A newbies impression of the 109 and spit

[Crumpp]

where the hell did that quote come from anyway

Quite a few pages back when I first mentioned it.

what exactly was your link to the CAA supposed to show me?

All convention signers are on the same rules for airworthiness, then and now.

[VO101_Tom]

Originally Posted by Crumpp

You guys read a few anecdotes from a very small group who gambled and won. You don't get the wartime feedback from the 85% who lost because they are not around to tell you, "Hey, that did not work like I thought it would."

Yep, this is why i hate the war stories as technical or performance "evidence". Interesting stories, but nothing more Best example is the maneuverability. Both sides said they're all turned better than the other side. Ok, but what were the circumstances of the situation? That is very little read, and one of the most important thing in the pre-battle situation.

[bongodriver]

That asymetrical loading is what can cause the airframe to break apart in spin recovery.

Completely different condition of flight from in a spin.

recovery....reshmovery and where the hell did that quote come from anyway, Spitfires did not break up in spin recovery but some did break up recovering from dives because granted the Spit was built a little delicately for it's sensitivity in pitch.

what exactly was your link to the CAA supposed to show me?

[NZtyphoon]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

recovery....reshmovery and where the hell did that quote come from anyway, Spitfires did not break up in spin recovery but some did break up recovering from dives because granted the Spit was built a little delicately for it's sensitivity in pitch.

According to Alex Henshaw about 25 Spitfires were known to have broken up in flight; the majority of those were Spitfire Vs which had been badly loaded at a squadron level pushing their cg too far back, and breaking up during dive recovery. As Jeffrey Quill explained, this helped lead to the addition of bob weights in the tail, then the larger mass balances on the elevators. Some of these are documented in Morgan and Shacklady.

Apart from that I'd like to see Crumpp provide some documentary evidence that Spitfires regularly broke up in flight during spin recovery.


OT slightly; NACA's report on the P-47D which had some problems of its own; one of the few fighters to meet NACA standards was the P-51H.

Putting weights to the tail for what purpose?

[NZtyphoon]

Originally Posted by 41Sqn_Stormcrow

Putting weights to the tail for what purpose?

Better to say inertia weights (or bob weights) were added to the control circuits of the elevators - I'm not sure if later Spitfires with the bigger elevator mass balances continued to use them.

[winny]

Originally Posted by 41Sqn_Stormcrow

Putting weights to the tail for what purpose?

The weight was built into the elevator circuit, in simple terms it was used to counteract the effect of light elevators and high g forces. The weight was effected by the g forces so if there was a high load the elevators needed more force to move them.

It was fitted to spitfires to solve the problem of spitfires breaking up when pulling out of a high speed dive, which was a known, and big problem at the time.

Because the elevators were so light pilots were pulling out of the dives and over stressing the airframe. There were loads of examples of this happening.

So basically the more g that was pulled the harder the elevators became to move. As far as I know it had nothing to do with any instability.

Thanks, winny. That is now pretty clear to me. Wouldn't have made sense to put weights to the tail in order to improve stability. It would just worsen it.

[IvanK]

"The stall warning possessed by the Spitfire was especially beneficial in allowing the Pilot to reach maximum lift coefficients in accelerated maneuvers. Because of the neutral static stability of this airplane, the pilot obtained no indication of the lift coefficient from the motion of the control stick, nevertheless, he was able to pull rapidly to maximum lift coefficient in a turn without danger of inadvertent stalling...."

A nice feature in a fighter !

[Al Schlageter]

If the Spitfire was such a terrible a/c, at least according to Eugene, why did the USAAF accept them for service?