Was the Laminar Flow design concept similar to low drag low lift wings. Was the fatter section of the wing pushed back closer to the center , like the Hawker Tempest wing vs Hawker Typhoon
Indeed, that's what I tell my wife: "honey, I've just heard the call "greetings, this is Greg", so please know I'll be unavailable for the next half hour"
I read in Kurt Tank's biography, "Design For Flight" that Goering asked him why no German aircraft had laminar flow wings. His reply was that if so much as a fly had a sh*t on the wing, the whole effect is ruined.
3:30 - This is where my area of expertise shine. I work at Boeing Everett WA and previously I have interned at Hexcel to build the honeycomb for the F-35 in Burlington WA. The tolerances vary wildly even down to each individual panel/part. plus or minus 4 to 9/1000s is usually where the range sits for modern aircraft, both military and civilian. That metric is still insanely impressive from such a long time ago. it's unbelievable impressive I cannot overstate this.
Thanks Buddy. 4-9 thousands makes sense to me. I suspected 5/1000ths was crazy accurate, it's really nice to hear it from you guys who have experience with this.
It is completely possible to retain these tolerances for individual parts, even in those times (especially USA that wasn't really under direct pressure), but along the wing, they add up and i find it hard to believe that the wing construction in total had an overall deviation in such a small tolerance, even with clever design and assembly.
@@bakters They will tend to use both. It's the same in the UK as well. Conversion is pretty simple, and what parts are made to metric/imperial with metric/imperial fittings comes down to suppliers and such. It's not too common in the UK, purely because we don't make much in the UK any more, but it is still something you get used to.
As a Brit, i really appreciate the unbiased way talk about aircraft whatever country they are from. Also as a Brit, i find the title "wind and the future " hilarious 😅😂
My father flew the A-1 in the early 60’s. Of the several types he flew, this was his favorite. I believe because it was closest to the WW II aircraft. Too late for that war, it went into Korea and then soldiered on into Vietnam. And it was the A-10 that replaced it. It was a well built plane that did many missions through several wars.
Glad to be early! As a younger person, I love being able to learn so much about history from these, and I also like mechanics a lot. This channel is seriously amazing.
I love how much he uses first source references. Here’s the original finding and documentation of the period, not some pilot memoir written in 1965 trying to sell as many books as possible.
Loved the Mustang and wished I had flown one. I flew Tiger Moths Harvards Vampires Sabres and Mirages. A friend John Laming flew Mustangs in Korea then went onto Vampires. Then went back onto the P51 for a bit. I questioned him about the performance difference P51 and Vampire. He said Vampire had double the combat performance because even though both maximum rate of climb was similar the climb speed P51 170 kts and Vampire 240 kts meant Vampire had double the energy which is a Vsquared function
How does he do it. Beïng am airline pilot , having an automobile business and than creating the very best utube chanel on one of the most complex subjects imaginable? Greg for president !
"Supermarine Spiteful" just sounds super hard and awesome I had heard but new nothing about this plane until Greg enlightened us all with this great video . The superprops were so aesthetically pleasing I sometimes wish we should have waited another 10 years for the jet age
Thank you Greg. You do an excellent job of explaining the relationship between the Spitfire and the Spiteful. Very much like the P51D ~ P51H. The oral history, the word of mouth / legend has it, the Spitfire, (particularly the early models), had a wonderfully benign stall. They had exceptionally powerful elevators and pulling the nose up too hard, was easy to do, but detecting you'd done so and managing and recovering the aircraft, was comparatively easy. This was true at low speed and low altitude and low weight, but got more so as those things increased, along with bank angle and G-forces. Later models had a (relatively) bigger tail and that improved spin recovery and stability more. When the Spiteful was flown, it had sudden, violent and (good name for it) spiteful stall characteristics. It was not a pleasant or friendly aircraft as you approached the point of stall, and the higher the speed, altitude, loading and so forth, the more violent and disagreeable it got. It was one of those things, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. The Sea Fury by contrast, was a massively more friendly and forgiving aircraft to fly. People used to say of the Spit ~ she's a lady in the air, but a b1+ch on the ground. Well the Spiteful had the wide track gear, much more benign. She was a lady on the ground, but a b1+ch in the air. On Paper, her performance was remarkably good. By the seat of your pants, the thing was a b1+ch, and the harder you pushed it, the harder it fought back. It was not a 'nice' aeroplane to fly. By contrast, De Havilland's DH-103 Hornet, had two Merlins and it was (under most circumstances, not all) a massively more pleasant and friendly aeroplane to fly. The Hornet was fine with both engines, she was fine if you lost one and feathered the prop. Eric ‘Winkel’ Brown described doing demo aerobatics in that condition, as being like an early war Spitfire or Hurricane. But if you lost an engine and the failure also effected the propeller pitch control / feather, you could get a broken engine with a full fine pitch, and the asymmetric thrust / drag of that was beyond the ability of the pilot / controls at full deflection, to correct. You could maintain controlled flight, but not at anything approaching full power. The issue was not roll or yaw, it was both. And if you pushed the limits of that, you required more or less full human strength to get the rudder and the ailerons to full deflection, and that was ok for 10 seconds, you could perhaps maintain that for 30 seconds, but what if you're still 80 miles out from the carrier ~ ? If you got a failure like that, you could maintain altitude, or lose it very slowly. But any more than about half throttle on the good engine, and full control deflection would not prevent a uncontrolled roll and spin. So if it happened on the return to an aircraft carrier, you could land on it, but you had absolutely zero chance of doing a missed approach and going around for a second try. Mess up the approach, and you’re a dead man. They didn’t have zero-zero ejections seats in 1948. It’s my understand not one, but 3 or 4 men lost their lives under virtually these exact circumstances.
I’ve always found it very interesting that the era of aviation that so many people are fascinated by lasted little more than a decade that being the age of all those wonderful piston engined monoplane combat aircraft, twin and four engined piston powered aircraft had a longer era but the single seat piston engine fighter’s reign was really short, short but wonderful
I love the narration in these videos, not too fast, not too slow, clear and distinct and very easy to follow. I am very impressed with the obvious large amount of research that must go into these videos! I have one book on aviation called "The Power To Fly" and it covers engines from the Wright Brothers up to the end of WW2. With my bad eyes I no longer read books unless they are large print, so I rely on videos like this to learn the history of aviation. It is truly amazing how fast aviation technology progresses making some aircraft obsolete in just two or three years!
As a Brit, i must say for an American a very evenly balanced commentary. Nice to have the Ft& inches, before the metric. So many don't even mention the old imperial measurements. As an 80year old Englishman, I've come to grips with kilos, and grams, kilometers too slow for me, have to keep multiplying by 1.6. Lovely video ducky.
From what I’m aware of, correct me if I’m wrong, doesn’t most of Europe excluding Russia use knots and feet for aviation still? Wonder if they’ll try to make metric the law in America ever, couldn’t see myself ever getting used to it without doing math in my head as well lol
@@mrsteel250 We live in a homogenised world. To me it's inconceivable that the richest, and most powerful country on earth is out of step with the rest of the world, regarding weights & measures. When if it happens in the US, it will probably be like when the UK went metric. By law all weights will be in both metric, and imperial. The kids will learn metric at school, and eventually the old stuff will die out. Regarding knots, when I check out speeds of aircraft on Wikipedia kilometers are given first, I'm pretty sure the Russians use kilometers, as do the Europeans.
