Comments by "David Elliott" (@davidelliott5843) on "Ed Nash's Military Matters" channel.

  1. It’s interesting that a plane developed to meet outdated ideas failed spectacularly while its contemporary, slow flying short take off Fairy Swordfish was in service throughout WW2.
    37
  2. It’s a shame the CA15 wasn’t tried with a turbo-prop. That would have predated planes like Embraier Tucano by 50 years.
    31
  3. During WW2 the British had the Tsetse Mosquito firing an autoloader Six pounder anti tank gun. Ut was devastating but the low firing rate meant only about five rounds could go down range. USA had similar twin engine bombers with big guns and the same issues. A10 was built to throw massive volumes of ordnance downrange, while surviving defensive fire from its victims.
    15
  4. Spitfire (Seafire) was considered too fragile and the US built Corsair came a lot later so the M20 would have been a great Fleet Air Arm fighter.
    7
  5. Form follows function though that tail fin looks weird and who knows why the designers built a single pilot seat.
    6
  6. Why did the British buy emasculated P38s (no turbo chargers) when they already had Whirlwinds that needed better engines or even just improved cooling.
    6
  7. Sten gun was the British AK-47
    4
  8. To be fair, the choice of words is pretty accurate.
    4
  9. Humans who send out attack drones are as responsible for their action every bit as much as humans who lay land mines.
    4
  10. Miles Aircraft Company never got the recognition they deserved.
    4
  11. The Alison V-1710 had a single stage blower because they were told General Electric would make the turbo chargers. GE struggled but the turbos did eventually arrive for the twin engine P-38. The installation took up huge space so was never suitable for P-39.
    3
  12.  @DrivermanO  The type took part in one sortie but was immediately withdrawn.
    3
  13. The heavies used in WW2 were horrifically inefficient. They couldn’t hit a huge factory so settled for flattening whole cities. Battle of Midway proved the heavies could never hit ships. What’s even worse is the British had the solution in the twin engine Mosquito. It was used for accurately placing target markets. But a raid with 800 Mosquitos would carry at least the same bomb load as 400 B17s. More importantly they would hit the target using 40% of the crew numbers and the return flight could strafe airfields etc. This wasn’t considered because the top brass had one solution and they were using it no matter what.
    3
  14. The argument about materials (3x as much metal) as a Spitfire also applied to the De Havilland Mosquito. Why were we making massive bombers when two Mosquitoes could carry more than one four engine bomber of the day. More importantly at high speed and with 1/2 the crew numbers. Lancaster was the exception but we were flying Halifax and Stirlings and others long into the war.
    3
  15. Don't forget the Mile M52 supersonic jet. It was due to be flown by Eric "Winkle" Brown but the new Labour government canned and gave the designs to USA. Britain had the tech to break the sound barrier in level flight 2 years before the US did it with a rocket plane.
    3
  16. Jack was too busy perfecting the Horten flying wing.
    2
  17. It’s hard to know why turret fighter were ever considered. The concept of observer at the back with a machine gun never really worked during WW1. 20 years later the air ministry was still pushing the same broken concept.
    2
  18. The Fairey Swordfish was an ancient looking biplane but it actually served as a (relatively) heavy-lift STOL. It’s ability to lift a heavy torpedo from a heaving carrier deck and get back to the same heaving deck was unparalleled. Despite the similarities, Wildebeest was the previous generation design and far less capable.
    2
  19. I wonder how much information from the Miles M52 went into the Delta 2. We know a lot went into Lightning and possibly into TSR2.
    2
  20. using WW2 Rolls Royce never seemed to "get" harmonic engine tuning. Though the Merlin was probably too slow running to benefit. The two stroke Crecy had a merlin crank and bottom end with moving cylinder sleeves to control the intake and exhaust ports. It never got over its many teething problems but was expected to make 5000 bhp from 27 litres (same as merlin). 40% of that power came for the exhaust thrust. When they did run its was said they were the loudest engines the company ever made.
    1
  21.  @wbertie2604  Captain Scarlet is best left as it is. Today’s producers would have a black female main character with white male Mysterons.
    1
  22. Radials were not really much lighter and the hot air escaping a water radiator gave as much thrust (Meredith Effect) as the drag created by the rad itself. P51 actually gained 4mph top speed due to the hot air helping to reduce fuselage induced drag.
    1
  23. Daimler Benz persisted with pairing up their V-12 engines to drive one propeller. It’s hard to see what they hoped to gain. As the gear system and mountings added more weight than separate engines on separate nacelles. This folly basically wrecked any chance of a successful long range bomber.
    1
  24. Was the Roc even worse than the Bolton Paul Defiant? .
    1
  25. Biplane Hurricane would have provided a handy STOL tool for the Fleet Air Arm. The ability to operate from heaving carrier decks in the North Atlantic was why the heavy lift STOL Swordfish (introduced alongside Hurricane) was used throughout WW2.
    1
  26. The BF109s built in the latter part of WW2 had very little in common with earlier models. British and American aircraft with that many changes would be re labelled. Typhoon and Tempest were good examples.
    1
  27. Avro Manchester with the X format Rolls Royce Vulture engines was a failure. Relatively minor changes to fit four Merlins created the Lancaster. The Lincoln might have been quickly outdated but by then Avro were working on bigger things. The stunning Vulcan bomber first flew in 1952 and was in service by 1956 running Olympus jet engines making 11,000 pounds dry thrust. their service life the engines were upgraded to 20,000 pounds - each!
    1
  28. The Focke Wulf 187 would have won the Battle of Britain because UK had nothing to touch it. Hindsight? Not really. Willy Messerschmitt was always the favoured aircraft supplier. Kurt Tank never had a chance. He only got the FW 190 into production by making it as simple as possible and not asking for engines used by Messerschmitt.
    1
  29. Why were British aircraft designers so intoxicated with sticking turrets on small aircraft? They failed spectao on BP Defiant and Blackburn Roc.
    1
  30. What about the Embraier Tucano. Quite clearly a Mustang updated.
    1
  31. The Japanese evaluated the Me109 but turned it down because their generals put dog fight agility at their top priority. When the 109 was allowed to fly to its own strengths, the weaknesses of Zero were exposed.
    1
  32. Heavy bombers were not all they were racked up to be. Lots of eggs (weapons and crew) in relatively few baskets. It docent take many hits to prevent a bomber completing its mission. However, using double the number of fast bombers spreads the risk yet delivers the same total tonnage of bombs. I'm thinking about Junkers Ju88 and DeHavilland Mosquito. Double the plane numbers need no more engines, yet 1/2 the crew is at risk and defines get swamped. The Mossie bomber even packed the punch of a fighter. Lancaster was great for the spectaculars (dams and tallboys) but failing to make proper use of the Mossie was huge miss for the RAF.
    1
  33. To be fair it probably would do better in reverse.
    1
  34. Please note the MiG-15 only existed because U.K. gave Nene turbojet engines to Stalin’s Soviets. After WW2, U.K. was taken over by a hard left government. They couldn’t wait to gift cutting edge technology to the Soviets. And did so in 1946. The MiG-15 was the direct result of this lunacy.
    1
  35. The Bell X1 was the M52 but because USA didn’t have a good enough turbojet engine they used rocket power.
    1