Just been to the RAF Museum at Cosford - very jolly - lots of planes.
It struck me though, quite a few aircraft have upside down engines - tiger moths, Messerschmitts etc.
Why is this? are they better upside down? Obviously they will be dry sumped but why doesn't the oil just drop into the cylinders where the
scavenge pump presumably wont get it?
Cheers
Mooky 
with the crank ontop of the engine, it creates a higher prop height.
I would guess its so the crank shaft is nice and high and therefore you can have the prop high up as well
I did Cosford a while back for the Midlands Breakfast club - I enjoyed the museum more than the cars, the static engine display is excellent !
I saw the Messerschmitt enginers in the Science museum in Munich a few years ago and wondered the same. Seem to remember they were deisels as well.
Talking engines and positioning, RAF Binbrook, (home of the Lightning), was my last posting ('86).
Ever wondered why you've never seen another aircraft with the 'over/under' engine configuration?
quote:
Originally posted by bobinspain
Talking engines and positioning, RAF Binbrook, (home of the Lightning), was my last posting ('86).
Ever wondered why you've never seen another aircraft with the 'over/under' engine configuration?
Not to mention that if you got a catastrophic failure in engine-one, (fuel leaks, fires etc), it invariably screwed engine-two, directly beneath
it.
Several mates banged out as a direct consequence of this inherent design fault which led to predictable aircraft loss.
quote:
Originally posted by mookaloid
Just been to the RAF Museum at Cosford - very jolly - lots of planes.
It struck me though, quite a few aircraft have upside down engines - tiger moths, Messerschmitts etc.
Why is this? are they better upside down? Obviously they will be dry sumped but why doesn't the oil just drop into the cylinders where the scavenge pump presumably wont get it?
Cheers
Mooky
I did read on Wiki, the Gypsy Major burns four pints of oil per hour!
didnt the lightning damage fuselages if the pilot used too much throttle on take off ?
how many engines does a vulcan have ?
which flight carries on after the landing ?
quote:
Originally posted by Volvorsport
didnt the lightning damage fuselages if the pilot used too much throttle on take off ?
No, it wasn't a throttle consideration.
If the pilot pulled hard on the stick to do a "rotation takeoff", then the bottom rear of the No2 engine jet-pipe could indeed strike the runway Dave. A 'bumpstop' was fitted to prevent this happening, as rotation takeoffs were a sight to behold in display flying, though not the most efficient method of gaining height as quickly as possible.
Thrust to weight ratio was generally around 0.8 so a vertical climb wasn't sustainable for long, hence you'd see the pilot 'rolling off the top' into level accelerating flight.
(Latest generation stuff, (F22 Raptor) has a max thrust to weight of 1.6 for comparison. However, remember the Lightning was conceived in the 1940s and first flew nearly 60 years ago--1954).
Volvorsport - 13/2/12 at 11:01 AMi never saw the lightnings flying , but them vulcans were noisy taking off at waddo.
wilkingj - 13/2/12 at 11:28 AMquote:
Originally posted by Volvorsport
i never saw the lightnings flying , but them vulcans were noisy taking off at waddo.
The Vulcan was an Amazing Aircraft.
I used to like the way the Victor used to crackle and pop when powering up for take off.
But not as scary as standing on the grass about 50 metres away (and 30 metres to one side) from the back of a B52 taking off. Nearly blew me off my feet. But I always thought the B52 was a fairly quiet aircraft in comparison to the Victor, or Tornado's.
Oh those happy days!
britishtrident - 13/2/12 at 11:56 AMTo me the Buccaneer was the most amazing aircraft of that generation I remember first time I saw one was when the B2 was just coming into service I standing halfway up the cliffs at Bennane Head south of Lendalfoot, I was amazed to be eye level with the pilot with the aircraft only about 200 ft away.
A lot of money was wasted on the TSR2 and F111 that could have been saved by ordering an improved Buccaneer from day1.
bobinspain - 13/2/12 at 12:05 PMquote:
Originally posted by wilkingj
quote:
Originally posted by Volvorsport
i never saw the lightnings flying , but them vulcans were noisy taking off at waddo.
The Vulcan was an Amazing Aircraft.
I used to like the way the Victor used to crackle and pop when powering up for take off.
