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Author Topic: This month's "FLIGHT JOURNAL"  (Read 1568 times)

Offline GRUNHERZ

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This month's "FLIGHT JOURNAL"
« Reply #30 on: July 22, 2003, 08:40:05 AM »
F4UDOA calm down....  :) :)  A few more weeks of this and you'll end up in a Bf109...  :D
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Offline Shuckins

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This month's "FLIGHT JOURNAL"
« Reply #31 on: July 22, 2003, 09:41:54 AM »
F4UDOA,

Afraid you misinterpreted my earlier post my friend.  I didn't mean to infer that I didn't believe Marion Carl's article about performing the carrier stunt with the F8F.  On the contrary, with the Bearcat's fabulous power-to-weight ratio, such a feat is possible.  The point I was trying to make is that I do not believe that stunt would have been possible with the F4U-4 Corsair.

The Corsair was a tremendous fighter...but it's long developmental and carrier qualification periods severely limited it's combat record.  While the Corsair had a slight edge in performance and roll rate over the Hellcat, the F6F was absolutely free of the handling vices that delayed the Corsair's acceptance for carrier operations.  The Hellcat could also be produced faster and more economically than the Corsair, whose complex structure made manufacturing it more time-consuming.  The Hellcat was available, in large numbers, when needed.

In Duels in the Sky Captain Eric Brown of the RNAF compared the F4U-1 and F6F-3 to the FW-190A.  Having flown all three of these fighters extensively, Captain Brown's observations are especially pertinent.  Since these aircraft were all produced outside of Britain, his opinions are relatively free of bias.  In comparing the Corsair to the German fighter, Captain Brown was rather blunt...stating that with equal pilots the F4U could not best the 190.  When comparing the Hellcat to Kurt Tank's creation Brown said that, while the Hellcat was the newer design, the superb engineering that had gone into the FW-190 was not out-dated.  Danger to the Hellcat would be severe, but the contest was so evenly balanced as to be a virtual draw.

Regards, Shuckins
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Offline F4UDOA

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This month's "FLIGHT JOURNAL"
« Reply #32 on: July 22, 2003, 03:41:56 PM »
Shuckins,

I think we agree then. I don't get to carried away with most annecdotes but when faced with them I can produce many as well. In fact one can make an agruement based on annecdotes that the P-47 was the greatest dogfighter of all. I have seen it done on these boards.

Funny thing about Eric Brown, I have his book "Wings of the Navy" and "Duels in the sky". He gives a very detailed analysis of all his combats except when it comes to the F4U FW190 when he just says the FW190 is the winner then he moves on. I need a little more detail than that. The Navy ran that very test and found something very different. In fact I have the AFDU reports on the F6F and F4U and I can't see what Mr. Brown is raving about. The F4U is much faster than the F6F in the British test and in climb test the F6F is superior albeit the F6F is about 1,000lbs underweight and the F4U is in overload at about 12,800lbs. There is no discussion of maneuverability relative to one another however.

Also it would help to know I don't think the F4U is a better pure dogfighter than the F8F. I just don't think it is as one sided as everyone believes. The reason for the legend of the F8F is partially because it never actually had a real dogfight or an opponent to dogfight. The other reason is that very little real test data exist to compare it to anything else. One interesting thing about the F8F is that it had a severe aileron restriction at high speeds limiting it's high speed maneuverability. The other is it did not pull intantanious G's very well having a rather high G limit at moderate speeds for such a nimble fighter showing some structural weekness. It is important to keep in mind that the F4U was a long range fighter and had a large fuel and ammunition capacity compared to the F8F. When the two fighters were empty the weight differance was not as great as you may believe.

F4U-1 empty 9,000lbs
F8F-2 empty 7,650lbs

The F8F may have held most of the cards but not all of them.

Widewing,

I need more time to respond to you but I have some great material. I like your Saburu Sakia quotes however. I can produce a handfull of Japanese quotes saying that the F4U was the best they faced as well as a report from the VMF123 that swears they could turn inside the 323 Sentai NIK2-J's.

BTW, Grumman was the political bully in the Navy in WW2. If they think they got jobbed at the Fihter Conferance it was just a case of turn about is fair play in my book. Now McDonnel Douglas is king of the carrier.
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Offline Widewing

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This month's "FLIGHT JOURNAL"
« Reply #33 on: July 27, 2003, 05:51:53 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by F4UDOA


In fact the F6F was a true 400MPH fighter but by the time of late 1944 the production F4U-1A had a top speed of 430+MPH. This will not be mentioned in Flight Journal.

Rant mode off   :D


Have you seen the TEAC report on the F6F-5/Zeke 52 (A6M5) fly-off?

They report the maximum speed of the F6F-5 as 409 mph @ 21,000 feet.

Too bad the AH Hellcat is such a slug...  :)

My regards,

Widewing
« Last Edit: July 27, 2003, 05:54:24 PM by Widewing »
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My regards,

Widewing

YGBSM. Retired Member of Aces High Trainer Corps, Past President of the DFC, retired from flying as Tredlite.

