Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: gunnss on December 17, 2002, 10:26:09 AM
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Asertation warning.......
theise comments are IIRC as my library is still in storage from my last move
1. the Komet was a dangeroius ride..... with IIRC a 40%+ rate of fatalitys from take offs and landings.
2. the rocket engine could be shut off in flight, but most pilots would not try it, due to the very real danger of an expolsion caused by improper mix from valves not opening in the "Exact" sequance and sync. The fuels were T stoff and C stoff , which explode on contact.
3. at least one pilot was killed and eaten by a ruptured fuel tank after an otherwise sucessfull landing.
4. Because the fuels were very high molar the fuel lines and combustion chamber were made of ceramics and fragile.
5. the "B" model was an all or nothing ride, either full throttle, or off. < the "C" model had a 'Cruise' chamber designed in, and more fuel which would extended flight time to as much as 30 minutes.>
6. the last of the "B" models had 8-120mm morter shells in vertical launch tubes, fired by a photo cell triggered by the AC passing through the shadow of the target, by my source at least one B17 was destroyed this way.
7. the fuels when mixed produced a colorless relativly non toxic exaust that showed no "exaust plume" inflight
My source for this is a book entiteled "KOMET" or "Rocket Fighter" written by a surviving test/operational pilot from the devlopment/deployment program.
Disclamer.... I wrote this after a Mid shift <2200 to 0800> and all the spelling errors are mine and not fr sale or loan,,,,,,
I promise that when I wake up to day to look up the book and let Ya'll know it's real title and author.
the point of all this is that the bird is a great ride..... as it is, the only tweek I would suggest is to make it more dangerous to land and launch, amd put the perk at 10 or 15 pts.
Gunns
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Originally posted by gunnss
6. the last of the "B" models had 8-120mm morter shells in vertical launch tubes, fired by a photo cell triggered by the AC passing through the shadow of the target, by my source at least one B17 was destroyed this way.
Wow. Talk about a crazy idea.
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Hi Engine,
>>6. the last of the "B" models had 8-120mm morter shells in vertical launch tubes, fired by a photo cell triggered by the AC passing through the shadow of the target, by my source at least one B17 was destroyed this way.
>Wow. Talk about a crazy idea.
And this was from a head-on attack.
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)
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Gunns said:
He he, I still have my wooden ammo crate full of 1/72 models for M&M... including the "kit-bashed" and scratchbuilt ones... If ya didn't hace the model, ya couldn't fly it. :D
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At origens 76 we had a whole floor in the ball room for just M+M...with 65 players it wa taking just over an hour an impulse too move,
I still have nearly a hunderd aircraft and the last published set of rules, in M+M we ruled that a landing 163 had a 10% chance of exploding and that all 163s had to enter the game from ground launch
the ammo load in a 163 is light with only 120 rounds of 30mm only 1 or 2 kills could be expected. The 120 morter would do that and allow the turn around time needed to hit a bomber box multiple times.
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Here is a pretty good read from one of the chief test pilots in the Komet program.
http://www.flightjournal.com/articles/me163/me163_1.asp
Spritle
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Quote.
that a landing 163 had a 10% chance of exploding
he he. seeing it from the allied perspective. :)
from the german side it would be--
that a landing 163 had a 10% RISK of exploding.
RISK and Chance. two different thing.
Sorry, Could not help myself :). Still Friends ?
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The words risk and chance mean the exact same thing in english . In german they do not ?
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risk is more in a negative sense: A hi risk to die
chance is more in a positive sense: A hi chance to survive
In gemany u would never say "a high chance to die", only if u mean it ironic.
BTW Nickname for 163 = Kraftei (Power Egg)
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If so. I stand corrected. Could be a language difference.
Can only say where I come from. One is positive, other negative.
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another problem is that whilst 40% of the losses were due to accidents on take off and landing we do not know the total amount of sorties flown.
to say that you have a 40% chance of crashing for every sortie would be a total mistake.
For all we know those 40% that crashed may have flown hundreds of sorties.
