tlb wrote:Jonathan_S wrote:Well, the Mustang did seem to have a fair bit of stuff back there, though it may well be the exception.
Even the early models seems to have had the radios, batteries, and engine cooling radiator back there (fed by air from the belly scoop), and then later they stuck an extra fuel tank back there too (though IIRC that changed the CG enough to make handling a bit squirrely until you'd burned off a fair bit of it -- and also I want to say that tank wasn't self-sealing; unlike the rest. Another reason to use it up first)."Lots of planes could carry drop tanks: P-47, P-40, P-38, etc.," says James Gibson, former MP&P Engineer at Boeing, says on Quora.
"The real secret to the Mustang’s range was not the laminar flow control wing, or the Merlin engine. It was the addition of a fuselage tank behind the cockpit halfway through production of the P-51B. This additional internal tank increased fuel capacity by 85 gallons: original P-51Bs only had 184 gallons in the wings. The addition increased total fuel to 269 gallons or some 30%. Further adding two 75 gal drop tanks you reached 419 gallons. The later D&H models carried 110 gal drop tanks for 489 gallons.
‘But when you carried so much fuel you had to be aware of which tanks you were using at which point in the flight. On take-off you used the rear fuselage tank. This tank effected the center of gravity of the plane. You didn’t want to tangle with a 109 or a Focke Wulf when carrying fuel in the rear tank. So you burned it first and then switched to the drop tanks about halfway to Berlin.
You would then burn off the drop tanks, hopefully before engaging enemy fighters. But if they struck early you could drop those tanks and thus be clean and maneuverable. This was the fight profile that allowed the Mustangs maximum range and best performance when over target."
And the presence of the turbocharger explains why you could not pull this same trick to add range to the P-47.
Hi all!
Post divergence as squirrelly as ever and as fascinating, it's kind of reassuring. I lament missing some great posts on history and technology. Maybe they should be collected in a special FYI file or folder.
While the P-72 or super thunderbolt would have been great since the P-47 was designed as the first single engined single pilot strategic fighter with something like 3 times the Spitfire's original fuel load, the air force was again more interested in publicity than meeting effective mission requirements.
I'm also reminded the Aussies shoehorned a Griffin engine into a locally built P-51 and hit 505mph at 5000' in November-December 1945, but didn't pursue development as they were already in line for Meteor jets.
As an aside I read TIEF on Saturday, and enjoyed it very much.
Regarding the time pods can be traitored externally, I never read any textev that mentioned it, but it'd RFC's universe; and he may have felt the need to place some limits on tractoring pods.
It would have been a considerable tactical hinderance having to replace the pods frequently for Home Fleet's SD's etc, if they were in the middle of switching in the next batch when Tourville arrived.
Back to the Battle of Hypatia, I still don't see how the 396 missile salvo's were arranged (how many each ship launched etc), nor how the Sag-B's had enough missiles for 19 volley's unless they carried more missiles than the Sag-C normally did (1200, 1320 warload), or were controlling Mark-16's previously launched by Phantom (before the first salvo was activated) but regardless it means the bulk of the 7524 missiles were Mark-16's launched from Phantom, at least an extra 2974 over the 950 in the 19 salvo's, or 118 minutes before the first activation, and if the Mark-16 could wait 18 minutes, could it wait 20, 30 or 40 (actually 39.6 for 132 volleys?
These and other questions continue to puzzle if not haunt my understanding.
Any insights will be very appreciated.
Bet wishes to all,