Aircraft Quirks

syscom3 · 05-30-2006, 05:24 PM

"A Marauder A day In Tampa Bay"

The B26's had an alarming tendency to torque roll when an engine failed or prop went to flat pitch.

Even with training, on takeoff, that could have been the end of many a pilots career.

pbfoot · 05-30-2006, 05:32 PM

How about the solenoids on the Avro Manchester switching the pitch on the props from course to fine and back by themselves with no indication to the pilots

FLYBOYJ · 05-30-2006, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syscom3

"A Marauder A day In Tampa Bay"

The B26's had an alarming tendency to torque roll when an engine failed or prop went to flat pitch.

Even with training, on takeoff, that could have been the end of many a pilots career.

That's typical for any twin, especially one with a small wing span when compared to fuselage length. Having electric propellers just made a bad situation worse. What this showed was the need for extensive training when flying a twin-engine aircraft...

Twitch · 06-01-2006, 12:33 PM

Flyboy- not only the P-38 heater was poor but the defroster was lousy too. Imagine not being able to see well out of the canopy. "Are those P-51s or 109s? Hmmm?" The Allisons were never set up properly for high altitude cold performance either producing many failures and aborts.

V-1710 · 06-05-2006, 03:17 AM

I was told once that you couldn't open the side windows on a P-38 during flight because it would cause severe buffeting. Firing the cannon on early P-39's would throw the sights of the nose machine guns off. If a P-47 had a fuel leak, a wise pilot would point the nose down and bail out. The fuel tanks could leak into the bottom of the fuselage, and the gasoline would run back to the hot turbocharger, with unhappy results. Never ditch a P-51 in the water, the radiator air scoop cause the plane to sink very fast.

R988 · 06-05-2006, 07:24 AM

Early P-40s apparently had a tendancy to somersault or backflip in certain maneuvers, later models had the longer fuselage and some other modifications to fix this.

FLYBOYJ · 06-05-2006, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Twitch

Flyboy- not only the P-38 heater was poor but the defroster was lousy too. Imagine not being able to see well out of the canopy. "Are those P-51s or 109s? Hmmm?" The Allisons were never set up properly for high altitude cold performance either producing many failures and aborts.

Yep - heard that too from many of the old timers when I worked there - The windows really fogged up duing a dive....

Quote:

Originally Posted by R988

Early P-40s apparently had a tendancy to somersault or backflip in certain maneuvers, later models had the longer fuselage and some other modifications to fix this.

When you stalled the aircraft, yu had to watch "pitch attitude." This is common with a lot of high performance aircraft and some jets as well.

Sgt. Pappy · 06-11-2006, 08:51 PM

Lol I know this is old post, but is it not true that by the time the p-38L-5-LO came around, the cockpit heater and defroster problem was corrected? According to http://www.p-38online.com and according to the person who wrote it, the L-5 had fixed all those problems mentioned above plus new, uprated engines which also solved the aborts caused by engine failures.

Apparently, the P-38J's engines and all earlier models were injesting the low-grade fuel in England that was also saoked with rainwater. This resulted in common engine failure. The following site has A LOT of information on the P-38 (if you scroll down to the very bottom, there is information in that last post about the P-38L's heating systems), but I'm not so sure how reliable it is... I've checked its 'about' page and its maker says it only has posts from reliable people: http://yarchive.net/about.html

So if anyone knows of more P-38 information regarding heaters and engine failures being fixed (or not fixed) in the Lockheed's long life, please notify me.

Thanks all!
cheers

Soundbreaker Welch? · 06-11-2006, 11:52 PM

I had heard that about the fuel tank in the back fuselage of the P-51 hurting performance.

Seems like bad fault if you are forced to fight right away in a battle, and you can't fuel up the back tank because you can't perform manuvers when it's full, and you still need all the fuel you can get to up in the air.

I guess thats why long distance helped the P-51 more than hindered it.

FLYBOYJ · 06-12-2006, 06:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soundbreaker Welch?

I had heard that about the fuel tank in the back fuselage of the P-51 hurting performance.

Seems like bad fault if you are forced to fight right away in a battle, and you can't fuel up the back tank because you can't perform manuvers when it's full, and you still need all the fuel you can get to up in the air.

I guess thats why long distance helped the P-51 more than hindered it.

You were supposed to use fuel from the center fuselage tank first, I think that's mentioned in the POH.

Hop · 06-12-2006, 06:51 AM

Quote:

Lol I know this is old post, but is it not true that by the time the p-38L-5-LO came around, the cockpit heater and defroster problem was corrected? According to http://www.p-38online.com and according to the person who wrote it, the L-5 had fixed all those problems mentioned above plus new, uprated engines which also solved the aborts caused by engine failures.