@@mikeycraig8970 That's silly. The metric system dates back to the French revolution, long time before the EU. It's used all over the world. So when you go shopping you ask for a pound of something?
A few super props were modified to get huge top speeds, but ultimately, they were impracticable. The P47 for instance was modified for 1 speed test of over 500mph. This in itself was an incredible achievement from the designers and engineers at Republic. But it completely wrecked the engine in the process, and was simpmy a one off. The redesigned engine cowling and cooling system was, although very aerodynamically clean, wasn't up to practically cooling the engine sufficiently for bormal operation. What's so impressive about the Spiteful, powered by the R-R Griffon 101, was it was completely cobat ready and this speed achievement of 494mph, was not a one off. It could reach very high speeds as a standard production fighter, which is the reality of the situation.
The XP-47J never did 504 mph in a controlled setting. The Army tried to and only got 484 mph @ 25,350ft and that flight ended up destroying the exhaust system. Not to mention it was essentially a hot rodded P-47 with vital equipment missing and a custom turbo.
Well - reportedly the engine failed seven times, with the last failure resulting in irrepairable damage. The Griffon 101 wasn’t yet combat ready by any means. On the other hand, it was claimed that the airframe that was flown to 494mph wasn’t the best one, and other Spitefuls might have been a few mph faster with this engine.
Who doesn't! A vid on the Aussie V8's would be awesome, even the Aussie muscle car scene. Nice subject with a good history right there for ya Greg :) Drop a message if you want some pointers, seriously. Owned a ton of them, raced them, built them, love them. @@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles
Yessss!! Finally. It's been 3 years greg!!! You have made it!!! I'm so happy for your hard work researching this Greg. Still, a longer vid would have been better, but worth the long wait! Great job
Thanks there just isn't much out there on this plane. I could have gone way deeper on the engines, or the aircraft systems, it basically uses the same type pneumatic system as a Spitfire. I just decided it wouldn't be worth it and put the video up as is.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles on this note I wonder if you could tell us what are the next super props on your schedule, it's probably my favourite series on Your channel.
Those late spits and spites are just the most gorgeous prop aircraft. I remember being disappointed Grandad only flew Typhoons in North Africa and he only probably 99% killed some of Rommels mob. Of course, i never showed this. And now i think it's pretty fricken awesome. Typhoons rock.
On naming, I can imagine the meeting, one name after another being shotdown. One bloke exasperatedly retorts, "You're just being spiteful!" Another guy says, "Yeah, that'll work!" 😅
Not to mention the (?) intended name for the Spitfire - the Shrew. Maybe in those days shrew (as in taming of the) had a far nastier context than now. Furry little mouse-like crittur.
If you see a row of motorcycles parked, you can always tell the Triumphs- Theyre the ones with a pool of oil under them. Classic British engineering can be seen in the picture at 10:15, with the oil oozing all over the bottom of the plane.
Cool video, Greg, and well done, as usual. A fan of WW 2 aircraft for most of my 80 years, I had no idea, until this series, that there was so much development going on behind the scenes, as it were. Very interesting aircraft, often using equally-interesting technology that quickly fell out of favor as jets came onto the scene.
Well, Handley Page used 'Victor' for its jet bomber... Anyway, Britain faced serious budget constraints after WWII, and Supermarine's post war fighter designs moved forward in a conservative, yet interesting progression of proven components married with newer technologies. The Spiteful, with its new wing, used a fuselage and tail looking similar (not saying the same) to that of a Spitfire 22. The Spiteful wing was then married to a Nene jet which wrought the Attacker, a taildragger. The Attacker fuselage was then adapted to a swept wing and tail to create the Type 510, still a taildragger. The 510 was converted to use tricycle gear, becoming the Type 535. Finally, a transition to the axial flow Avon led to the Swift, but it retained the large diameter fuselage due to its Nene heritage. Unfortunately, like the initial swept wing of the 510, the Swift also suffered from problems with wing surface irregularities because of dated construction methods clinging to traditional rib and stringer construction covered with a relatively thin skin. Meanwhile, North American in the U.S. was using milled, tapered skins on the F-86 and later F-100, producing exceptionally smooth and even wing surfaces, critical for stable high-speed flight and controllability. No disrespect to our British friends. It's just what was going on at the time.
Waiting with bated breath for two of my personal twin engine super props, the DH Hornet and Grumman Tigercat. Both seeing combat after WW2. Over to you Greg!
Former engineer that designed part of the VPAL line for the 737. Tolerances are to +/-0.010” for positioning. Edit: I don’t exactly remember the surface tolerances, they may have been +/-0.003” but I worked on mostly internal structures and some minor work on temporary “clamping” upper and lower surfaces. Which used spring assemblies to apply the clamping force.
engineer in aircraft production- formed sheet metal and rivet construction under 0.005" from design would not be doable. Having a built up wing with every point along the surface within 0.050" would be best case. e.g. fully machined parts are in that 0.005" from nominal range.
Thirded. ± 0.005” isn’t achievable over an area as large as the Spiteful’s wing using the relevant construction techniques. I mean, heck-aero loads alone might cause deviations larger than that in flight. Those tolerances for the individual machined wing ribs would have been achievable, if a little ambitious for production. But±0.005” for the whole wing assembly? That means stacking the tolerances for the spars, the ribs, the sheet metal *and* then riveting it all together. You’d need to hold something like ±0.0005” or ±0.001” for each of the components. Nope. (Also an aerospace engineer…I did the stress analysis on the 787 pilot controls, FWIW).
Greg, The research you do on any video is impressive and shows in the quality of the information you supply during your videos. Judging by the sound of your voice I would say your at least 10 to 20 years short of being around when any of those aircraft were in production so the in depth detail of your research is outstanding.
Did I hear 1/8 th of a mm.love it! I have no real interest in air craft apart from the usual boyhood thing..but I listen and subbed to your channel because of the detail and accuracy of your information.you are second to none.many thanks for your passion and enthusiasm for these topics.
An excellent video on a subject that I have studied as far as one can with the limited written material available. Very good point regarding the precision of the wings and how even if true laminar flow was not achieved, the degree of precision brought significant benefits of its own. Extra points to you for discussing the three-speed supercharger, its benefits and not allowing confusion with a three stage version! Picking up on the spares confusion issue, if one imagines the sheer pain of introducing a new type into service (training, supply chain, special equipment etc.) one can understand why the Spiteful was pretty much D.O.A. once jets arrived and the war finished. Thank you for the hard work you put into these excellent works.
The Brevet Club, near the International airport at Harewood, in Christchurch, New Zealand, had a six bladed prop, Spiteful on a stylish curved stand, from 1967. We were proud to have it and Air New Zealand, maintained it, using their apprentices. A beautiful way to learn an important trade.
Thoroughly enjoyed this video Gregg as it's an aircraft I knew very little about but found very intriguing! congratulations are due on a very well researched and presented one!
Awesome video Greg, thanks like always, I remember I asked about this plane and her sea variant the SeaFang a year ago in a comunity post. It is great to see
Very interesting, Greg. I understand that there were several reasons that the type didn't go into frontline service. As you point out, the jets were coming, with the Meteor already in service and the Vampire about to. In addition, although the performance figures looked good, it was only around 30mph faster than the Spitfire 21/22/24. In addition it had poorer compressibility and stall characteristics than the Spitfire. Certainly not critical but, all those things combined with Britain being more or less bankrupt at the end of the War, producing a brand new piston fighter was probably deemed a luxury the British economy couldn't afford.
