The best biplane fighter of the war

[bronzewhaler82]

Nah, days won't make any difference - you need MONTHS, YEARS FOREVER!!

Uh, Oh...does anyone else feel that perhaps that giving Bronze some sort of authority (Hes not used to it, bless him!) wasnt such a good idea....

You jealous troublemaker?

[cheddar cheese]

you are corrupt with the power bronze youre like hitler, you started off on the site quietly, then when you got more known you started being more argumentative. then, you got JJ1982 to come and spam constantly so that rell could make a complaint, thus giving you the opportunity to become a moderator you see, it all fits into place

[bronzewhaler82]

thats SIR Hitler to YOU

[kiwimac]

<AHEM>

IF ANYONE IS FUHRER HERE< TAKE A GUESS WHO THAT MIGHT BE!

FVS Kiwimac

<My last Spam for a wee while, I promise>

[bronzewhaler82]

Er....Rafe35?

[bronzewhaler82]

I was reading up about the De Havilland Tiger Moth biplane...

Widely considered by many to be the most famous and attractive training aircraft ever built.

It flew for the first time in 1931 and was almost immediately ordered in large numbers mainly for use in the RAF.
It was designed using the specs of its predessor the Gypsy Moth (a smaller, slower aircraft). By the end of WW2 the Brits had build 7,290 of them and used them throughout the Commenwealth (but mainly in Britain)
It was used primarily as a Training aircraft during WW2 and provided most of the future aces of the Commenwealth with their first flying experience
You can still see many Tiger Moths that exist today and are still flown by aviation enthusiasts...the general public can even have pleasure rides in them!

but I came across an interesting chapter in the aircrafts history which isn't often mentioned on the website for Hendon air museum (see link)


If you think i'm making this bizarre story up then check the link at the bottom of this post

Shortly after the disasterous evac from Dunkirk in 1940 the Brits were willing to listen to alomost ANY anti-invasion idea so they cooked up a few uses for the Tiger Moth including....

The 'paraslasher'; a scythe-like blade fitted to a Tiger Moth and intended to cut parachutist's canopies as they descended to earth. Flight tests proved the idea, but it was not officially adopted.

In August 1940, 350 Tiger Moths were fitted with light bomb racks. These aircraft were to undertake the bombing of enemy troops attempting a landing.

and my personal fav...

The Tiger Moth 'human crop sprayer' used a tank fitted in the front cockpit with powder dispensers located under the wings. The tank would be filled with 'Paris Green', an extremely poisonous insecticide. It was intended that low flying aircraft would dust the German troops as they waded ashore.

it states at the end of the paragraph that its fortunate that none of these stratagies was actually used....yeah, lucky for the Germans!!!

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/de-havil...er-moth-ii.htm

[cheddar cheese]

cool i watched a programme once where they said that the tiger moth was a WW1 biplane

[bronzewhaler82]

cool i watched a programme once where they said that the tiger moth was a WW1 biplane

Well i don't know what programme that was but they be wrong!

Perhaps they got it mixed up with the Gypsy Moth? (i don't even think that was a WW1 plane)

[R Pope]

Best bipe? Gregor FDB-1, last Allied biplane design,outclimb, out-turn, outroll a Spit or a Hurricane, closed cockpit, retracting gear. And Canadian! Fifteen years later they built the Arrow! Go figure!

[Crazy]

Looks pretty good

[kiwimac]

Re the Gregor

Type: FDB-1

Country: Canada

Function: fighter
Year: 1938
Crew: 1
Engines: 1 * 750hp P&W R-1535-SB4-G

Wing Span: 8.53m
Length: 6.60m
Height: 2.86m
Wing Area: 18.02m2

Empty Weight: 1306kg

Speed: 420km/h
Ceiling:
Range: 835km/h
Armament: 2x 12.7mm MG

Kiwimac

[bronzewhaler82]

I have never heard of that particular plane...which makes me a bit sceptical about how good it was...if it was that much cop then why hasn't it been mentioned as one of the best biplanes in history? (a title which so rightly belongs to the Gloster Gladiator) and i have news for you matey...most biplanes could out-turn monoplanes...its what they did after out-turned them which made them so great (and almost useless later in the war )


and by the way Kiwi - us guys in GBR need speed in Mph not kilometers!!

[cheddar cheese]

a title which so rightly belongs to the Gloster Gladiator

i love the gladiator too...... but i think its the swordfish

and it sounds stupid, but was there ever a jet biplane?

