TheElf Posted February 14, 2015 Posted February 14, 2015 I worked on a B-29 (Miss America '62 42-65281) back in the late '80s that, on it's last flight to China Lake for storage it swallowed a valve in one of its engines. According to the logbook the flight crew simply throttled the motor up slightly and continued on. When we took the cowlings off we found half a cylinder head and valve in the bottom of one and a thoroughly holed piston in a damaged cylinder. Those were fun days, met lots of cool people. Now I'm old ... That airplane is still sitting here at the boneyard....
69th_chuter Posted February 14, 2015 Posted February 14, 2015 (edited) That airplane is still sitting here at the boneyard.... Which boneyard? Travis AFB's? https://travisheritagecenter.org/html/b29.html 44-62134 is still at NAWS China Lake. Edited February 14, 2015 by chuter
Bearcat Posted February 14, 2015 Posted February 14, 2015 You haven't flown the FlammableWulf-190? And the He-111 is a burning coffin itself. I have the exact opposite experiences. Maybe the La-5, but the Yaks engine can take a beating and a half. ROFLMAO!! That was funny... Hopefully the devs know this and plan to address it.. I am sure that there have been reports on it.. 1
Crump Posted February 17, 2015 Posted February 17, 2015 (edited) Which boneyard? Travis AFB's? The boneyard is one of the best parts of going to Flight Safety in Tuscon. It is just miles and miles of airplane porn. Edited February 17, 2015 by Crump
Venturi Posted February 18, 2015 Posted February 18, 2015 I worked on a B-29 (Miss America '62 42-65281) back in the late '80s that, on it's last flight to China Lake for storage it swallowed a valve in one of its engines. According to the logbook the flight crew simply throttled the motor up slightly and continued on. When we took the cowlings off we found half a cylinder head and valve in the bottom of one and a thoroughly holed piston in a damaged cylinder. Those were fun days, met lots of cool people. Now I'm old ... ^^^ Stiff crank, unbalancing via loss of piston doesn't affect rotational dynamics of crank, exposed cylinders mean block is not affected by piston loss etc.. These were considered far more durable than inlines for a very good reason. But even inlines were more durable than modeled. Cooling and oil system loss, and direct large caliber bullet/shell strikes were what put these engines out of action. 30cal wont't punch through an engine block. 50cal would. The radial was more durable on both fronts.
Venturi Posted February 22, 2015 Posted February 22, 2015 All bullet penetration is dependent on at least four things. 1. Ratio of armor (or target steel/Al/Ti/Ur etc) thickness to projectile caliber diameter. 2. Angle of incidence of impact. Increased angles effectively increase thickness of armor. See T-34 for period example. 3. Design of projectile. WW2 30cal AP projectiles usually contained hardened steel inserts to resist deformation upon impact. In actuality these usually reduced the weight of the projectile and thus its effectiveness in everything but a pure armor penetration role. Tungsten inserts were used in rare cases to offset this as Tungsten both was hard and heavy. 4. Yaw of projectile. Dramatic reductions in penetration are apparent on even the smallest deflection and yaw of the projectile. Any obstacles penetrated by the projectile on its way to the vital structure will tend to induce yaw and this tendency will increase with the angle of incidence, with the thickness/strength of material penetrated, with the distance between the penetrated obstacle and target, and with less weighty projectiles as compared to weightier ones. For instance, a German 7.9mm (~30cal) AP (SmK) projectile weighs 11.5g, versus a Browning/BMG 12.7mm (50cal) M8 API projectile, which weighs 40.3g. #1 is very high for 30cal/7.62-8mm projectiles versus just about anything, especially thick steel engine blocks #2 is very high for just about any imaginable scenario in air to air combat. #4 is likely to be high for 30cal projectiles This all points to the fact that 30cal projectiles were useful en masse against light targets, but that against heavy, sturdy structures, were much less effective. This doesn't mean that heavy ordinance such as 20mm cannon (even more so 30mm) or 50cal BMG couldn't rip apart heavy structure (for aircraft) with ease. Read http://www.scribd.com/doc/219173969/WWII-Ballistics-Armor-and-Gunnery#scribd for more info. 1
Jason_Williams Posted February 23, 2015 Posted February 23, 2015 Elf works at Chia Lake. Cool story chuter! Jason
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