Strongest aircraft?

[BAGTIC]

Which WW2 aircraft were the strongest in terms of how many G's they were designed for?

[Thorlifter]

Just my guess, but wouldn't it have been one of the dive bombers, given the force they have to withstand pulling out of a dive?

hmmmm. I really don't know......but I'm sure one of the smarty guys here do.

[R-2800]

P-47? or a dive bomber

[VALENGO]

Well, germans use to call Sturmovik "the concrete airplane"; that is something!!

[timshatz]

Heard the Dauntless SBD was designed for 12g. But I got the info from the History Channel "Dogfights" so take the info with a grain of salt.

[Civettone]

He 177 comes to mind...

Kris

[renrich]

The only a/c the AAF admitted that was stronger than the P47 was the Corsair. One could shed some fabric off the control surfaces but I never heard of a structural failure infligh

[Civettone]

Was the Corsair stronger than the Hellcat??

Kris

[FLYBOYJ]

Was the Corsair stronger than the Hellcat??

Kris

Both were built like a brick sh*thouse...

In a very old thread I took photos of an F6F, Corsair, Wildcat and Zero tho show the differences of their skins. The Corsair in my opinion was just as robust as the F6F.

[trackend]

I know that the Stringbag tended to loose its wings if the air speed went much over 220knts when used as a dive bomber so although I love the old buckets
I don't think they where terrible robust.
I'd go for something like the Ju 87, having to pull out of an 80degree dive using auto dive recovery in case of G blackout it must have been a fairly strong plane.

[ridato]

Well, You need to know max g and airspeed, the so called V-n diagram.
Dive bombers has high max G but them use dive airbrakes to control airspeed. Every aircraft has a Vne (airspeed not exceed), for the F4U was 787 km/h, for the last model Zero A6M5c was 740 km/h. The thickness of wing skin is a primary factor for max G and Vne and the F4U has fabric outer wing skins. More thickness means heavier aircraft (lower performance). Japanese did not have so powerfull engines like the PWR2800 until the end of the war, so they should control the weight, Zero and other japanese aircraft did not have high Vne.
Il-2 Sturmovik was a very strong aircraft, but it was because armor plate, outer wings were wooden made, and it should limit his max G.
In modern aircraft, F-16 has a maximum G of 9, F-18: 9.6, Mirage M.III/V: 7, A-4:6.
WW2 aircraft sometimes has higher max G, but it is interesting because pilot did not have G-suit, and trained pilots could not resist 5g for more than some seconds without G-suit.

[Civettone]

Has anyone mentioned the Hs 129 yet? Together with the Il-2 the most armoured aircraft of WW2.


Kris

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

In WWII aviation video games, I don't always like the blackout option on realistic mode. I can't do as much stuff in the plane because of the weakness of the sim pilot! Everything just goes red or black.

But I guess that was the way it was, so ya have to get used to it.

[renrich]

According to my reference, the following limiting envelope in a dive for the F4U1D was: at 30000 ft-restricted to 299 mph IAS which was 489mph TAS Mach .72: at 20000 ft the restriction was 368 mph IAS, 504 TAS, Mach .72: at 10000 ft, 433mph IAS, 516 TAS mach .70 at 3.5g pullout and 403 mph IAS/469 mph TAS, Mach .63 at a 6.5 g pullout. At normal weight the max. design flight limit loads were 7.5 positive and 3.5 negative.

[ciupir]

Hy. Il2-strong agains bulets not G.. Is to havy and underpowered to sustain himself in a high G configuration. P47-Coesair-Hellcat great fighters but they olso don't have power to stay in an high G manover for a long time (only if they got there from a dive). I personaly think that Yak9 , La7 was the only aircraft capable of mor then 5G in a manover starting from cruise speed .They are light aircraft and with very powerful engines (La7). The wing even if she was made from wood-don't forget that they are on a small-light aircraft so don't comparit with tha P47 (big-heavy).