Government Policy and Budget Discussion Thread (no politics)

[CWSooner]

Back to engines.

Although the last-generation of RAF biplane fighters included the radial-powered Gloster Gladiator and Bristol Bulldog, the Brits had used inline (V-12) engines to a great degree during the interwar period.  The line of Hawker fighter and light-bomber biplanes powered by Rolls-Royce V-12s went back to the 1920s and culminated in the Hawker Fury fighter of the 1930s.

What would become the Hurricane fighter started out as a monoplane adaptation of the Fury, powered by a new Rolls-Royce V-12 that would become known as the Merlin.  The Spitfire was designed with the Merlin from the start.  And nearly all WWII RAF fighters that made it into operational service were powered by inline engines.

But the Royal Navy preferred radial engines for the same reason our navy did.  Unfortunately for the RN, developing fighters was a low priority, and so they had to press modified Hurricanes and Spitfires into service during WWII.  Neither of those was an ideal design for a shipboard fighter, and the liquid-cooled engine was a big reason why.  Later, they got through Lend-Lease US Navy F4F Wildcats, F6F Hellcats, and F4U Corsairs, all air-cooled.

I'd guess that something like 40% of British bombers during the war were powered air-cooled radials also.

[Cincydawg]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnome_et_Rh%C3%B4ne

I've been several times to the Safron air museum in Villa-Roche near Paris.  (A good friend was President of one of their subsidiaries.)  This engine is interesting because the Germans were building it in WW One under license.  Ha.  Check out the octane number.  After the war, they started building motorcycles and made some good ones.

General characteristics

• Type: 9-cylinder, single-row, rotary engine
• Bore: 124 mm (4.88 in)
• Stroke: 150 mm (5.91 in)
• Displacement: 16.28 l (993.47 cu in)
• Length: 1,150 mm (45.28 in)
• Diameter: 1,020 mm (40.16 in)
• Dry weight: 135 kg (297.6 lb)

Components

• Valvetrain: Automatic centre-piston inlet valve, one overhead exhaust valve per cylinder.
• Fuel system: one static Bloctube carburettor feeding the crankcase
• Fuel type: 40 / 50 Octane gasoline
• Oil system: Total loss pressure fed
• Cooling system: Air-cooled

Performance

• Power output: 75 kW (100 hp) at 1,200 rpm
• Specific fuel consumption: 0.362 kg/kW/hr (0.6 lb/hp/hr)

[Cincydawg]

https://thevintageaviator.co.nz/projects/engines/le-rh%C3%B4ne-9j-engine/history





The Le Rhône engines used an unconventional valve actuation system, with a single centrally-pivoting rocker arm moving the exhaust valve and the intake valve. When the arm moved down it opened the intake valve and when it moved up it opened the exhaust value. To make this system work a two-way push-pull rod was fitted, instead of the more conventional one-way pushrod. This feature required the cam followers to incorporate a positive action, a function designed in by using a combination of links and levers. This design functioned but it did prevent the incorporation of valve overlap which limits power output. Due to the structural and cooling limitations of the overall engine design the Le Rhône engines produced as much power as they were capable of, regardless.

[Cincydawg]

One of the "neat" things I learned about aviation was that a wing converts drag into lift.  

[CWSooner]

I guess I had forgotten that story about your dad, CD.

The B-24 could fly farther with a heavier bomb load than the B-17.  And that was the end of its advantages.  In every other way, the older-design B-17 was a better airplane to fly into combat.

I think that B-24s tended to break up worse than B-17s did when ditching.

The Army built an aircraft plant at Tulsa's airport and leased it to Douglas.  Douglas built B-24s there, along with A-24s (Army version of the SBD Dauntless).  The last of 964 B-24s to roll off that assembly line, S/N 42-51430, was paid for by the workers there and christened "The Tulsamerican."

Battle-damaged, it ditched in the Adriatic in Dec 1944 with the loss of 3 of its 10-man crew.  NOVA did a story of the discovery of the wreckage about 10 years ago.

We built almost 19,000 B-24s during WWII.  40-plus percent of them were built by Ford Motor Company.  We built more B-24s than Germany, Italy, and Japan combined built heavy bombers.

[CWSooner]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnome_et_Rh%C3%B4ne

I've been several times to the Safron air museum in Villa-Roche near Paris.  (A good friend was President of one of their subsidiaries.)  This engine is interesting because the Germans were building it in WW One under license.  Ha.  Check out the octane number.  After the war, they started building motorcycles and made some good ones.