However from what ive read about the Komet it was incredibly dangerous.Perhaps a random explosion or two would be acceptable in AH :)
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Originally posted by hazed-
another problem is that whilst 40% of the losses were due to accidents on take off and landing we do not know the total amount of sorties flown.
to say that you have a 40% chance of crashing for every sortie would be a total mistake.
For all we know those 40% that crashed may have flown hundreds of sorties.
However from what ive read about the Komet it was incredibly dangerous.Perhaps a random explosion or two would be acceptable in AH :)
"Popular Wisdom vs. a Test Pilot’s Experiences
1. Rocket engines would explode without warning.
RO: engines were reliable and relatively safe and were adjusted so as to shut down in the event of an imbalance in fuel flow. If there was a problem in engine performance, it related to shutdowns, not explosions. The only instances of engines blowing were in early testing of prototypes or when they had been damaged in battle or by accident."
http://www.flightjournal.com/articles/me163/me163_5.asp
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From my sources(which will remain anonomous as to the secret nature of this plane), there were only about 8 kills credited to the 163 for the entire war.
Stony
:cool:
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Hey, check out this site:
http://www.walter-rockets.i12.com/walter/walter.htm
It contains a wealth of information about the Walter rocket engine used in Me163. According to that page, the engine had a metal combustion chamber and fuel lines, plus three throttle settings, not just on and off.
-Meatball
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Originally posted by mora
"Popular Wisdom vs. a Test Pilot’s Experiences
1. Rocket engines would explode without warning.
RO: engines were reliable and relatively safe and were adjusted so as to shut down in the event of an imbalance in fuel flow. If there was a problem in engine performance, it related to shutdowns, not explosions. The only instances of engines blowing were in early testing of prototypes or when they had been damaged in battle or by accident."
http://www.flightjournal.com/articles/me163/me163_5.asp
I'm sure that happened to me the other day
either that or it was cos i was on the edge of space:rolleyes:
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Originally posted by BenDover
I'm sure that happened to me the other day
either that or it was cos i was on the edge of space:rolleyes:
Most likely you took the plane over 12 G's and killed the pilot.
I don't know about real life, but in AH 163s do NOT explode randomly.
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The other day I was gliding in a 163 on final to the field and was doing about 300 knots at about 3-4k. There were no enemies around. In an instant, I was back in the tower and it said I had been killed. No "by so and so" text appeared.
Anyone have any ideas why this happened?
Stony
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2stony, was it in 1.11 patch 0 or 1.11 patch 1?
Patch 1 fixed a pretty serious problem in the 163 elevators which made breaking the 12g limit easy to do with even small stick movements.
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Originally posted by 2stony
The other day I was gliding in a 163 on final to the field and was doing about 300 knots at about 3-4k. There were no enemies around. In an instant, I was back in the tower and it said I had been killed. No "by so and so" text appeared.
Anyone have any ideas why this happened?
Stony
You crashed into the ground
Most likely you took the plane over 12 G's and killed the pilot.
I don't know about real life, but in AH 163s do NOT explode randomly.
read it again, i didn't say i died, i said my engine shut off, although i did manage to restart my engine, and i lived up to the point until I decided to try and break the sound barrier, think i got it to about 666mph before hitting the ground barrier.
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You crashed into the ground
Notice I said that I was at 3-4k when this happened, so I didn't crash.
Stony
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Originally posted by 2stony
Notice I said that I was at 3-4k when this happened, so I didn't crash.
Stony
altimeter malfunction:rolleyes:
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Originally posted by BenDover
altimeter malfunction:rolleyes:
Lol, does anyone know if the 162 (I think) Salamander was any safer than the 163?
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Well, the He-162 was a jet, and as such obviously didn't suffer from the issues of the rocket engine. IIRC however, the 162's flight characteristics were not regarded as being terribly good, and it was felt to be unsuited to novice pilots, it's design intent notwithstanding.
regards,
aircav
EDIT: Just re-read Eric Browns test flight reports in the 162, and he says the take-off and landing were rather tricky, but in flight it was a decent aircraft and stable gun platform. The fin and rudder assembly was rather fragile though.