Excellent video, as always! One thing, though. You described the Griffon Mk 69 as a V8. Freudian slip, no doubt. 😉 Keep the great videos coming! Paul 😎
And dropping in that remark about how accurately the Mustang was built. I suppose that's why the photoreconnaissance spitfires were polished smooth before the flight.
I know I could just search for this, the name sounds very British. For example if there isn't an HMS Spiteful I'd be surprised. Thanks as always for all the work you put into these videos.
I'm a 7yr old Brit Motor Mechanic. @ 3:08 I immediately thought, 5thou that's a 5th of a Champion Sparkplug gap, As an apprentice in a fleet workshop, the boring refurbishment of shot blasting and gapping sparkplugs, those were the days, 😂😂😂
The first prototype (NN660) was actually a Spiteful wing fitted into a Spitfire Mark XIV fuselage. This airframe crashed in a mock dogfight, killing Supermarine test pilot Frank Furlong. Subsequent prototypes had the modified fuselages. The Attacker was actually built using existing Spiteful wings, which became available when the Spiteful was cancelled. Since the wings were already built, they had to use a tail-dragger configuration - I've heard that this caused a problem because the exhaust would dig furrows into the grass fields that were common at that point in time.
Accoring to Flight Magazine May of 1947 "The design of the wing was largely unchanged from the Spiteful, save for being slightly enlarged to match the bigger Attacker".
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles I'm going by what Quill wrote. Not sure how many Attackers were built, but I suppose it's possible they ran out of ready-built wings.
Looking up the specs.. The Attacker had an extra 1 ft. 11 inches in span and an extra 16 sq. ft. in wing area. What I think they did was build a wider center section to fit the fatter fuselage and use the pre-existing wing panels. Total number built was 185, so they most likely had to build new wings for most of them. Anyhow Quill does say they used wings from the cancelled Spiteful.
@@iskandartaib Perhaps he meant it in a general sense I.e. the basic design was used in the Attacker rather than literally using re-purposed Spitful wings. The plan of the Attacker wing has some differences to the Spiteful wing.
Have to wonder why Supermarine stuck with the underwing radiators. They were evidently shaped in two dimensions to capture the Meredith effect, but were unlikely to be as effective as the Mustaing's 3 dimensional ducting with the air inlet placed free of the boundary layer.
@@fafner1 Yes it is interesting. But then again, I have heard Greg say that the Spitfire could have been as fast as the P51 IF built to the same tolerances - which I find fascinating... perhaps the under-wing rads are less of an issue that we would think?
The irony of the reputation Spitfire had (quite deservedly) for being... fragile during Carrier operations is that just prior to, and early in the war Supermarine had been working on a purpose designed naval fighter. I can't for the life of me remember what it was even called, it kind of looked similar to a gull winged Spitfire, though by all accounts it shared very little in common with the Spitfire. Though the wing shape was different it had the same angle to the wings as the F4U Corsair did, I assume for largely the same reasons which if I recall were primarily to keep the landing gear relatively short and sturdy but still fit a big prop. It was canned early in development for the simple reason it used the RR Merlin, and the RAF essentially told the Royal Navy that all merlins were for the RAF and no one else. No FAA (Fleet Air Arm) aircraft would be allowed to use the merlins (which was one of the reasons British Carrier aircraft design took a huge step backwards, not the only reason but an important one). As a result what was a very promising early war purpose built Carrier fighter was basically scrapped by the RAF. Not the first or the last time the big wigs in the RAF would screw over the FAA or Coastal Command....
Great video Greg, But the reason the Griffon was about the same external size as the Merlin even though it had a 35% displacement increase in displacement (20% in weight) is because the internal dimensions were only marginally larger by just .6 inches. That is the Merlin B&S was 5.4X6.0 inches, the Griffin had a B&S of just 6.0X6.6 inches, Just like a 302 V-8 (with a 4.0 inch bore) goes to a 402 V-8 simply by stroking the engine by an inch with the end result being a 33% larger displacement. I don't know if you know this, but I call it the Weitzman 4" bore rule. Any 8 cylinder engine with a 4" bore always has a cubic inch displacement equal to the length of the stroke to the hundreth of an inch plus 2. In other words a 289 Ford has a B&S of 4.0 by 2.87. A 350 chevy is a 4.0X3.48, a 392 Chrysler is 4X3.9 and so on. The 201 c.i. Wright Bros. engine was a 4 cylinder 4.0X4.0. I discovered interesting this phenomenom on July 1, 2010 and published my finding in my weekly syndicated automotive newspaper column, The Road Beat, and in another auto pub, Global Auto News.
@@Sherwoody I love kenora but god damn can the flys + mosquitoes get bad. Doesn’t help that I get real bad allergic reactions too so they swell up alot
I hope there'll be a video covering the De Havilland Hornet and Sea Hornet. I'd imagine they come under the category of superprops as long as it doesn't exclude twin engines. Developed during WW2 and seeing service just after, including use in the Malayan conflict. A travesty non were preserved.
2:42 they abandoned the ellipse because it is more complex to manufacture, and a tapered wing is so close in performance as to largely not matter anyways. Notice how few airplanes since WW2 have used an elliptical wing, both civilian and military? And most of those are spitfire replicas or influenced by spitfire shape. Also notice how many WW2 spitfires clipped their wings (p-47 too), and this destroys the ideal ellipse planform and lift distribution. Yet they did it anyways to improve performance.
IIRC the Spitfires elliptical wing was structurally pushed as far as it would go- as models got faster it was strengthened but eventually ran into aeroelasticity problems >480mph so eventually to go beyond that they designed a new wing altogether. While it was (as you say) more complex to manufacture it also gave stunning results- remember a Spitfire was the a closest piston engined aircraft got to breaking the sound barrier with 0.89 and 0.92 (with structural damage) dives (and live). And as understanding of aerodynamics improved, so did the shapes. If you look *back* elliptical wings were widespread- going forwards it changed again.
@@rubbernuke1234 "Spitfires elliptical wing was structurally pushed as far as it would go" What? how do you figure? I don't think you have any clue what you're talking about. When did any spitfire ever exceed 0.89 mach? "During the programme, Squadron Leader J R Tobin took a Mark XI Spitfire into a 45-degree dive; the plane reached a top speed of 606mph (975km/h), or Mach 0.89. It was the fastest speed a Spitfire had ever flown - or at least the fastest that a pilot had lived to tell the tale." you're 0.92 Mach is a lie. Barely surviving a dive doesn't lend credibility to your claim, a Mustang or other planes may well have been capable of exceeding the Spitfire in teh same conditions, but what moron was ever going to try it intentionally? The spitfire could never match the P-51 in level flight speed. Voodoo Reached 554mph in level flight, imagine that in a 45deg dive? A Mark XI Spitfire max speed in level flight was 417mph (at 24k ft), and had much higher drag than the Mustang. Voodoo could go more than 130mph faster in level flight, and at low altitude, meaning it should be even faster than 554mph at a higher altitude, before even attempting a dive. "And as understanding of aerodynamics improved, so did the shapes. If you look back elliptical wings were widespread- going forwards it changed again." False, now I know you have no clue what you are talking about. the elliptical planform never changed nor was superseded. It's as I said, it was changed due to manufacturing reasons. Appropriately tapered wings offer nearly identical performance with minimal loss compared to elliptical, and a FAR cheaper and easier to design and manufacture. That is why elliptical fell out of favor. The aerodynamics have never changed. Air still works the same as it always has. The math we used then is pretty much the same to this day.
