Inside the Spitfire factory

[aeropilot]

Ayahuasca said:

.50 cal vs 20mm

As a pilot you may have chosen the P-47, and if you were a German tank crew you might have chosen to be attacked by the P-47 too.

Except.....Typhoons RP's aside, in terms of guns, while the Typhoon had 4x20mm cannon, they only had enough ammo for about 6 secs worth of firing, so essential 3 x 2 sec bursts and that was it, home for tea and medals once the RP's have been loosed off.

The Jug though, with its 8x fifties had enough ammo for about 25-30 secs of straffing once its bombs or RP's had been expended. Therefore the ability of the P-47 to stooge around and attack/straff lots more targets before having to RTB did give an edge in many ways (along with its toughness and air-cooled radial)
And no one wants to be on the receiving end of the concentrated fire of 8 x fifties....

[ottovonskidmark]

Eric Mc said:

LotusOmega375D said:

My mum’s boss used to fly Typhoons (and many other types). Here’s a link to some pages in his log book. New Year’s Day 1945 was eventful. His airfield in Holland was strafed by Me262, Me109s and FW190s whilst he was driving his Jeep and one of his squadron was killed.

https://cvhf.org.uk/special-projects/david-grevill...

Sounds like that was Operation Bodenplatte - the air element of Germany's Ardennes Offensive.

This will clear it up. https://youtu.be/txbF0OpCZY4

[LotusOmega375D]

Wow thanks, great find. I had no idea it was such a significant date with so much carnage on both sides, particularly at his base in Eindhoven. You don’t get that impression from the entries in his understated log book!

[and31]

That’s was a great episode-lovely to see it fly.really nice to see George Dunn go back to see it fly aswell.
An amazing job they have done in eighteen months.

[Ayahuasca]

Great to see the Greek Spit flying. If I had worked on it I would be thinking, hold on, that bolt I meant to tighten up properly... st..

[Ayahuasca]

Interesting how expensive some of the bits are - £10,000 for a newly fabricated radiator cowling? Surely it’s just bent aluminium and a few rivets, and doesn’t seem especially flight-critical.

[aeropilot]

Ayahuasca said:

Interesting how expensive some of the bits are - £10,000 for a newly fabricated radiator cowling? Surely it’s just bent aluminium and a few rivets, and doesn’t seem especially flight-critical.

Everything on an aircraft is flight critical and needs a huge paperwork trail associated with it. Nothing is cheap.

[eccles]

aeropilot said:

Ayahuasca said:

Interesting how expensive some of the bits are - £10,000 for a newly fabricated radiator cowling? Surely it’s just bent aluminium and a few rivets, and doesn’t seem especially flight-critical.

Everything on an aircraft is flight critical and needs a huge paperwork trail associated with it. Nothing is cheap.

Also the man hours to make it. Some of the jobs I do take 50 hrs just to re-skin a small fairing (fabricate, paint, reassemble and final paint).

[Mark V GTD]

Ayahuasca said:

Surely it’s just bent aluminium and a few rivets, and doesn’t seem especially flight-critical.

Flight critical? There are two of these fairings fitted to the undersides of the wings over the main coolant, oil and inter-coolant radiators and I can assure you they are very flight critical inasmuch as they are key to keeping the engine cool and running. They are complex items - double skinned, compound curvatures, pressed leading edges and a double thickness aerodynamic flap at the trailing end with actuation mechanism.