But not as scary as standing on the grass about 50 metres away (and 30 metres to one side) from the back of a B52 taking off. Nearly blew me off my feet. But I always thought the B52 was a fairly quiet aircraft in comparison to the Victor, or Tornado's.
Oh those happy days!
Can't remember whether it was Guam or Wake AFB (Guam I think) watching B52s just get themselves into the air with a full load en-route to Vietnam in 1971/72. Muck 'n' crap everywhere and this lumbering BUF would lurch off the cliff at the end of the runway and disappear from sight for what seemed like ages until it picked up enough airspeed for a safe climbout.
A few of my students (navigator) in the 70s ended up on Vulcans. Looked great from the outside when displaying, but highly unpopular from the survival side in the event of a catastrophic failure. Only the two pilots had 'bang seats.' A moral dilemma as well as an in-flight emergency wouldn't be a good thing!
Back then, the Shackleton was already ancient and part of folklore. Referred to variously as '10,000 rivets in close formation,' 'a shacking great Fuc*leton' and my favourite, 'The Elephant's Ar*e.' ---because it was grey and wrinkled on the outside, and brown and smelly on the inside. (The former because of it's grey over-water livery in its fighter-control role, and the later because the old brown leather trim was maintained inside. The smell of that, added to the in-flight 'Vesta' chow miens and Madras curries heated up whilst on 12 hour sorties made for a 'heady perfume.' Not to mention 8 guys cooped up and farting for 12 hours).
Happy days indeed !
[Edited on 13/2/12 by bobinspain]
bobinspain - 13/2/12 at 12:22 PMquote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
To me the Buccaneer was the most amazing aircraft of that generation I remember first time I saw one was when the B2 was just coming into service I standing halfway up the cliffs at Bennane Head south of Lendalfoot, I was amazed to be eye level with the pilot with the aircraft only about 200 ft away.
A lot of money was wasted on the TSR2 and F111 that could have been saved by ordering an improved Buccaneer from day1.
Trident. The Bucc was my first posting following flying training. Stable as you like 50ft above the North sea at 500kts. I kid you not.
As a navigator though, you need a 'sympathetic' pilot when on bombing runs. Tip in at 4000 ft to a 'bunt dive' without giving you 'passenger' notice, and it's bye-bye breakfast. If you don't part company with your eggs and bacon on the tip-in, it'll be certain to emerge when he pulls like bast**d at the bottom of the dive and 'bomb-gone' with a 5g recovery. After 3 or four 'dry' runs, you'd then do 3 or 4 'hot' ones.
Regrettably, I suffered from the problem for my 25 sorties and even a trip to the Aeromed' centre at RAF Farnborough couldn't cure me of it.
Still, 'every cloud has a silver lining.' I was re-assigned to VC10s and flew around the world for six years in slacks, shirt 'n' tie, instead of a smelly flying suit and 'turning trousers.' (G-suit).
Strangely, I was never ill in the Lightning. Possibly because, being sat side by side, everthing the pilot did to the aircraft, you were aware of as it was happening. The tandem seating in the Bucc however, meant that any pilot could make any navigator ill if he so chose, by any surprise/violent manouevre.
Regards, Bob.
jollygreengiant - 13/2/12 at 06:10 PMquote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
To me the Buccaneer was the most amazing aircraft of that generation I remember first time I saw one was when the B2 was just coming into service I standing halfway up the cliffs at Bennane Head south of Lendalfoot, I was amazed to be eye level with the pilot with the aircraft only about 200 ft away.
A lot of money was wasted on the TSR2 and F111 that could have been saved by ordering an improved Buccaneer from day1.
Partial agreement, YEP the Buccaneer was good but pushed through by I believe by the then First Lord of the admiralty, Mountbatten (god rest his soul) as it WAS designed as a fleet aircraft.
The TSR2 how ever was designed as a Land based aircraft to a very advanced spec. SO advanced that the Americans (god bless them) got scared by it and put our government into a possition that we had no choice to ditch it and buy the F111 or they would have alledgedly called in the 'loan' that we owed them for the second world war. The fact was that the TSR2 was probably about 20 years ahead of anything the yanks had at the time and they wanted to numero uno. End of. Such far sighted-ness by our then politicians means that we now have no real aero industry. Also the yanks took the design from us for the Bell X1 from all the research and development that Miles Aircraft corporation had done.
Miles linky
Usual thing really, we solve the Yanks problems for them and they give us owt in return.