@@SoloRenegade | Have a read of Chaz Bowyers *Spitfire* (1980) which details the structural evolution of the elliptical Spitfire wing- in short as the demands increased, the wing structure evolved to keep up. This was not just aerodynamically, it was also for new weapons. You had clipped wings, extended wings, folding wings and eventually a new wing shape (Mk 21 onwards). "When did any spitfire ever exceed 0.89 mach?" Squadron Leader Anthony F Martindale in 1944 in a (IIRC) XI did in an uncontrolled dive to 0.92 that ripped off the propeller. The forces involved bent the wings back into mild a sweep, ironically (hence why I said structural damage). I made no reference to level flight either- this is purely about dives during speed of sound testing. For your information other aircrafts numbers- Hawker Tempest: 0.83, F4U: 0.73 (wind-tunnel tested), P-51B: 0.84, P-38: 0.65, P-47C: 0.69, P-47N: 0.83. Bear in mind too that chunky wings (like the Tempest) would never go that fast- and if you are talking about the racing Voodoo its silly to compare given its a one-off modern rebuild. Then why did Heinkel, Republic, Supermarine, Aichi and Hawker use them at the same time but after they weren't? Simple answer is we better understood how to design wings that did not need to be elliptical.
@@rubbernuke1234 "and if you are talking about the racing Voodoo its silly to compare given its a one-off modern rebuild." It applies, because it's as equally ridiculous as a one-off flight that almost ended in fatality and resulted in Serious damage to the aircraft. A flight test that results in physical damage doesn't count. Plenty of aircraft would go faster than their official Mach limit if they tore off their wings too. "Then why did Heinkel, Republic, Supermarine, Aichi and Hawker use them at the same time but after they weren't? Simple answer is we better understood how to design wings that did not need to be elliptical." Wow, it's almost like someone already pointed that out.....that's right I did, in the very post you're responding to.
@@SoloRenegade - Its why I kept it a separate entry (qualifying it with 'structural damage' if you care you read it)- but its still the closest and *officially recorded*. Also remember these were not one off flights- they were part of *massive* testing programmes. For example one Spitfire will all moving tailplane (destined for the cancelled M.52) comfortably went to 0.86. If we kept that line of reasoning too you could include racing Spitfires as well, if someone was crazy enough to try. "Wow, it's almost like someone already pointed that out"- I don't really understand what your problem is, given thats what I originally said to begin with - "going forwards it changed again" - such as laminar flow, sweep etc- in the end better understanding resulted in change.
With regards to naming the Spiteful i suspect the name was 'in-house'. After all, the Air Ministry wanted to call the Spitfire the Supermarine Shrew! It's hard to fathom what goes on in the minds of civil servants sometimes.
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Was the Laminar Flow design concept similar to low drag low lift wings. Was the fatter section of the wing pushed back closer to the center , like the Hawker Tempest wing vs Hawker Typhoon
@@RobertoMattes Presumably he means superprops that saw combat not in WW2
"You fans of the metric system" - you mean everyone except for Americans?
@@MikeBrockington This American hates fractions of numbers divisible by 6.Metric is better. Move decimal one way or the other
Partly Mach numbers.
"Greetings, this is Greg"...those are the only words needed for the world to cease all activities and listen up very carefully.
Indeed, that's what I tell my wife: "honey, I've just heard the call "greetings, this is Greg", so please know I'll be unavailable for the next half hour"
Agreed, have to make sure the maximum I'm doing is stirring a pot or doing the washing up.
On behalf of all of us metric folks, thank you.
wouldn't mind football fields per hour though.
2.0125 football fields (us) per second
🙏✝️
1km=1000m
1mm=0.001m
1μm=1x10-⁶m
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
Lol just numbers after all!
@@jackgee3200 begs for slugs to the hogshead doesn't it?
That's a seriously good looking aircraft.
(Looks at XF-84H "Thunderscreech")
Why doesn't mine look like that?!?!
I read in Kurt Tank's biography, "Design For Flight" that Goering asked him why no German aircraft had laminar flow wings. His reply was that if so much as a fly had a sh*t on the wing, the whole effect is ruined.
Also Ta-152 & Do-335 seemed to do perfectly fine without a technical “laminar-flow” wing.
3:30 - This is where my area of expertise shine. I work at Boeing Everett WA and previously I have interned at Hexcel to build the honeycomb for the F-35 in Burlington WA. The tolerances vary wildly even down to each individual panel/part. plus or minus 4 to 9/1000s is usually where the range sits for modern aircraft, both military and civilian. That metric is still insanely impressive from such a long time ago. it's unbelievable impressive I cannot overstate this.
Thanks Buddy. 4-9 thousands makes sense to me. I suspected 5/1000ths was crazy accurate, it's really nice to hear it from you guys who have experience with this.
" *4 to 9/1000s is usually where the range sits for modern aircraft* "
You guys still use inches? No bait, I'm genuinely interested to know.
It is completely possible to retain these tolerances for individual parts, even in those times (especially USA that wasn't really under direct pressure), but along the wing, they add up and i find it hard to believe that the wing construction in total had an overall deviation in such a small tolerance, even with clever design and assembly.
@@baktersYep, still do
@@bakters They will tend to use both. It's the same in the UK as well. Conversion is pretty simple, and what parts are made to metric/imperial with metric/imperial fittings comes down to suppliers and such. It's not too common in the UK, purely because we don't make much in the UK any more, but it is still something you get used to.
As a Brit, i really appreciate the unbiased way talk about aircraft whatever country they are from.
Also as a Brit, i find the title "wind and the future " hilarious 😅😂
As a Yank with a slightly better than average knowledge of British slang, I don't get it.
Farts@@Milkmans_Son
@@peterbyrnes698 Fart in the future? Maybe I was over thinking it.
I'd love to see a 'Greg's deep dive' on the A-1 Skyraider
Agreed! I asked for this over a year ago, too. Looking forward to Greg's definitive workup.
I'd love to see a Greg's deep dive on just about any aircraft, they're always great. Though one on the Ki-44-II is probably my top pick.
Also...a review of the Australian CA15 .
@@BJBTJF54unfortunately, despite a promising design, it will end up in the same bucket as the Republic P-72 for the same reason.
My father flew the A-1 in the early 60’s. Of the several types he flew, this was his favorite. I believe because it was closest to the WW II aircraft. Too late for that war, it went into Korea and then soldiered on into Vietnam. And it was the A-10 that replaced it. It was a well built plane that did many missions through several wars.
Glad to be early! As a younger person, I love being able to learn so much about history from these, and I also like mechanics a lot. This channel is seriously amazing.
I love how much he uses first source references. Here’s the original finding and documentation of the period, not some pilot memoir written in 1965 trying to sell as many books as possible.
Welcome to the crowd 👍
How old does “younger person” mean?
