unfortunately and sadly for George S. Welch, he had been dead for over four decades by the time his feat became public knowledge; he was killed in 1954 in a crash while testing a prototype of the F-100 Super Sabre, which would become the last operational fighter in North American's Mustang-Sabre line of evolution.

http://www.voicenet.com/~lpadilla/welch.html

- It's interesting to note that Welch was the heir to the Welch's grape juice fortune.  He didn't have to serve.  Or go to war.  He had the money to get out of it.



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Lt Col Dune
X.O. 352nd Fighter Group
"The Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney"

"Credo quia absurdum est." (I believe it because it is unreasonable)
- The motto of the Republic of Baja Arizona

[Staga]

Could it be ?  Naah.... but maybe...  hmmmm..

 http://www.unsere-luftwaffe.de/mach1/index.htm

Staga

[RAM]

Nah, Staga...that is Mitology  

Of course a german plane first? ..nahh impossible.

not a yankee?...

Nahhh...thats not true. Mitology, yes. just mitology.

Just nazi propaganda.

 

[Dune]

Actually, if you read the site, they admit that 262's probably broke the sound barrier during WW2.  Heck, there's also the possibility that US P-47D's could break it in a dive.

Welch was just the fist to do it and have it recorded

------------------
Lt Col Dune
X.O. 352nd Fighter Group
"The Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney"

"Credo quia absurdum est." (I believe it because it is unreasonable)
- The motto of the Republic of Baja Arizona

[Sundog]

Well, most of the early jets were based on German technology. I seriously doubt any prop planes broke the speed of sound...the drag from the prop is just too high. Possibly the Me-262 (Although not sure it could maintain control based on tail size) the me-163 might have been able to if it had a tail.

Don't forget, the first F-86 had leading edge flaps that used the mechanism from a
Me-262. So maybe both the US/Germans broke the sound barrier!  

Of course many of the former german designers were designing our aircraft (Lippisch, I know some went to North American, and the other excellent Engineer who went to work for Martin(Can't recall his name right now))

Also, don't forget the X-1 design was basically a US rip off the British Miles (M.52?). I have noticed many aviation historians give credit to the `all moving tail' for trimming supersonic aircraft to the X-1 test team. However, the Bell design team, which reviewed the Miles design before designing the X-1 would have noticed that the Miles design had all moving tails for both the horizontal and vertical control surfaces. I would reference some German designs which had all moving tails. However, I believe that Miles were the first design team to actually apply the all moving tail control theory for the sole purpose of being able to trim the aircraft at supersonic speeds.

 

[Jigster]

I thought the X-1 was based on the .50 Cal bullet? Being the only thing they knew stable at supersonic speeds (Or so the old story goes)  

Not to discredit Welch but I think anyway you look at it Yeager deserves the credit he got. Strapping yourself in an unescapable aircraft with broken ribs and sitting on 5000lbs of fuel is no small measure of character...and as Welch was a civilian test pilot he was eligable for hazard pay (though he didn't need it) while Yeager was stretching his neck for merely military pay while living out at Muroc  


- Jig

[Fluf]

From what I've read the prop planes couldn't exceed the sound barrier because the tips of their propellors would go supersonic first and create major shock problems which would bust up the prop, wreck the engine bearings  and threaten the integrity of the airframe.

Fluf

[Sorrow[S=A]]

Guys the ME-262 most likely DID break the barrier first. However- the odds are high the pilot never lived to tell about it. The 262 was able to go fast enough in a dive to break the barrier...  HOWEVER.. russian pilots who measured the capabilities of the plane reported that after around 600 IAS or so the jet became hard to control and when levelled out had a nasty tendency to want to put her nose down again. Past this and the plane was impossible to regain control of and it had to be bailed out of.

  There is almost a certainty that during the war a german one in a high speed dive probably broke the barrier before it cratered from lack of control.

PS P-47 could never have done it. In high speed dives it's ailerons developed a supersonic "stutter" that when allowed to progress would have probably broken the pilots knees long before the barrier was reached.

[Pongo]

Sorrow..
Did you  read the link above?