Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Puck on March 13, 2007, 02:22:08 PM
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I was tooling around in a -1 last night causing pain and consternation when I looked down and realized someone forgot to install the floor. No wonder my bottle of Jack vanished. I'm going to assume this was done by my ground crew for causing them pain and consternation.
Is that really how the F4U was designed; no floor in the cockpit? I suppose it would be useful if a pilot, me for example, is a tea guzzler and had to take a leak in the middle of a long flight. On the other hand it would seem to be a bit windy and chilly in colder climates.
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It's supposed to be that way.
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That's what it looked like in real life too.
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Why? Weight? Visibility? The ability to clean the pit easily if the driver got violently ill?
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Originally posted by Puck
Why? Weight? Visibility? The ability to clean the pit easily if the driver got violently ill?
It gives the toolshedders somewhere to hide if the enemy gets too close.
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It's a WINDOW.....
look at the ju87's floor board........................ .........sheeesh
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The F4U was designed as a fighter bomber with actual bomb bay doors in the wings. They ditched the bays but left the window in the floor. I am not sure when they offically abandoned the glass floor approach.
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The initial requirements for the F4U were that it be able to drop small bombs onto formations of enemy bombers. I think each wing was supposed to hold around 30 aerial bombs. Hence the need for a window in the floor.
From what I've read, pilots disliked not having a floor. Lots of debris and dirt could accumulate down there, making inverted flight hazardous. Plus the windows were impossible to clean due to being double layered.
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interseting find, never knew that :huh
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Originally posted by AquaShrimp
From what I've read, pilots disliked not having a floor. Lots of debris and dirt could accumulate down there, making inverted flight hazardous. Plus the windows were impossible to clean due to being double layered.
That fails the sanity test. In what way does a glass floor collect dirt and debris in a manner unlike an aluminum floor? Personally I think they didn't like the feeling of nothing between them and the ground. As for double layering, if the space between them was sealed you're just trying to get the crud off both sides. In a Hog I could see where that would be entertaining.
Overall, however, this has been very interesting and well worth the question. I'd never thought of glass floors in a fighter.
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Originally posted by AquaShrimp
The initial requirements for the F4U were that it be able to drop small bombs onto formations of enemy bombers. I think each wing was supposed to hold around 30 aerial bombs. Hence the need for a window in the floor.
From what I've read, pilots disliked not having a floor. Lots of debris and dirt could accumulate down there, making inverted flight hazardous. Plus the windows were impossible to clean due to being double layered.
Please provide a source for the above paragraph.
Lastly, the window was not "double layered", it is a single piece of glass.
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In a very old thread about (almost) the same subject, but about the F4F's 2 floor windows, I read a reply saying the windows were used for carrier approuches.
Often the plane would be nosed up to lose speed, and the small windows were added to give the pilot some sense of were here is above the carrier.
I'm not sure how believable this 'theory' is, but I believe there were alot of replies supporting this idea.
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There was an odd form of armament contemplated for this new fighter, 20 anti-air bombs, loaded in the wings, plus two .30-caliber guns above the engine and two .50-caliber guns in the wings. With a test flight bringing the fighter to the phenomenal speed of 652 km/h on October 1st 1940, its future was secured and liquid-cooled engines were discarded from future development, as there arose the question what they could do what the R-2800 could not.
Before the F4U could see service, however, a series of changes had to be made. The bombs were removed, and so were the .30-caliber guns, all replaced by a further four .50-caliber machine guns to supplement the two already in the wings. Without the option of installing fuel tanks in the wings, a large tank had to be put right behind the engine, forcing a backwards movement of the cockpit, and reducing seriously the visibility over the nose.
http://www.microworks.net/pacific/aviation/f4u_corsair.htm
The US Navy ordered a prototype of the Vought design as the "XF4U-1" in June 1938. Armament was planned as two 7.62 millimeter (0.30 caliber) Browning machine guns in the top of the nose, and a single 12.7 millimeter (0.50 caliber) Browning machine gun in each wing, for a total of four guns. The prototype also had little bombbays in the outer wings for fragmentation bombs that would be dumped on enemy bomber formations, with a window in the cockpit floor for sighting. The bombbays were a screwball idea that would be quickly abandoned.
http://www.vectorsite.net/avf4u.html#m1
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Originally posted by frank3
In a very old thread about (almost) the same subject, but about the F4F's 2 floor windows, I read a reply saying the windows were used for carrier approuches.
Often the plane would be nosed up to lose speed, and the small windows were added to give the pilot some sense of were here is above the carrier.
I'm not sure how believable this 'theory' is, but I believe there were alot of replies supporting this idea.
