Recent content by oldironside

I would love to believe that could get off a British carrier deck with a full load. I honestly have no idea.

I seem to recall someone did a very impressive 1/72 what if of a single seat Fulmar called (I think) a Fairey Pilchard. My old brain must be playing tricks on me because I can't find any trace of it.

The Barracuda was actually designed around the Rolls Royce Exe, which was cancelled (along with the Vulture and Peregrine) to allow RR to focus on Merlins and Griffons.

Personally I don't have a problem with that but the mods might. If you want to PM me auf Deutsch I can maybe help you out.

There was a certain joy in finding ever more elements that would undermine the whole fiasco.

Können wir das auf Englisch diskutieren?

I would have a cool icon outside my classroom, rather than a heap of junk. Unfortunately the Lightning is no more suited to the job the Luftwaffe had in mind than the F-104 was. There were far better contenders for the role of tactical fighter. The only real advantage the Lightning had was a...

The simplest and best answer was to use the FW190. It could carry a big load, dive bomb, required half the trained aircrew, was much more difficult to intercept, could fight its way out after dropping its bombs on more or less equal terms with enemy fighters, and could operate from almost any...

Maybe something closer to the Me 263, which was slightly larger and had a permanent undercarriage rather than the dolly the 163 used.

Quickly perusing the wikipedia article about Whittle, I came across this... "Pat Johnson remained convinced of the validity of the idea, and had Whittle patent[14] the idea in January 1930. Since the RAF was not interested in the concept they did not declare it secret, meaning that Whittle was...

I think a jet fighter in 1941 is entirely possible. The Heinkel 280 made its first jet powered flight on 30th March 1941. Give Whittle the sort of backing von Ohain had and a Meteor, Vampire or something resembling the Gloster E1/44 flying at the same time (or earlier) is more than feasible

Well, it would make a great POD.

Well, that's sort of getting away from the notion of "Whittle gets funding, so the Gloster Pioneer flies two years earlier and we have a practical jet engine available by 1939". I'm not sure we'd have to use an axial flow engine. Modifying the forward fuselage to fit a WB2 or Welland sounds...

The Jetfire's nozzles seem, in the image anyway, to be of a much smaller diameter than those on the Sea Hawk. Maybe a bit of artistic licence. I understand how the Yak-15 is arranged and I meant that it seems a more practical solution than the Jetfire's twin nozzles. The Jetfire's exhausts as...

Yeah, but I'm not convinced the jet nozzles on the Jetfire are big enough, or that the cowling will fit a centrifugal turbojet. The early British jet engines were a bit bulkier than the Jumo 004 that powered the Yak. I think it would have bit more overhang. It could make an interesting...