Comments by "W Bertie" (@wbertie2604) on "Ed Nash's Military Matters" channel.

  1. "not quite as insane you might think" is still fairly nutty
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  2. The Blackburn squared seemed to have put the pilot on top of the engine, and still not given him a great field of view. That takes skill.
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  3. You had me up to the concept of rails being easy to repair. The USAAF could just have dropped a leaf in the general area to render the concept useless.
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  4. Finally a solution to keeping warm at high altitudes - use the cockpit as the condenser.
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  5. Technically, the nose guns were a flexible turret sighted by the pilot (I am too lazy to get my book of British turrets off the shelf to check the number). In practice, such an arrangement wasn't really practical so they got fixed in place. There was a dual 50 version of the top turret but it was never fitted. (B.X mk. 2 or something where X is unknown, not ten as there was an actual B.X turret but I think that was in the Blenheim)
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  6. Clearly, the LEM is a naval aircraft. It landed on a sea on the moon and on Earth.
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  7. Given the use of KLF you should have suggested the engine was one based on the one designed to run on pulverised coal (which was real) but redesigned to run on burning RM100 notes :).
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  8.  @radiosnail  yes, the prevailing assumption in 1941 was that armament was required and they tried to cram some on a Mosquito. Five years later it has all changed. The last UK bomber design, outside maritime, with defensive armament was thus the Lincoln, including the twin 20mm Bristol B.17 turret.
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  9. I used to have a copy of the WW2-produced book "Britain's Wonderful Airforce" from around 1941 and it rated the P-400 highly. And the Manchester.
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  10.  @MrHws5mp  The UK still had plenty of strike aircraft that could operate from carriers. None could maybe carry the amount of ordnance or have the same loiter time but you could send them out for fleet defence OR strike. A Wyvern trying to take out an IL-28 isn't likely to work. So in terms of making the best of space on your carrier an fighter that's an adequate strike fighter is better than something that's unreliable and only just adequate as a strike fighter and of no use as a general fighter. Of course, you could possibly have just four Wyverns per carrier to save on space but then you are talking about a lot of specialist maintenance training in the fleet for a small number of aircraft so on economic grounds something passable at a particular role can be better than something slightly better but specialist. The USA is larger so the specialist training cost and other considerations make more sense as there is more of an economy of scale.
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  11. I first became aware of this when I was a kid. Definitely one of the better-looking planes of the period.
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  12.  @killerkirbydude  It's supposed to be a humorous reference to a frequent excuse for problems running trains in the UK: leaves on the line. Or the wrong sort of snow. Or, well, anything really.
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  13. It's not just existing UK aircraft (for example the Tempest, later Spitfires such as the XIX or Spiteful) it was competing against, but also the P-51H which was a bit slower, but delivered in quantity during WW2, even if too late to see service. First flight to service was typically one to two years, so it was going to miss WW2.
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  14. The USA also flew Beaufighters
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  15.  @mikearmstrong8483  and an incredibly short service life.
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  16. 6, 4 rear firing. The RAF was also looking at a Supermarine design (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Type_324 - I have books with more info, but not easy to link to!), almost a sort of twin-engined Spitfire, with 6 20mm forward, PLUS an option of an additional 12 .303s, which made it to wooden mock up. Nothing rear firing, though.
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  17.  @christopher5723  in terms of keeping 4. 303, that was down to Beaverbrook cancelling a number of projects for 50 and even 20mm turrets in 1939 to concentrate on production of existing designs to ensure there were SOME turrets and then a slow restart to 50 calibre turret efforts. Harris was livid as from 1942 he wanted 50 calibre turrets for night use as they hit so much harder than 4 303s.
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  18. Obsolescent rather than obsolete, but definitely on the way out.
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  19. Even with Lend Lease, it was an uncertain supply until the start of 1942 and the USAAF wanted them too. By that point, it probably made more sense to make the Albemarle for transport to keep B-25s for bombing.
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  20. A one second burst could have dropped the speed to by about 5 mph, assuming that the forces of thrust and drag were balanced precisely, but that would still put it 5 mph above the stall speed (100 mph). However, there is always a margin for error. But there were often issues in early gets of the engines ingesting fumes from the guns and stalling the engines rather than the aircraft. But at now 105 mph any loss of thrust would have been an issue. With a prop aircraft and a gentle stall you'd be able to push the throttle forward and recover, possibly, but the spool up time of a jet was too long back then. I expect the pilots were experienced, but the F-94 was pretty new.