@@mrcat5508 20
Greg definitely gives it the whole 9 yards when it comes to detail!..of course that's around 8 metres for younger viewers🤣
Loved the Mustang and wished I had flown one. I flew Tiger Moths Harvards Vampires Sabres and Mirages. A friend John Laming flew Mustangs in Korea then went onto Vampires. Then went back onto the P51 for a bit. I questioned him about the performance difference P51 and Vampire. He said Vampire had double the combat performance because even though both maximum rate of climb was similar the climb speed P51 170 kts and Vampire 240 kts meant Vampire had double the energy which is a Vsquared function
Hi, I work at lockheed martin. The average tolerance we build to is +/- 0.003 depending on the area I can be +/- 0.001, such as engine amounts.
How does he do it. Beïng am airline pilot , having an automobile business and than creating the very best utube chanel on one of the most complex subjects imaginable? Greg for president !
A day when Greg posts a video is a good day
"Supermarine Spiteful" just sounds super hard and awesome
I had heard but new nothing about this plane until Greg enlightened us all with this great video .
The superprops were so aesthetically pleasing I sometimes wish we should have waited another 10 years for the jet age
Thank you Greg.
You do an excellent job of explaining the relationship between the Spitfire and the Spiteful. Very much like the P51D ~ P51H. The oral history, the word of mouth / legend has it, the Spitfire, (particularly the early models), had a wonderfully benign stall. They had exceptionally powerful elevators and pulling the nose up too hard, was easy to do, but detecting you'd done so and managing and recovering the aircraft, was comparatively easy. This was true at low speed and low altitude and low weight, but got more so as those things increased, along with bank angle and G-forces. Later models had a (relatively) bigger tail and that improved spin recovery and stability more. When the Spiteful was flown, it had sudden, violent and (good name for it) spiteful stall characteristics. It was not a pleasant or friendly aircraft as you approached the point of stall, and the higher the speed, altitude, loading and so forth, the more violent and disagreeable it got. It was one of those things, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. The Sea Fury by contrast, was a massively more friendly and forgiving aircraft to fly.
People used to say of the Spit ~ she's a lady in the air, but a b1+ch on the ground. Well the Spiteful had the wide track gear, much more benign. She was a lady on the ground, but a b1+ch in the air. On Paper, her performance was remarkably good. By the seat of your pants, the thing was a b1+ch, and the harder you pushed it, the harder it fought back. It was not a 'nice' aeroplane to fly. By contrast, De Havilland's DH-103 Hornet, had two Merlins and it was (under most circumstances, not all) a massively more pleasant and friendly aeroplane to fly.
The Hornet was fine with both engines, she was fine if you lost one and feathered the prop. Eric ‘Winkel’ Brown described doing demo aerobatics in that condition, as being like an early war Spitfire or Hurricane. But if you lost an engine and the failure also effected the propeller pitch control / feather, you could get a broken engine with a full fine pitch, and the asymmetric thrust / drag of that was beyond the ability of the pilot / controls at full deflection, to correct. You could maintain controlled flight, but not at anything approaching full power. The issue was not roll or yaw, it was both. And if you pushed the limits of that, you required more or less full human strength to get the rudder and the ailerons to full deflection, and that was ok for 10 seconds, you could perhaps maintain that for 30 seconds, but what if you're still 80 miles out from the carrier ~ ?
If you got a failure like that, you could maintain altitude, or lose it very slowly. But any more than about half throttle on the good engine, and full control deflection would not prevent a uncontrolled roll and spin. So if it happened on the return to an aircraft carrier, you could land on it, but you had absolutely zero chance of doing a missed approach and going around for a second try. Mess up the approach, and you’re a dead man. They didn’t have zero-zero ejections seats in 1948. It’s my understand not one, but 3 or 4 men lost their lives under virtually these exact circumstances.
I remember a RR Griffon being used as an instructional engine for us trainee propulsion tech's at RAF Halton back in 1976.
I’ve always found it very interesting that the era of aviation that so many people are fascinated by lasted little more than a decade that being the age of all those wonderful piston engined monoplane combat aircraft, twin and four engined piston powered aircraft had a longer era but the single seat piston engine fighter’s reign was really short, short but wonderful
Totally true.
You gave me fright when you said that the Griffon 69 was a vee eight. 😀 5:55 Great video, thank you. M
I love the narration in these videos, not too fast, not too slow, clear and distinct and very easy to follow. I am very impressed with the obvious large amount of research that must go into these videos! I have one book on aviation called "The Power To Fly" and it covers engines from the Wright Brothers up to the end of WW2. With my bad eyes I no longer read books unless they are large print, so I rely on videos like this to learn the history of aviation. It is truly amazing how fast aviation technology progresses making some aircraft obsolete in just two or three years!
As a Brit, i must say for an American a very evenly balanced commentary. Nice to have the Ft& inches, before the metric. So many don't even mention the old imperial measurements. As an 80year old Englishman, I've come to grips with kilos, and grams, kilometers too slow for me, have to keep multiplying by 1.6. Lovely video ducky.
From what I’m aware of, correct me if I’m wrong, doesn’t most of Europe excluding Russia use knots and feet for aviation still?
Wonder if they’ll try to make metric the law in America ever, couldn’t see myself ever getting used to it without doing math in my head as well lol
@@mrsteel250 We live in a homogenised world. To me it's inconceivable that the richest, and most powerful country on earth is out of step with the rest of the world, regarding weights & measures. When if it happens in the US, it will probably be like when the UK went metric. By law all weights will be in both metric, and imperial. The kids will learn metric at school, and eventually the old stuff will die out. Regarding knots, when I check out speeds of aircraft on Wikipedia kilometers are given first, I'm pretty sure the Russians use kilometers, as do the Europeans.
@@Leon-ej3khBorn in 1976, Brit. And I still use Imperial. Mostly because I can't stand the EU 😉
@@mikeycraig8970 That's silly. The metric system dates back to the French revolution, long time before the EU. It's used all over the world. So when you go shopping you ask for a pound of something?
@@Leon-ej3kh It was the EU that imposed it on Britain.
A few super props were modified to get huge top speeds, but ultimately, they were impracticable. The P47 for instance was modified for 1 speed test of over 500mph. This in itself was an incredible achievement from the designers and engineers at Republic. But it completely wrecked the engine in the process, and was simpmy a one off. The redesigned engine cowling and cooling system was, although very aerodynamically clean, wasn't up to practically cooling the engine sufficiently for bormal operation.
What's so impressive about the Spiteful, powered by the R-R Griffon 101, was it was completely cobat ready and this speed achievement of 494mph, was not a one off. It could reach very high speeds as a standard production fighter, which is the reality of the situation.
The XP-47J never did 504 mph in a controlled setting. The Army tried to and only got 484 mph @ 25,350ft and that flight ended up destroying the exhaust system. Not to mention it was essentially a hot rodded P-47 with vital equipment missing and a custom turbo.
Well - reportedly the engine failed seven times, with the last failure resulting in irrepairable damage. The Griffon 101 wasn’t yet combat ready by any means. On the other hand, it was claimed that the airframe that was flown to 494mph wasn’t the best one, and other Spitefuls might have been a few mph faster with this engine.