Windows in the F4F was so you could see when the gear was up or down fully as it was hand-cranked.
wrngwy
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Aquashrimp,
I owe you an apology on the fragmentation bombs. I pulled out Barret Tillman's Corsair book and read through the beginning last night and it metioned wing racks for 10 fragmentation bombs, although it was dropped before the prototype was built. Nothing about the bomb bays though.
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Originally posted by Puck
That fails the sanity test. In what way does a glass floor collect dirt and debris in a manner unlike an aluminum floor? Personally I think they didn't like the feeling of nothing between them and the ground. As for double layering, if the space between them was sealed you're just trying to get the crud off both sides. In a Hog I could see where that would be entertaining.
Overall, however, this has been very interesting and well worth the question. I'd never thought of glass floors in a fighter.
You can't get in there to clean. Plus I read the window would get so cruddy from mud and oil it wasnt usable anyway.
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He's saying the space between the two panes was sealed, therefore only the outer surfaces would need cleaning.
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Well, I thought that naval planes had the floor window simply becasue of better visibility so you did not need to roll the plane to see below you. Very useful feature in a naval fighter, which also had to do recon missions to find enemy shipping, don't you think?
-C+
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The window got painted over alot, and they removed it from production atleast by the 1D, and possible in the -1 production run, WW or F4UDOA may know better dates.
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The deletion of the window has more to do with structure changes than anything else. Although as mentioned before, the window was frequently obscured owing to oil stains on the aircraft ventral surfaces.
In case anyone has not looked, Cosairs leak like sieves... and the -1's to -1d's do it throught the bottom of the accessory section.
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Originally posted by Bodhi
The deletion of the window has more to do with structure changes than anything else. Although as mentioned before, the window was frequently obscured owing to oil stains on the aircraft ventral surfaces.
In case anyone has not looked, Cosairs leak like sieves... and the -1's to -1d's do it throught the bottom of the accessory section.
Rather like the LaGG-3 in radial engine form.
I was reading an account of a pilot who noticed a larger than normal oil stream on the window in Tillman a couple days ago. Engine lost half its oil supply and still flew him home. He also commented that the window was almost always covered with dirt and oil, so I suspect it wasn't very useful.
Just to hijack the topic, I read on-line somewhere (educational equivalent of a tabloid) that "The army air corps admitted the F4U airframe was tougher than even the tank-like P47". Is it just me or is that very unlikely on a number of technical, political, and egotistical levels?
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I find the statement that the F4u airframe is stronger than the P-47 a very hard one to back up.
The centersection of the wing on the Corsair specifically the gear tourque boxes might be somewhat tougher, but that too is hard to defend as the 47 has a large milled one piece casting for it's mains. The fuselage on the F4u is definitely weaker in the middle as it is made up of two subassemblies. They almost always break at that production joint during forced landings leaving the pilot in a very precarious situation. The engines are both 2800's, but the 47 does not have the troublesome internal blower that the Corsair has.
I really do not know, but I suspect that the 47 will put up with more punishment.
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Originally posted by Charge
Well, I thought that naval planes had the floor window simply becasue of better visibility so you did not need to roll the plane to see below you. Very useful feature in a naval fighter, which also had to do recon missions to find enemy shipping, don't you think?
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Surely it gives a little better view downwards, but I doubt its purpose was for recon missions.
And I doubt even more that they would use fuel guzzling fighters :D
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Originally posted by frank3
Surely it gives a little better view downwards, but I doubt its purpose was for recon missions.
And I doubt even more that they would use fuel guzzling fighters :D
Uh...You mean fuel guzzling fighters like the F-4/5 and F-6 recon variants of the P-38 and P-51 respectively?
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I'm not talking about the special reckon versions, but about the topic's type: F4U-1 and similar.
In general, bombers (twin/4 engined) were relatively more fuel efficient.
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"Surely it gives a little better view downwards, but I doubt its purpose was for recon missions.
And I doubt even more that they would use fuel guzzling fighters "
I didn't find any pictures of the floor window but I assumed it is somehow similar to that on Brewster, of course you can't really see the carrier through a window straight below you if you are approaching it and I don't know what planes they used for scouting or CAP. I just assumed they would use fighters. :p
The Brester Buffalo had a rather big window straight below the pilot and I assumed there was somekind of logic behind installing the floor windows on naval fighters.
BTW, interesting reading:
http://www.sikorskyarchives.com/newsindex/News%20March%2001%20Corsair.pdf
-C+
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I would guess that not having the extra layer of protection underneath the pilots would make them dislike the non floored model's . While the extra layer the floor added probably didnt do much to protect them , physcologically the floor was atleast something when a ton of flak was being shot up at them . Ofcourse it's just speculation on my part .