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  21. Actually, the exhaust system of both the Tempest II, Sea Fury, and F8F were influenced by that of the Fw-190, but that's about it. The F8F used a radial as that's what the USN required. I'm not sure what the exact requirement for using the Centaurus was for Hawker. It worked out better than the Vulture in the Tornado...
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  22. Or the A-26, which entered service in 1944. The glass nose versions had a front-facing armament greater than the Buckingham and greater flexible armament too.
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  23. Ironic, given that Buckingham was slower than all Mosquitos.
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  24. Yes, the Gamecock was 20mph slower, but first flew two years earlier, and had full military equipment. The Rohrbach doesn't actually seem that impressive in terms of speed to me. Dangerous spins make it unsuitable as a dog fighter in that time period.
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  25. This could be handy for city-centre airports, assuming the high (400mph or so) performance was good enough for short flights. However, most Europe city centres have trains which are lower energy methods of mass transport, so maybe not in Europe. I could see it could be useful for rural stuff - Outback, Canadian wilds.
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  26. With MAP/RAF requesting a wingspan reduction, I wonder if it expected Shorts to do exactly that. Shorts was a bit caught out by the fact that the original specification was basically impossible to achieve well, and then it got changed anyway. There were heavy bomber specifications issued in 1934 (Whitley), 35 (Warwick) AND 36 (Stirling). And P.13/36 effectively became a pair of heavies. And more heavy bomber specifications followed prior to WW2. And that's not counting the 1932 specification that led to the Wellington.
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  27.  @660einzylinder  yes, the Tempest used a laminar flow wing based on NACA information, and a in-line engine. It has much more in common with something like the P-51 than the Fw-190, but not really much in common with the P-51 either.
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  28. One of the odd things about the Wellesley is that Wallis wasn't sure he could punch a hole in the structure to put in a bombay, so the bombs are in panniers below the wings. It limited the size of bombs that could be carried. It was sometimes used to transport wounded, but I am not sure if they put them in the fuselage or the stretchers into the bomb panniers. I'd tape off the bomb release mechanism if they were in there, just to be on the safe side. Obviously, the bomb bay issue was sorted out for the Wellington.
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  29.  @Alex-cw3rz  When Swordfish tried to attack in daylight during the 'Channel Dash' they were slaughtered.
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  30.  @steventhompson399  Against naval AAA they were very vulnerable, demonstrated in the Channel Dash, and also against modern fighters. Hence Swordfish missions tended to be where no fighters were expected (e.g. sinking subs off Ireland with rockets) or at night (e.g. Taranto and most operations in the Med). For the same reason the Po-2, be it in WW2 or Korea, was also primarily operated at night.
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  31. 60 inches is about +15lbs boost. The Merlin 60 series was cleared for +18, 70 series ultimately +25. The problem was that Merlin P-40s only got the equivalent of 20 series engines with a maximum of +12 in the most highly rated versions. So the issue wasn't the Merlin, just the version provided for the P-40.
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  32. With filmstar looks, though!
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  33. For a transport, de Havilland had some decent options in 1938.
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  34.  @SoloRenegade  pretty much all of those you listed had a longer service life than the B-58. The B-17 had a service life of 30 years. Even the F7F managed the same ten years as the B-58 despite being during the transition to jet power. The B-58 managed ten years in a period of time with a slower rate of evolution than 1944-54. It's short for the period, although shared with a few other US aircraft of that time. A short service life in the late 1940s or early to mid-1950s is more typical as the pace of development was very rapid then. In the case of the Hustler, it was short because the mission profile evaporated, being superseded by ICBMs, and it's slightly surprising to me that it got built as it was clear it would have a short life from the outset, just covering a period when the number of ICBMs was not at intended strength, which ended in the mid-60s. The mission still existed for France as it didn't have ICBMs at the time.
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  35.  @henrikgiese6316  Only 2 at a time at most, I suppose. 4x20mm for rear defence in a single turret was proposed, and flown as a mock up, for the Mosquito. The new standard for British medium and heavy bombers was supposed to become a dorsal and ventral quad 20mm turret. Of course none of this happened.
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  36. Napier liked the H shape
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  37.  @Allan_aka_RocKITEman  It still had F4U night fighters available and in use (IIRC) in Korea.