It was not a production fighter
Liquid cooled V8 😅 made me chuckle a lil bit
Good video Greg, its great to see high quality content on these Super Props
lol V-12, if I said V-8 it's just because I love them.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Did you film this right after the Muscle Cars 1968 video?
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Freudian slip of the tongue.
Who doesn't! A vid on the Aussie V8's would be awesome, even the Aussie muscle car scene.
Nice subject with a good history right there for ya Greg :) Drop a message if you want some pointers, seriously. Owned a ton of them, raced them, built them, love them. @@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles
That's exactly what I thought!😂 @@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles
Yessss!! Finally. It's been 3 years greg!!! You have made it!!! I'm so happy for your hard work researching this Greg. Still, a longer vid would have been better, but worth the long wait! Great job
Thanks there just isn't much out there on this plane. I could have gone way deeper on the engines, or the aircraft systems, it basically uses the same type pneumatic system as a Spitfire. I just decided it wouldn't be worth it and put the video up as is.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles on this note I wonder if you could tell us what are the next super props on your schedule, it's probably my favourite series on Your channel.
Those late spits and spites are just the most gorgeous prop aircraft.
I remember being disappointed Grandad only flew Typhoons in North Africa and he only probably 99% killed some of Rommels mob.
Of course, i never showed this. And now i think it's pretty fricken awesome. Typhoons rock.
You do a damn fine job Greg, well done.
I have always been enthralled by the F4U-5 and the Typoon
On naming, I can imagine the meeting, one name after another being shotdown. One bloke exasperatedly retorts, "You're just being spiteful!"
Another guy says, "Yeah, that'll work!" 😅
When they were going through all the words beginning with "Spit" I'm just glad they passed over Spitoon. 😱
'Spiteful' was a name used for many years by the Royal Navy for ships.
That bit about the derivation of the plane’s name is pure Greg and why I’m here
Not to mention the (?) intended name for the Spitfire - the Shrew. Maybe in those days shrew (as in taming of the) had a far nastier context than now. Furry little mouse-like crittur.
If you see a row of motorcycles parked, you can always tell the Triumphs- Theyre the ones with a pool of oil under them. Classic British engineering can be seen in the picture at 10:15, with the oil oozing all over the bottom of the plane.
Fascinating as always. Thanks for the research.
Cool video, Greg, and well done, as usual. A fan of WW 2 aircraft for most of my 80 years, I had no idea, until this series, that there was so much development going on behind the scenes, as it were. Very interesting aircraft, often using equally-interesting technology that quickly fell out of favor as jets came onto the scene.
Thank you Greg for sharing your expansive knowledge in such a calm and professional manner . I thoroughly enjoy your content 👍🏼
Never heard of either of them before this video.
fantastic planes, terrific video! Love the Griffon so much! Thank you Greg!
Well, Handley Page used 'Victor' for its jet bomber... Anyway, Britain faced serious budget constraints after WWII, and Supermarine's post war fighter designs moved forward in a conservative, yet interesting progression of proven components married with newer technologies. The Spiteful, with its new wing, used a fuselage and tail looking similar (not saying the same) to that of a Spitfire 22. The Spiteful wing was then married to a Nene jet which wrought the Attacker, a taildragger. The Attacker fuselage was then adapted to a swept wing and tail to create the Type 510, still a taildragger. The 510 was converted to use tricycle gear, becoming the Type 535. Finally, a transition to the axial flow Avon led to the Swift, but it retained the large diameter fuselage due to its Nene heritage. Unfortunately, like the initial swept wing of the 510, the Swift also suffered from problems with wing surface irregularities because of dated construction methods clinging to traditional rib and stringer construction covered with a relatively thin skin. Meanwhile, North American in the U.S. was using milled, tapered skins on the F-86 and later F-100, producing exceptionally smooth and even wing surfaces, critical for stable high-speed flight and controllability. No disrespect to our British friends. It's just what was going on at the time.
Waiting with bated breath for two of my personal twin engine super props, the DH Hornet and Grumman Tigercat. Both seeing combat after WW2. Over to you Greg!
If he does I hope he throws in the P82 as well. Not as aesthetically pleasing as the other two but interesting and impressive nonetheless.
Great short form format, without any loss of quality. Thanks, Greg!
Yes gdamn yes! Finally a good vid about the Spiteful and Seafang!
When he gives both Imperial and Metric measurements, I do enjoy it. As a Canadian I prefer metric for speed but imperial for altitude
Former engineer that designed part of the VPAL line for the 737. Tolerances are to +/-0.010” for positioning.
Edit: I don’t exactly remember the surface tolerances, they may have been +/-0.003” but I worked on mostly internal structures and some minor work on temporary “clamping” upper and lower surfaces. Which used spring assemblies to apply the clamping force.
engineer in aircraft production- formed sheet metal and rivet construction under 0.005" from design would not be doable. Having a built up wing with every point along the surface within 0.050" would be best case. e.g. fully machined parts are in that 0.005" from nominal range.
Thirded. ± 0.005” isn’t achievable over an area as large as the Spiteful’s wing using the relevant construction techniques. I mean, heck-aero loads alone might cause deviations larger than that in flight.
Those tolerances for the individual machined wing ribs would have been achievable, if a little ambitious for production. But±0.005” for the whole wing assembly? That means stacking the tolerances for the spars, the ribs, the sheet metal *and* then riveting it all together. You’d need to hold something like ±0.0005” or ±0.001” for each of the components. Nope.
(Also an aerospace engineer…I did the stress analysis on the 787 pilot controls, FWIW).
at 5.54 v12 not v8 saw you supplying intercoolers good on ya
Yup, I mis spoke there.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles just trying to help we do listen to good content
Greg, The research you do on any video is impressive and shows in the quality of the information you supply during your videos. Judging by the sound of your voice I would say your at least 10 to 20 years short of being around when any of those aircraft were in production so the in depth detail of your research is outstanding.
Did I hear 1/8 th of a mm.love it! I have no real interest in air craft apart from the usual boyhood thing..but I listen and subbed to your channel because of the detail and accuracy of your information.you are second to none.many thanks for your passion and enthusiasm for these topics.
Yes the 1/8 mm threw me slightly
Thank you Greg. Another gap in my knowledge has been filled.
Great detail information I never knew. Thanks. Keep up the great information.
An excellent video on a subject that I have studied as far as one can with the limited written material available. Very good point regarding the precision of the wings and how even if true laminar flow was not achieved, the degree of precision brought significant benefits of its own. Extra points to you for discussing the three-speed supercharger, its benefits and not allowing confusion with a three stage version! Picking up on the spares confusion issue, if one imagines the sheer pain of introducing a new type into service (training, supply chain, special equipment etc.) one can understand why the Spiteful was pretty much D.O.A. once jets arrived and the war finished. Thank you for the hard work you put into these excellent works.
The Brevet Club, near the International airport at Harewood, in Christchurch, New Zealand, had a six bladed prop, Spiteful on a stylish curved stand, from 1967. We were proud to have it and Air New Zealand, maintained it, using their apprentices. A beautiful way to learn an important trade.
Greg, thank you for the time and effort you put into these!!! Love them!
Great content! Many thanks.
Oh, and thank you also for catering to the emotional needs of us minions of global measurement units! Much appreciated 👍
Thoroughly enjoyed this video Gregg as it's an aircraft I knew very little about but found very intriguing! congratulations are due on a very well researched and presented one!