Offline F4UDOA

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« Reply #34 on: July 27, 2003, 07:24:16 PM »
Negative WW,

The AH Hellkitty has a top speed of 400MPH at 20k when measured on the digital viewer.

Apparently the AH Hellcat was modeled with the pitot tube airpeed error as well.
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Offline F4UDOA

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« Reply #35 on: July 27, 2003, 07:28:55 PM »
BTW Widewing,

If you have a copy of that TAIC report I would luv to have it.

I have excerpts from it but not the entire report.

BTW the F4U-1D outclimbed the A6M-5 and F6F-5 in that report as well being able to turn with the A6M-5 for a quarter turn or until 175Knots by use of the Maneuver flap setting. The F6F had no such maneuver flap.

However in AH the F6F flaps can be deployed in 10 degree increments. It never had them IRL.
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Offline Toad

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This month's "FLIGHT JOURNAL"
« Reply #36 on: July 27, 2003, 08:04:14 PM »
SQUIDWHINER!













Well... just trying it out, actually.

What do you think? Will it ever be as popular as the L word?







;)
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Offline F4UDOA

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« Reply #37 on: July 27, 2003, 09:55:57 PM »
Hmm,

I give it about a 5.5.

I don't think it will catch on unless Grunherz starts flying F4U's:D
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Offline wells

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This month's "FLIGHT JOURNAL"
« Reply #38 on: July 28, 2003, 02:38:07 AM »
DOA,

The instrument error is irrelevant when talking about TAS.  The TAS includes the correction factor, which is in the pilot's handbook (both early and late models).
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Offline F4UDOA

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This month's "FLIGHT JOURNAL"
« Reply #39 on: July 28, 2003, 06:45:45 AM »
Wells,

I have this picture of talking to Orson Wells in my head, just me.

Anyway the manual does show a very large CAS error is the airpeed table for the F6F-3/5.

But I was refferring to the actual instrament reading in the AH FM. The digital viewer does give you a 400MPH indication at 20K where as the speedometer IAS or TAS does not show that speed.

BTW, Just got my hands on a F4U-4 pilots handbook. Haven't been able to look at it yet. Ohh the anticipation!!!
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Offline Citabria

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This month's "FLIGHT JOURNAL"
« Reply #40 on: July 28, 2003, 08:50:36 AM »
Quote
But here is where the test report goes wacky. Both the F4U-1D and F6F-5 were rated as better fighters than the F4U-4 above and below 25,000 feet!!


because the f4u4 had that awful perk tag that made it a bullet magnet :D
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Offline joeblogs

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Re: This month's "FLIGHT JOURNAL"
« Reply #41 on: August 01, 2003, 12:51:36 PM »
I've red that article and Barret Tillman makes a similar claim in his book Hellcat, which is supposed to draw from Grumman archive records.

Only problem is that I have never seen a flight test report that corroborates those numbers.

-Blogs


Quote
Originally posted by eddiek
...

What I keep wondering is if and when HTC and other flight sim makers are going to look at the data and adjust the F6F's true top speed to over 400 mph.  Meyer wrote a nice article about a year ago, in which he described side by side testing of the F4U and the Hellcat, and he described an error in the placement of the pitot tube for the airspeed indicator on the F6F that caused it to read slow.  Side by side testing showed the F6F to be every bit as fast as the Corsair ABOVE 5K, but below that the Corsair was faster....

 [/B]
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Offline Widewing

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Re: Re: This month's "FLIGHT JOURNAL"
« Reply #42 on: August 05, 2003, 02:31:28 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by joeblogs
I've red that article and Barret Tillman makes a similar claim in his book Hellcat, which is supposed to draw from Grumman archive records.

Only problem is that I have never seen a flight test report that corroborates those numbers.

-Blogs


Go to appendix D (page 240) of Barrett's book (Hellcat) and you can find a document issued by the the Royal Navy citing the TIAC comparision testing done with a Zeke 52 (A6M5) and F6F-5. This document was circulated around to all FAA Hellcat squadrons.

Maximum speed for the F6F-5 was recorded at 409 mph @ 21,600 feet.

My regards,

Widewing
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My regards,

Widewing

YGBSM. Retired Member of Aces High Trainer Corps, Past President of the DFC, retired from flying as Tredlite.

Offline joeblogs

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Re: Re: Re: This month's "FLIGHT JOURNAL"
« Reply #43 on: August 05, 2003, 05:20:22 PM »
You are right, I was wrong.  It is right there in print.

So why don't we have a US SAC that corroborates these numbers?

-Blogs

Quote
Originally posted by Widewing
Go to appendix D (page 240) of Barrett's book (Hellcat) and you can find a document issued by the the Royal Navy citing the TIAC comparision testing done with a Zeke 52 (A6M5) and F6F-5. This document was circulated around to all FAA Hellcat squadrons.

Maximum speed for the F6F-5 was recorded at 409 mph @ 21,600 feet.

My regards,

Widewing
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