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  38.  @jamesbottger5894  I'd looked up the performance of the P51H at 67" (+18). At 80" (+25) it's basically the same as the MB-5, but 6mph faster at altitude. Lots of maximum speeds for the P51H quote the speed at 90" (+30), and then it is faster, but that wasn't really achievable in service for any length of time in a flight or for an engine in terms of life, and I'm not aware of it actually being used outside testing. The P51H was at least available in significant numbers in 1945.
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  39.  @christopher5723  You're right about one thing - convergence would be a nightmare with the Windsor. You'd want radar to continually change that for you. It was an attempt to get around the immense, flat but wide 4 cannon turrets the RAF had in mind for bombers of that era which would have required either very wide fuselages or, as on a AWA design (can't remember the number and my father has the relevant book) that had it atop the fuselage, blended into a shoulder wing. There were supposed to be 4 cannon ventral turrets too, but it was never really explained how they were supposed to work. Presumably, periscopically sighted and utterly useless in practice.
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  40.  @radiosnail  it's out of print but I will get round to typing the full title at some point. Some of the photos and text get naughtily posted on the interwebs. I doubt there's quite enough interest to justify a reprint. I think my physical copy cost about £40 in good condition.
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  41.  @MrHws5mp  and my point was that most of the use of the Skyraider in Vietnam was from land bases as the USN preferred faster aircraft given limited carrier space. Plus it was easier to give the Skyraider a heavier load from land bases. The UK might have regretted it had it been involved in Vietnam but it might have been able to use jet light strike like the Gnat from land, F4s and Buccaneers from carriers
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  42.  @mikepette4422  I also owned a book by the British Communist party from early 1941 saying how awful Churchill was, which I bought as I was just surprised it got published!
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  43. Come on, it's not a 30s French aircraft...
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  44. Are you and Rex having a competition on who can do a video on the nuttiest aircraft?
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  45. There's only so much space on a carrier. If a Sea Vixen or Sea Hawk can cover the strike role even passably then they win out over the Wyvern which can't be an effective fighter or interceptor for fleet defence as you can use the same aircraft for more than one role and thus make better use of hangar space.The only hope was torpedo attack but the intention was to replace that with the Buccaneer and tactical nuclear weapons. Combine that with unreliability and the Wyvern was doomed.
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  46. At the time of the initial sale, the Cold War hadn't started. Shortly after the sale of the Nene, the situation changed and sales of further materials were blocked. However, no one expected a Nene derivative to be used for military purposes as centrifugal flow was a passe technology. There was no suggestion of selling the latest axial flow engines.
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  47.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Very impressive to get two in two wars 20 years apart!
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  48.  @SoloRenegade  it was in service with other airforce after WW2. The B-58 was not in service with other airforces after its service with the USAF. Even the He-111, in its Spanish variants, saw service in the early 1960s. Don't discount service in other airforces. The F8F, for example, saw service until 1958 in the Vietnamese airforce
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  49.  @cowboybob7093  Steel tube for fuselages and wooden wings were pretty common at the time. The logic is that the stresses on the fuselage are less so flexible steel tube with its low structure volume makes sense as you maximise internal fuselage volume. Wooden wings were more of a known quantity for structural strength for wings and a bit more structure volume wasn't an issue. Duraluminium will burn if you dump enough gasoline on it and add a 200mph wind, so it wouldn't matter than much in that regard. With wood you have to build in an extra margin of error in case you have a piece of pine with hidden knots in, or other variations in wood quality. In other words, with metal you can ultimately build lighter as you can quality-control metal production to tighter tolerances and build lighter structures leveraging that and make better use of stressed-skin construction that makes the skin a part of the structure. With wooden wings, you can lose more of the overall wing structure and have it still work, but it's better to be lighter, 10mph (or 15km/h) faster and not get holes put in the wing by passing German aircraft.
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  50. If you look at Thunderbirds and state - of - the - art research of the time, there's overlap in what is portrayed and real projects. But then Anderson always wanted to do real, big budget, live action sci-fi, not puppetry. That was down to cost. Edit: but he still tried to get hard, sci-fi projections in, apart from some fanciful speed figures in UFO, and the whole of Space 1999. You're allowed one preposterous element of course, like the Mysterons in Captain Scarlet. I wish someone would do a good live action version of that without overly modernising it.
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