General characteristics

• Type: 9-cylinder, single-row, rotary engine
• Bore: 124 mm (4.88 in)
• Stroke: 150 mm (5.91 in)
• Displacement: 16.28 l (993.47 cu in)
• Length: 1,150 mm (45.28 in)
• Diameter: 1,020 mm (40.16 in)
• Dry weight: 135 kg (297.6 lb)

Components

• Valvetrain: Automatic centre-piston inlet valve, one overhead exhaust valve per cylinder.
• Fuel system: one static Bloctube carburettor feeding the crankcase
• Fuel type: 40 / 50 Octane gasoline
• Oil system: Total loss pressure fed
• Cooling system: Air-cooled

Performance

• Power output: 75 kW (100 hp) at 1,200 rpm
• Specific fuel consumption: 0.362 kg/kW/hr (0.6 lb/hp/hr)

Heh!  I'll bet the compression ratio was something on the order of 4:1.
Interestingly, those rotary engines could not be idled.  You could "blip" them on and off, but you couldn't idle them, for reasons I forget.  You could also cut out the spark to some cylinders (3 or 6, as I recall), but the fuel would go through those cylinders anyway, and you would be blowing an unburned fuel-air mixture out the exhaust.
You'll not that the lubrication system was "total-loss."  It went through the engine and out the exhaust.  The lubricant was castor-oil, and its fumes had deleterious effects on the pilots.
Manfred von Richthofen was shot down and killed in a Fokker Dr.I, powered by an Oberursel copy of the Le Rhône.  I think that the Dr.I in which Werner Voss was killed had a Le Rhône scrounged from a downed Nieuport.  The Germans liked the original French engines better than the Oberursel copies, which were not built very well.

I think that the single-valve design was called monosoupape.

[OrangeAfroMan]

Well, first, we would not be able to get 1.3 million active military personnel to Iran obviously.  We have other commitments, like Korea where we have 28,000, and another 20,000 or so on Okinawa.  The majority of sailors would not be "on the ground" obviously or even in theater.

An invasion of Iran by us would be extremely taxing and difficult and messy and long lasting, a sort of Iraq on steroids.  And then the US would need to move however many ground forces - and supplies - to Iran.  As I keep saying, the ability to project power is a key part of the expense equation.  We have ten active Army divisions and three active Marine divisions.  Two of those are tied up in the Pacific.  Assuming we could ship and support the remainder to Iran (leaving no one anywhere else active duty), that would be approximately 11 divisions or 200,000 ground troops.  They would be met initially with some conventional warfare resistance and then the very difficult asymmetric warfare that is inevitable any time a country is invaded by a much more capable conventional force.

I shudder to imagine what an invasion of Iran would be like.  Bad isn't close.

Right, it would be so horrible that it's not something we would do.  We would destroy them from afar, safely.  If we ever landed troops on Iranian soil, it would be to pick off any remnants of their defense and to pick up the pieces.  
.
I just don't see the need to have what we'd never deploy.  
.
Thanks to the Iraq debacle, we know that for us, war is easy, country-rebuilding is a garbage proposition that should be avoided.  Anyway, I'd like to just see what a pulled-back world looks like, where we're not the world's police.  

[MrNubbz]

The B-24 could fly farther with a heavier bomb load than the 

Because of it's incredible range the B-24 closed the 300 mile Atlantic Gap that the Royal or US Navies couldn't close concerning the U-Boats.Doenitz's days were numbered

[MrNubbz]

Back to engines.

I was on Youtube perusing some WWII history and there were some intersting conversations this was one.Rolls Royce allowed Ford to build  their engines that went into the The Spitfires that they were also putting in the Mustangs


Well, it is related in Stanley Hooker's Autobiography "Not much of an Engineer" on pages 58-59.

" ...A number of Ford engineers arrived at Derby, and spent some months examining and familiarizing themselves with the drawings and manufacturing methods. One day their Chief Engineer appeared in Lovesey's office, which I was then sharing and said " You know, we can't make the Merlin to these drawings"
I replied loftily " I suppose that is because the drawing tolerances are too difficult for you, and you can't achieve the accuracy". 
' On the contrary', he replied, ' the tolerances are far too wide for us. We make motor cars far more accurately than this. Every part on our car engines has to be interchangeable with the same part on any other engine, and hence all parts have to be made with extreme accuracy, far closer than you use. That is the only way we can achieve mass production'. 
Lovesey joined in, "Well, what do you propose now?"
The reply was that Ford would have to redraw all the Merlin drawings to their own standards, and this they did. It took a year or so, but this was an enormous success, because, once the great Ford factory at Manchester started production, Merlins came out like shelling peas at a rate of 400 per week. And very good engines they were too,....." 