1/8 = 0.125 🤔
Great article. 👍
Fascinating. Great video. Liked and subscribed.
Awesome video Greg, thanks like always, I remember I asked about this plane and her sea variant the SeaFang a year ago in a comunity post. It is great to see
You continue to impress Captain Greg! I have never heard of the Spiteful until today. Excellent work sir!
Finally something spitfire!
Very interesting, Greg. I understand that there were several reasons that the type didn't go into frontline service. As you point out, the jets were coming, with the Meteor already in service and the Vampire about to. In addition, although the performance figures looked good, it was only around 30mph faster than the Spitfire 21/22/24. In addition it had poorer compressibility and stall characteristics than the Spitfire. Certainly not critical but, all those things combined with Britain being more or less bankrupt at the end of the War, producing a brand new piston fighter was probably deemed a luxury the British economy couldn't afford.
Awesome aircraft. I saw somewhere that the F8F Bear at was Neil Armstrong's favorite plane to fly ! Fantastic Super props !
Greetings Greg, thanks for another great piece.
What a beautiful aeroplane. Almost as good looking as the Spitfire.
As I watch your videos of these ultimate piston aircraft, I try to imagine aviation development if for some reason, jets didn't work
Thats a great video Greg, really good analysis and background.
Loved this video .. always great to hear news of Supermarine aircraft .. Spiteful and Seafang especially..thanks 😊
Excellent video, as always! One thing, though. You described the Griffon Mk 69 as a V8. Freudian slip, no doubt. 😉 Keep the great videos coming!
Paul 😎
Greg’s A&A University.
Nice work Greg!
I have been waiting for this one - thank you
Another Superprop! When a new video of yours pops up, it's always my first choice!!!! Thank you so much!!!
I can't thank Greg enough for this thoughtful discussion of a fascinating aircraft. Prost! Salud! Booyah!
And dropping in that remark about how accurately the Mustang was built.
I suppose that's why the photoreconnaissance spitfires were polished smooth before the flight.
Interesting how the names Victor and Valiant got recycled into the British V-bombers of the Cold War, alongside Vulcan
Finally, after 24 hours in the gulag, I am able to post a reply on another great video Greg.
She is a beaut indeed.😮👍🏻
I'm glad you're back.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Locals boss. Get a Locals account.
Please.
OK, I'll look into that.
I know I could just search for this, the name sounds very British. For example if there isn't an HMS Spiteful I'd be surprised. Thanks as always for all the work you put into these videos.
Apparently, there have been 5 in total, along with HMS Vindictive, HMS Insolent & HMS Arrogant. But to counter that, there has an HMS Pansy.
Excellent, simply excellent
Great post today, hope you'll get back to your real job soon.
Excellent video - thanks.
The most beautiful super props with liquid engines
I'm a 7yr old Brit Motor Mechanic. @ 3:08 I immediately thought, 5thou that's a 5th of a Champion Sparkplug gap, As an apprentice in a fleet workshop, the boring refurbishment of shot blasting and gapping sparkplugs, those were the days, 😂😂😂
Great video. Thanks for making it.
At the 6 min mark, you say the Griffon 69 had a V8, is that supposed to V12?
The first prototype (NN660) was actually a Spiteful wing fitted into a Spitfire Mark XIV fuselage. This airframe crashed in a mock dogfight, killing Supermarine test pilot Frank Furlong. Subsequent prototypes had the modified fuselages. The Attacker was actually built using existing Spiteful wings, which became available when the Spiteful was cancelled. Since the wings were already built, they had to use a tail-dragger configuration - I've heard that this caused a problem because the exhaust would dig furrows into the grass fields that were common at that point in time.
Accoring to Flight Magazine May of 1947 "The design of the wing was largely unchanged from the Spiteful, save for being slightly enlarged to match the bigger Attacker".
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles I'm going by what Quill wrote. Not sure how many Attackers were built, but I suppose it's possible they ran out of ready-built wings.
Looking up the specs.. The Attacker had an extra 1 ft. 11 inches in span and an extra 16 sq. ft. in wing area. What I think they did was build a wider center section to fit the fatter fuselage and use the pre-existing wing panels. Total number built was 185, so they most likely had to build new wings for most of them. Anyhow Quill does say they used wings from the cancelled Spiteful.
@@iskandartaib
Perhaps he meant it in a general sense I.e. the basic design was used in the Attacker rather than literally using re-purposed Spitful wings. The plan of the Attacker wing has some differences to the Spiteful wing.
@@paladin56 No,he specifically said there were Spiteful wings already built at the factory and the Spiteful had just been cancelled.
Can we have a video on contra-rotating props please Greg!? With a history of actual use in WW2 planes of course.
Great topic and presentation, as always.
But surely you meant 'V-12' at 5:57?
Actually it was an LS that they took out of a Corvette
I'd love to see you do one episode on the evolution of contra-rotating propellers.
As a non-engineer I find the gearing necessary for contra-props quite baffling.
You are just a gannet for information (a little nerdy in-joke for plane buffs). 🤣
Nice job 👍 always good hearing about some of the more obscure aircraft. I wonder how it would've done at the reno air races?
Probably very well.
Interesting to hear such performance, and with such big under wing radiators. Thank you Greg :)
Have to wonder why Supermarine stuck with the underwing radiators. They were evidently shaped in two dimensions to capture the Meredith effect, but were unlikely to be as effective as the Mustaing's 3 dimensional ducting with the air inlet placed free of the boundary layer.
@@fafner1 Yes it is interesting. But then again, I have heard Greg say that the Spitfire could have been as fast as the P51 IF built to the same tolerances - which I find fascinating... perhaps the under-wing rads are less of an issue that we would think?
Would love to hear you discuss the final Spitfire Marks in the future.
I haven't even discussed the first Spitfire marks very much. I'll get to it.
Greetings Greg!
Excellent presentation! I just subscribed to your channel 👍
The irony of the reputation Spitfire had (quite deservedly) for being... fragile during Carrier operations is that just prior to, and early in the war Supermarine had been working on a purpose designed naval fighter.
I can't for the life of me remember what it was even called, it kind of looked similar to a gull winged Spitfire, though by all accounts it shared very little in common with the Spitfire. Though the wing shape was different it had the same angle to the wings as the F4U Corsair did, I assume for largely the same reasons which if I recall were primarily to keep the landing gear relatively short and sturdy but still fit a big prop.
It was canned early in development for the simple reason it used the RR Merlin, and the RAF essentially told the Royal Navy that all merlins were for the RAF and no one else. No FAA (Fleet Air Arm) aircraft would be allowed to use the merlins (which was one of the reasons British Carrier aircraft design took a huge step backwards, not the only reason but an important one).
As a result what was a very promising early war purpose built Carrier fighter was basically scrapped by the RAF. Not the first or the last time the big wigs in the RAF would screw over the FAA or Coastal Command....
Superb post Greg, love your contributions, so informative.
Incredible, beautiful and.... British.
Tremendous video, thanks Greg.
Are we gonna see a Do 335 Arrow video?
Yes, absolutely.