These "fixes" seemed to coincide with the P-38 being withdrawn from the 8th AF, where most of the problems had occured, probably due to the long times spent at high altitudes. I suspect the problems would have continued if the P-38 had continued in the same role.

Quote:

Apparently, the P-38J's engines and all earlier models were injesting the low-grade fuel in England that was also saoked with rainwater. This resulted in common engine failure.

Apparently, though, the Merlin engines in Spitfires, Mosquitos and Mustangs (and Lancs etc) didn't have a problem with the fuel. Neither did the radials in the P-47 and B-17s (and Halifaxes etc). Not even the Allisons in the P-51As had a problem.

That suggests the problem was with the P-38, not the fuel (especially as nearly all the aviation fuel in the UK came from the US, with middle East production mostly going to the far east air forces)

There may have been a problem with fuel in mid 1943, when the US abrupbtly changed the formulation of the fuel they were shipping, from 4.8cc of tetraethyl lead to 5.5cc. The British tests at that time showed the new fuel had particular problems in Allison engines, which were not approved for combat power using US sparkplugs, and caused severe fouling of british plugs after 20 hours.

Twitch · 06-12-2006, 12:06 PM

Re: P-38 Plugs- a crew chief told me they pulled all newly arrived P-38s' plugs in the ETO which were Atlas brand and replaced them with the Brit plugs gapped at .035.

wmaxt · 06-12-2006, 12:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hop

These "fixes" seemed to coincide with the P-38 being withdrawn from the 8th AF, where most of the problems had occured, probably due to the long times spent at high altitudes. I suspect the problems would have continued if the P-38 had continued in the same role.

Apparently, though, the Merlin engines in Spitfires, Mosquitos and Mustangs (and Lancs etc) didn't have a problem with the fuel. Neither did the radials in the P-47 and B-17s (and Halifaxes etc). Not even the Allisons in the P-51As had a problem.

That suggests the problem was with the P-38, not the fuel (especially as nearly all the aviation fuel in the UK came from the US, with middle East production mostly going to the far east air forces)

There may have been a problem with fuel in mid 1943, when the US abrupbtly changed the formulation of the fuel they were shipping, from 4.8cc of tetraethyl lead to 5.5cc. The British tests at that time showed the new fuel had particular problems in Allison engines, which were not approved for combat power using US sparkplugs, and caused severe fouling of british plugs after 20 hours.

The problems were corrected except for the plug fouling, which came at least partialy from the use of 104/150 fuel (J/L models). With early P-38s (pre J) The lead at high altitudes/high temps, would precipitate out in the intercoolers and it was a race to see if the lead globs ruined the valves or the lowered octain detonated first. Art Heiden and others remarked the Heat etc problems were fixed. Go to the following site for more on the 150 fuel issues,
http://www.spitfireperformance.com
has info on this including the clearence for P-38J's to use 65" in the ETO and up to 75" in the AAF in general. Use the 104/150 grade fuel link.

The early P-51s had a 30% abort rate in the begining to. The abort rate was so bad for P-51s that their comanders called them "Experimental Planes" for a while. These aborts ranged from head gaskets to plug fouling. When the fuel issues were corrected both aircraft ceased having problems of this kind.

It's true the early P-38s had issues but here are a couple of ditties from the Pacific

Don't give me a P-51
It was all right for fighting the Hun
But if fighting the Jap you try
You'll run out of sky
Don't give me a P-51

Or

The P-38 is some machine
She'll dive, loop and climb
and turn on a dime
To every pilot, she's the queen

All fighters have their quirks!

wmaxt

Sgt. Pappy · 06-12-2006, 02:29 PM

Great info guys.. o and sorry that i didnt clarify about those engines hops... the P-38's engines couldn't take the low grade fuel... it was the combination of the engine malfunctions and the fuel that caused the accidents.

Still looking up information on that heating system though... RAWR lol still can't find any.

However, I did find something else. Early P-38's only had one electrical generator powering both curtiss-electric props. If that generator went out, the props would go into feather.

FLYBOYJ · 06-12-2006, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sgt. Pappy

Great info guys.. o and sorry that i didnt clarify about those engines hops... the P-38's engines couldn't take the low grade fuel... it was the combination of the engine malfunctions and the fuel that caused the accidents.

Still looking up information on that heating system though... RAWR lol still can't find any.

However, I did find something else. Early P-38's only had one electrical generator powering both curtiss-electric props. If that generator went out, the props would go into feather.

Very early P-38s. Normally each engine had it's own electrical producing capability.

Many of the accidents were attributed to the pilots lacking engine out training, especially on take off....