[CWSooner]

Right, it would be so horrible that it's not something we would do.  We would destroy them from afar, safely.  If we ever landed troops on Iranian soil, it would be to pick off any remnants of their defense and to pick up the pieces. 
.
I just don't see the need to have what we'd never deploy. 
.
Thanks to the Iraq debacle, we know that for us, war is easy, country-rebuilding is a garbage proposition that should be avoided.  Anyway, I'd like to just see what a pulled-back world looks like, where we're not the world's police.

Where are you getting "what we'd never deploy" just because you think we'd pound Iran into rubble before invading it?
An invasion of Iran is not the only, much less the most serious, contingency for which we need to be prepared.  And we need to be prepared for multiple contingencies at the same time.  We can't count on our enemies only presenting us one problem at a time.
Unless we want to surrender our hegemony--which is China's goal for us--and let China, Russia and others set the rules for international affairs, including trade, alliances, etc.
That would be a far worse world than anything anyone on this board has seen.

[Cincydawg]

Of our 13 ground combat divisions (active duty), there are of course scenarios where most would deploy.  The worst would be a Soviet invasion of say Lithuania or Estonia or Latvia, or perhaps Poland.  I don't view that as likely, the Russkis are not in good shape.  

Another would be the Korean peninsula, I don't view that as likely either.  Another would be Taiwan, though we'd probably try and maintain distance there, not ground forces.

One reason these things are not likely is those 13 divisions.

We went into Iraq with 2 divisions reinforced as I recall, 4th ID was held up in Turkey.  That was plenty to destroy the Iraqi military and not nearly enough to stabilize the country.  If you break it, you own it.

I lean to think we could go to a larger reserve force and smaller active, but I'm not sure about that of course.  The IRR is there as well, and then the NG, which is not in great shape according to one member of my family.

[CWSooner]

Because of it's incredible range the B-24 closed the 300 mile Atlantic Gap that the Royal or US Navies couldn't close concerning the U-Boats.Doenitz's days were numbered

Yeah, it was a useful bomber.  It just wasn't one you'd want to take into combat.  In addition to what I mentioned upthread, it was harder to fly and less tolerant to battle damage than the B-17.

[CWSooner]

I was on Youtube perusing some WWII history and there were some intersting conversations this was one.Rolls Royce allowed Ford to build  their engines that went into the The Spitfires that they were also putting in the Mustangs

Well, it is related in Stanley Hooker's Autobiography "Not much of an Engineer" on pages 58-59.

" ...A number of Ford engineers arrived at Derby, and spent some months examining and familiarizing themselves with the drawings and manufacturing methods. One day their Chief Engineer appeared in Lovesey's office, which I was then sharing and said " You know, we can't make the Merlin to these drawings"
I replied loftily " I suppose that is because the drawing tolerances are too difficult for you, and you can't achieve the accuracy".
' On the contrary', he replied, ' the tolerances are far too wide for us. We make motor cars far more accurately than this. Every part on our car engines has to be interchangeable with the same part on any other engine, and hence all parts have to be made with extreme accuracy, far closer than you use. That is the only way we can achieve mass production'.
Lovesey joined in, "Well, what do you propose now?"
The reply was that Ford would have to redraw all the Merlin drawings to their own standards, and this they did. It took a year or so, but this was an enormous success, because, once the great Ford factory at Manchester started production, Merlins came out like shelling peas at a rate of 400 per week. And very good engines they were too,....."

Good find, MrNubbz!
I thought you were going to tell a story about Ford making Rolls-Royce engines in the USA.  Packard made Merlins, but I didn't know anything about Ford making R-R engines.
But this is about Ford of England.  And I didn't know about that either.

[Cincydawg]

Yeah, it was a useful bomber.  It just wasn't one you'd want to take into combat.  In addition to what I mentioned upthread, it was harder to fly and less tolerant to battle damage than the B-17.

It also had a usable autopilot which was extremely handy in the Pacific.  My Dad told me they would launch raids on Truk (I think from New Georgia).  It was at extreme range, so they took a Snooper along with them each time during the day.  The radar could be tuned to read moisture in the air so they could navigate around storms.  He said the Snooper aircraft never returned from that raid.  He said they were all waiting their turn, stoically, with really not expectation of survival until 1948.

We built a lot of them, as you note.  The B-29 project cost way more than the Manhattan Project.  The B-29 was the only bomber able to carry the A bomb for any real distance.  The Lancaster could for shorter distances if modified.