Quote:
Originally Posted by JtD
Spitfires failed past 12g's. Tested.
The handbook says 10g starts to be unsafe (Spit II).
Bottom line: 5.33g might have been a minimum requirement for British fighter aircraft of the day, but the Spitfire could take far more. It's pretty much the same a Fw could take.
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The Spitfire II might be able to take ~12 G's before suffering a catastrophic failure, if those tests are accurate mind you, but damage would occur way before.
Point is though that the Spitfire got a lot heavier through each version, and by the time of the Spitfire Mk.IX you'd have crept up around the 5.4 G load limit area with a 1.5 safety factor for the point of failure. (8 G breaking point)
And by Kettenhunde:
That margin for damage to the airframe is "1" for US, British, and French aircraft, Bill. In technical terms, that means there is no margin.
That means if it says 6G, then the aircraft will be damaged if you exceed that limit. There is no buffer from the published limits.
The Germans had a 1.35 margin of safety for damage limits. That means there is a buffer from the published limits if you make a comparison to United States, Britain, and French standards. In other words, for the same airframe strength, the Germans will publish lower limits. If the published limits are the same, the German aircraft is stronger.
The United States, Britain, and France had a 1.5 margin of safety limit for airframe failure. The Germans had a 1.8 margin of safety limit for failure.
So the Fw190 A8 which has a 6 G load limit factor by German standards has one of 8.1 G by US & UK standards, and a 12 G safety limit for failure.
So it really aint true what you're saying, i.e. that the Spitfire's wings could take as much as the Fw190's, which would also seem abit odd as the Fw190's wings look a lot more robustly constructed.