[Gemhorse]

I've got to agree with Whaler's assessments here - The Gladiator was really the plane between biplanes and monoplanes , having a canopy , sensibly armed... The Gregor looks hot , yeah , but I've never heard of it until now, so it wasn't probably produced in any number... The Swordfish was unique to be used as it was in WWII , and anyone who flew in them in combat should've got an automatic gong - One chap got a posthumous VC for the 'Channel Dash' debacle that I know of , and probably the fact they were slow got those torpedos running right and made attacks by enemy fighters tricky - Seems their greatest adversary was enemy flak. - And I do like the Tiger Moth, grew-up with them droning around here, and locally there's a yellow one just like in your picture - There's quite a strong Club of them throughout N.Z. - We also have been restoring Polikarpov's down here , the 1-16 Rata's, and the 1-153 Bis which is a biplane. I don't know a great deal of their history, but the both fought valiantly against the German Invasion of Russia .- P.S.- Good to know there's a lady on the Site - Haven't met any before who were interested in aircraft , except my own one....Cheers !

[kiwimac]

Whaler speed in MPH is 262.5 mph (a reasonable turn of speed for a biplane)

As for Jet biplanes

Look here



Source: http://hampage.hu/repules/e_szolnok.html

And from 1910

It was a double-wing, one-seat plane equipped with a reactive engine. The main characteristics were:

Span: 10.30 m
Length: 12.50 m
Lifting surface: 32.70 mxm
Weight: 420 kg

Propulsion force at sea level: 220 kgf


For the first time the main stubs of wings were made of steel instead of wood. The wings were for the first time equipped with mobile surfaces placed ahead of wing to increase lift (*these are mobile surfaces attached to the wing, which have the role to delay the separation of the boundary layer, thus increasing the critical flight incidence and the maximum lifting coefficient; in Romanian it is called volet - e.g volet Fowler, Taghi, Kruger etc.*).

The wings profile had a strong curvature; their shape was rectangular except for the fact that they were, of course, circular at the corners. The gasoline and lubricants were stored inside the upper wings (!) such as the drag was considerably reduced.

The two wings had different lengths and the superior (upper) wing was set ahead of the inferior one, which was shorter, such as the aerodynamic interference between these two surfaces were reduced. This construction, applied for the first time by Henri Coanda, was later called 'Sesquiplan'; it was re-invented 10 years later, being used for Fokker's, Brequet's, Potez's airplanes.

Paul Painleve (1863-1933), Prof. at Sorbone, one of the pioneers of Flight Mechanics, who also flew with Wilbur Wright and Henri Farman even in 1908 - Sextrieux and Gustave Eiffel - 1832-1923, a pioneer of experimental aerodynamics, his first experiences being carried out from the tower which bears his name - were particularly interested in Coanda's machine. However they realized that the hour of the reactive airplane had not come yet (Eiffel: 'This boy should have been born 30 years later.').

The most interesting part of Coanda's plane was the propulsion system, a real revolution in the construction of airplanes engines, that would have to constitute the solution in the future.

The "air-reactive engine", invented and built for the first time by Henri Coanda, composed of a piston-engine with four cylinders, cooled with water; it developed 50 HP (Horse-Power) at 1000 rotations/minute. This piston-engine was connected to a rod which rotated the rotation multiplier; the movement was transmitted to the compressor which gained a rotation speed of 4000 rot./min.. In front of the compressor was placed the obturator - a device very similar to that of a photo-camera; this device could be controlled by the pilot such that the quantity of air that entered the compressor could be regulated. The air entered the burning rooms, (that had a ring-like section and were placed on both sides of the fuselage), from which, through some tubes, burned gases of the engine were evacuated and the propulsion force was generated.

The propulsion force at sea level obtained with this engine was 220 kgf, much larger than that obtained if the piston-engine would have been acted by a propeller.

Many visitors were suspicious about the possibility that this machine could take off since it was missing the propeller. They had never seen such a strange flying machine and never heard about an airplane without a propeller.

After the exhibition closed its doors, on December 16, 1910, Henri Coanda transported his airplane at Issy-les-Moulineaux. Here he only intended to verify the engine, not to fly. So Coanda got into his machine, and after several minutes of warming up, pushed the buttons that commanded the obturator and the rotation speed of the engine. The airplane began to move faster and faster, and flames and fume could be seen along the fuselage getting out from the engine. After a very short time, before Coanda could realize what was going on, the airplane was in the air. Impressed by the flames and worried about the fact that he had never piloted an airplane by then (only planors), Coanda lost the control of his machine which began to loose speed and height. In a short time it stroke the ground and began to burn.

This first flight was described by Coanda in 1964 as follows :

"The machine gained height much faster than I thought; it was not my fault, but after a while it entered a glissade, stroke the ground and burned completely. I was very lucky I was not tied on the chair, such that I was pushed out when the airplane stroke the ground; otherwise I would have burned with it."

This attempt constitutes the first flight of an airplane equiped with an air-reactive engine, the first reactive flight of an airplane in the world. But lacking the financial support Coanda could not improve his invention such that a second reactive airplane made by Coanda could not be seen flying again.

So 30 years before Heinkel, Campini and Whittle, Coanda built and flew the first reactive airplane

Source: http://www.ctie.monash.edu/hargrave/bristol.html

Fascinating!

Kiwimac