Stability and Control characteristics of the Early Mark Spitfires

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by 6S.Manu

Do we have to make a poll do decide which plane is the first one to be analysed? Above all by a person who actually does it for free and it's not one of our employers?.

Employers?

Who said anything about a poll?....there you go making bizarre statements again, I'm just saying it's no coincidence that the issue started with the Spitfire and I gave the reasons why.

Originally Posted by 6S.Manu

I've not problem on which one is the first plane... we have to start from something.

easy to say

Originally Posted by 6S.Manu

Why useless? Does realistic mean useless?.

Lets see, it has to be so unstable that only very skilled pilots can fly it, it must break up if you do a hard manouver, it must have very dangerous stall/spin characteristics, it must have bad turning characteristics against a 109.....all of this has had evidence to show it's not true but because of one guy and his NACA report on a different variant everybody thinks it was written by god?

Originally Posted by 6S.Manu

You say "then"... if a new feature is been added to the FM engine I expect it to be modelled in every plane... implementing a new v2.0 FM for a model leaving the other plane with the v1.0 is not a professional way to act... of wait.. about IL2 I remember new Lods against old ones... I don't want something like that..

Whaa?

Originally Posted by 6S.Manu

It's not about you... it's about a guy who I put into my ignore list since I was being anti-British claiming that the Spitfire myth is partially born because it's a simbol of the British's win. As P51 for the americans, T34 for the russian ect. does that make me an anti-american and anti-russian?.

I still find the statement offensive...please remove it, at least I'm being 'grown up' about it and giving the opportunity....not a courtesy extended to myself very often.

Originally Posted by 6S.Manu

Please explain to me what is the reason to quote that the Spitfire was more manouvrable of the Zero at high speed... above all when the argument was totally another one.

Constant accusations of having a red v blue agenda are apparently trolling.....unless it's an accusation coming from the blue side apparently.

[Glider]

Originally Posted by 6S.Manu

Warning on pilot's notes are not a fabrication.

According the numbers posted by Glider (even if they're from an limited investigation on only 121 accidents... a small sample of course) the 38% of those planes were lost for a overstressed airframe issue.

It is not a limited investigation on only 121 accidents... a small sample of course
Please read the posting again. These were all the accidents from the beginning of 1941 until the end of the war.

There were 121 Spitfire crash investigations between 1941 and May 1945 involving serious structural failure:
22 aileron instability #
46 pilot overstressed airframe
20 pilot error in cloud
13 misuse of oxygen system- pilot error #
3 pilot blacked out #
17 engine failure/fire #

Those marked # cannot be blamed on the airframe
Which leaves 66 where the airframe was a factor out of 23,000+ built during the war and millions of flights
Of those 66 a number would have been when the aircraft were in training units number unknown. I am confident that you would be hard pushed to find a lower accident rate of any front line fighter of any Air Force

The number of 121 matches the losses in Morgan and Shacklady recognised book on the subject so we have two different sources. Also note that the author worked in the accident branch which is independent form the RAF

If you wish to state that I have incorrect figures you had better support that comment.

Let's do it in a mature way... in this thread there are to many childish reactions and it's clear that all is created by the same few posters who keep fighting in every WW2 message board of the web.

I certainly agree that it should be a mature debate, with evidence to support any statement. So I await with some interest your explanation of how you determined that this was a small sample.

[Glider]

People keep mentioning the problems the SPitfire had with the wings bending and having to be replaced as proof of the weakness of the Spitfires wings. As I have said before this did happen but it happened in the last 12 months of the war when the Spit was being used as a dive bomber with 1,000lb payload. Details are in the C SHores books on the 2TAF.
This was fixed with some changes in tactics and the clipping of the wings.

I attach a paper that supports this view. If anyone believes that this was a common situation earlier in the war I invite them to provide similar evidence.

Please note that this happens with a full bomb load (1,000 lb) and the extra rear internal fuel tank. Obviously neither of these were around until late 1944

[6S.Manu]

Originally Posted by Glider

It is not a limited investigation on only 121 accidents... a small sample of course
Please read the posting again. These were all the accidents from the beginning of 1941 until the end of the war.

I certainly agree that it should be a mature debate, with evidence to support any statement. So I await with some interest your explanation of how you determined that this was a small sample.

The interview start with:
"Out of a total of 121 serious or major accidents to Spifires reported to us between the begining of 1941 and the end of the war, 68 involved structural failure in the air. Initially the most common reason for such failures, with 22 instances in 1941 and 1942, was aileron instability. The symptoms were not at all clear cut: the aircraft were usually diving at high speed when they simply fell to pieces."

And finishes with:
"a total of more than 22,000 were built, and we were called in on only 130 occasions"

Maybe I'm reading wrong, you know, but it does not state they were all the Spitfire's accidents during all the war... they are the ones reported to the Air Accident Investigation Branch.

Does this imply these were all the accidents regarding this kind of plane?
Could be that sometimes an investigation was not necessary?
What about accidents over the Channel and France, where they couldn't analyse the wrecks?

[Glider]

Originally Posted by 6S.Manu

The interview start with:
"Out of a total of 121 serious or major accidents to Spifires reported to us between the begining of 1941 and the end of the war, 68 involved structural failure in the air. Initially the most common reason for such failures, with 22 instances in 1941 and 1942, was aileron instability. The symptoms were not at all clear cut: the aircraft were usually diving at high speed when they simply fell to pieces."

If you read the whole piece the next few lines gives the details:-

Only after one of the pilots had survived this traumatic experience and parachuted successfully were we able to find the cause. During his dive he saw both of his ailerons suddenly flip up, producing an extremely violent pitch- up which caused the wing to fail and the aircraft to break up. In collaboration with RAE we did a lot of tests and found that aileron up- float was made possible by stretch in the control cables; in those days tensioning was a hit or miss affair with no compensation for temperature. On our recommendation the RAF introduced a tensometer which ensured accurate tensioning of the controls; this, and the simultaneous introduction of metal surfaced ailerons ('42/'43), cured almost all the cases of aileron instability in the Spitfire

And finishes with:
"a total of more than 22,000 were built, and we were called in on only 130 occasions"

Maybe I'm reading wrong, you know, but it does not state they were all the Spitfire's accidents during all the war... they are the ones reported to the Air Accident Investigation Branch.

You are reading that bit right but you also miss the bit where it says:-

Mr Newton was called in to investigate Spitfire crashes which could not be immediately attributed to pilot error (the same crashes which are detailed in Morgan and Shacklady).

Morgan and Shacklady is a very detailed book that details the history of the Spitfire including an entry for every SPitfire built. The number that the writer gives and the number in the Morgan and Shacklady book give for this type of incident match.

So we have two sources with the same number. Plus the Air Investigation branch are there for a reason. If you are in command of a unit of any type of aircraft and your planes start coming apart you will want to know why, so it isn't unreasonable to to expect losses of this type to be reported.

If you have better sources of information then put them forward, but until that moment I suggest this figure is as good as you are going to get.

I did have a breakdown as to when these incidents happened but cannot find it right now so cannot prove this next statement but the number that happened in training units was around 60-65% but I do put a caviet on that number but it wouldn't be unexpected.

Does this imply these were all the accidents regarding this kind of plane?
Could be that sometimes an investigation was not necessary?

I can only say yes to the best of my knowledge for the reasons stated. As for the second part I cannot say but its unlikely unless someone has repeated a mistake and they know the reason and the numbers do match