Great video Greg, But the reason the Griffon was about the same external size as the Merlin even though it had a 35% displacement increase in displacement (20% in weight) is because the internal dimensions were only marginally larger by just .6 inches. That is the Merlin B&S was 5.4X6.0 inches, the Griffin had a B&S of just 6.0X6.6 inches, Just like a 302 V-8 (with a 4.0 inch bore) goes to a 402 V-8 simply by stroking the engine by an inch with the end result being a 33% larger displacement. I don't know if you know this, but I call it the Weitzman 4" bore rule. Any 8 cylinder engine with a 4" bore always has a cubic inch displacement equal to the length of the stroke to the hundreth of an inch plus 2. In other words a 289 Ford has a B&S of 4.0 by 2.87. A 350 chevy is a 4.0X3.48, a 392 Chrysler is 4X3.9 and so on. The 201 c.i. Wright Bros. engine was a 4 cylinder 4.0X4.0. I discovered interesting this phenomenom on July 1, 2010 and published my finding in my weekly syndicated automotive newspaper column, The Road Beat, and in another auto pub, Global Auto News.
Good post Larry.
Thanks Greg
Always enjoy the superprop series (and the rest of your videos) keep it up Greg!
Mosquito as a name scares me!
If you’re ever in Northern Ontario, the name Black Fly is scarier.
@@Sherwoodyor Horse Fly!
@@SpiritOfMontgomery them damn Deer Flies can really take a bite out of you too.
@@Sherwoody I love kenora but god damn can the flys + mosquitoes get bad. Doesn’t help that I get real bad allergic reactions too so they swell up alot
@@SpiritOfMontgomery some of them are so mean they use Muskol as a condiment.
Nice post, thanks.
Not sure about the tolerance on an airliner but I know my glider's wing isn't that precise at least not after I painted it!
I could have sworn that the Griff was a V12 5.52. Opps!
Doesn't anyone read the video description anymore?
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles At 5.52 you refer to the Griff as a V8.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles You still have not corrected that mistake.
There _is_ a V-8 inside a V-12.🤔
I hope there'll be a video covering the De Havilland Hornet and Sea Hornet. I'd imagine they come under the category of superprops as long as it doesn't exclude twin engines. Developed during WW2 and seeing service just after, including use in the Malayan conflict. A travesty non were preserved.
2:42 they abandoned the ellipse because it is more complex to manufacture, and a tapered wing is so close in performance as to largely not matter anyways. Notice how few airplanes since WW2 have used an elliptical wing, both civilian and military? And most of those are spitfire replicas or influenced by spitfire shape. Also notice how many WW2 spitfires clipped their wings (p-47 too), and this destroys the ideal ellipse planform and lift distribution. Yet they did it anyways to improve performance.
IIRC the Spitfires elliptical wing was structurally pushed as far as it would go- as models got faster it was strengthened but eventually ran into aeroelasticity problems >480mph so eventually to go beyond that they designed a new wing altogether. While it was (as you say) more complex to manufacture it also gave stunning results- remember a Spitfire was the a closest piston engined aircraft got to breaking the sound barrier with 0.89 and 0.92 (with structural damage) dives (and live). And as understanding of aerodynamics improved, so did the shapes. If you look *back* elliptical wings were widespread- going forwards it changed again.
@@rubbernuke1234 "Spitfires elliptical wing was structurally pushed as far as it would go"
What? how do you figure? I don't think you have any clue what you're talking about.
When did any spitfire ever exceed 0.89 mach?
"During the programme, Squadron Leader J R Tobin took a Mark XI Spitfire into a 45-degree dive; the plane reached a top speed of 606mph (975km/h), or Mach 0.89. It was the fastest speed a Spitfire had ever flown - or at least the fastest that a pilot had lived to tell the tale."
you're 0.92 Mach is a lie. Barely surviving a dive doesn't lend credibility to your claim, a Mustang or other planes may well have been capable of exceeding the Spitfire in teh same conditions, but what moron was ever going to try it intentionally? The spitfire could never match the P-51 in level flight speed.
Voodoo Reached 554mph in level flight, imagine that in a 45deg dive?
A Mark XI Spitfire max speed in level flight was 417mph (at 24k ft), and had much higher drag than the Mustang. Voodoo could go more than 130mph faster in level flight, and at low altitude, meaning it should be even faster than 554mph at a higher altitude, before even attempting a dive.
"And as understanding of aerodynamics improved, so did the shapes. If you look back elliptical wings were widespread- going forwards it changed again."
False, now I know you have no clue what you are talking about. the elliptical planform never changed nor was superseded. It's as I said, it was changed due to manufacturing reasons. Appropriately tapered wings offer nearly identical performance with minimal loss compared to elliptical, and a FAR cheaper and easier to design and manufacture. That is why elliptical fell out of favor. The aerodynamics have never changed. Air still works the same as it always has. The math we used then is pretty much the same to this day.
@@SoloRenegade | Have a read of Chaz Bowyers *Spitfire* (1980) which details the structural evolution of the elliptical Spitfire wing- in short as the demands increased, the wing structure evolved to keep up. This was not just aerodynamically, it was also for new weapons. You had clipped wings, extended wings, folding wings and eventually a new wing shape (Mk 21 onwards).
"When did any spitfire ever exceed 0.89 mach?" Squadron Leader Anthony F Martindale in 1944 in a (IIRC) XI did in an uncontrolled dive to 0.92 that ripped off the propeller. The forces involved bent the wings back into mild a sweep, ironically (hence why I said structural damage). I made no reference to level flight either- this is purely about dives during speed of sound testing. For your information other aircrafts numbers- Hawker Tempest: 0.83, F4U: 0.73 (wind-tunnel tested), P-51B: 0.84, P-38: 0.65, P-47C: 0.69, P-47N: 0.83. Bear in mind too that chunky wings (like the Tempest) would never go that fast- and if you are talking about the racing Voodoo its silly to compare given its a one-off modern rebuild.
Then why did Heinkel, Republic, Supermarine, Aichi and Hawker use them at the same time but after they weren't? Simple answer is we better understood how to design wings that did not need to be elliptical.
@@rubbernuke1234 "and if you are talking about the racing Voodoo its silly to compare given its a one-off modern rebuild."
It applies, because it's as equally ridiculous as a one-off flight that almost ended in fatality and resulted in Serious damage to the aircraft.
A flight test that results in physical damage doesn't count. Plenty of aircraft would go faster than their official Mach limit if they tore off their wings too.
"Then why did Heinkel, Republic, Supermarine, Aichi and Hawker use them at the same time but after they weren't? Simple answer is we better understood how to design wings that did not need to be elliptical."
Wow, it's almost like someone already pointed that out.....that's right I did, in the very post you're responding to.
@@SoloRenegade - Its why I kept it a separate entry (qualifying it with 'structural damage' if you care you read it)- but its still the closest and *officially recorded*.
Also remember these were not one off flights- they were part of *massive* testing programmes. For example one Spitfire will all moving tailplane (destined for the cancelled M.52) comfortably went to 0.86.
If we kept that line of reasoning too you could include racing Spitfires as well, if someone was crazy enough to try.
"Wow, it's almost like someone already pointed that out"- I don't really understand what your problem is, given thats what I originally said to begin with - "going forwards it changed again" - such as laminar flow, sweep etc- in the end better understanding resulted in change.
With regards to naming the Spiteful i suspect the name was 'in-house'. After all, the Air Ministry wanted to call the Spitfire the Supermarine Shrew! It's hard to fathom what goes on in the minds of civil servants sometimes.