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The end of an era?
- Thread starter WingAndaPrayer
- Start date
Silver Surfer
Well-Known Member
indeed, digital printers, and god knows what the hell else in the not oo distant future. Orwell was prescient. the machines will know all, and with that every thing about peeps. the end of an era? yes. the beginning of an new era? yes. or, as the song went, " I d hate to be around to pick up the pieces"
Chandler
Well-Known Member
I've fallen far behind in my certification.The geeks will inherit the earth
Count me out.
But I can still drive stick-shift.
Pa12
Well-Known Member
Atta boy.I've fallen far behind in my certification.
But I can still drive stick-shift.
The original OD color was to make the plane less visible.. Once radar
flak came
into being there was no point painting the planes at all,. The paint
weighed
hundred of pounds, which used up more fuel and also made the plane
slightly
slower. So the OD paint was abandoned and the planes were left as they
rolled
off the production line. Unpainted except for small panels of high
reflection
such as in front of the cockpits and turrets. My plane, WillieThe Wolf
B-26G
King Nine Jay, was unpainted and replaced a war weary that was
painted OD.
Essentially, the decision was made because there was no perceived
benefit from the paint job. Cost wasn't so much an issue as the added
time in the manufacturing process. Essentially, one color was applied,
then that coat had to dry, the second color was applied, that had to
dry, and then the markings (national insignia and plane ID) were added.
Apparently it added 24 hours to the manufacturing process. The time
and manpower could be used elsewhere.
for every pound of olive drab camouflage paint
applied to the skin of the aircraft, you had one less pound of fuel or
explosives you could carry? I don't know if that's the reason they went back to
unpainted B-17s, but it seems to me that it could have been.
The original OD color was to make the plane less visible.. Once radar
flak came
into being there was no point painting the planes at all,. The paint
weighed
hundred of pounds, which used up more fuel and also made the plane
slightly
slower. So the OD paint was abandoned and the planes were left as they
rolled
off the production line. Unpainted except for small panels of high
reflection
such as in front of the cockpits and turrets. My plane, WillieThe Wolf
B-26G
King Nine Jay, was unpainted and replaced a war weary that was
painted OD.
Arthur Kramer
Las Vegas NV
Aside from being a waste of money as it gave limited protection at the
altitude
at which it was being used, it was also a waste of fuel. And, it's a
waste of
fuel that might make the difference between getting home and ditching.
While the volumes and weights are exactly equivalent, consider your
average can
of Ralph Lauren "Mocha Dream" wall paint. It weighs about what, seven
to ten
pounds, right? (Of that, about two thirds is pigment (some sort of an
oxide of
some metal), and the remainder is the vehicle (the fluid that carries
the paint
into place, a large part of which evaporates once it's deposited).)
Ultimately,
some five pounds of weight is added to the surface painted per gallon
of paint.
Now, that one gallon of paint will cover three quarters of a bedroom,
about 480
square feet, with its five pounds of pigment. While I don't have the
surface
area of a B-17 handy here, I'd say that there are at least twenty of
those
bedrooms' worth of area spread out over the upper surfaces of such an
aircraft.
Make it a hundred pounds of pigment, added to the total all-up weight
of the
aircraft.
Like all other airplanes, B-17s were designed to fly at a certain
maximum
weight. Above that weight, the plane was unsafe to fly/take off some
degree or
another. But, that maximum weight was composed of a number of
different
components: airframe, armament, bomb load, fuel, aircrew, coffee in
Thermos
bottles, and (yes) paint. Within limits some of the components could
be varied
widely.
Now, which makes more sense: spend part of your all-up weight on the
fuel
needed to tote that extra hundred pounds of useless pigment to and
from
Dusseldorf, or have an extra hundred pounds to carry even more fuel to
increase
the margin of safety for the now-bare metal aircraft? Once this
question
started getting asked in earnest, the paint started coming off of
Allied
aircraft not exposed to tactical operations in a hurry.
I recall reading about a weight savings of around 600 pounds for the
B-29 once
the paint was stripped. That's one whole 500 pound bomb out of the
bombload
(and plus some, since you have to carry the paint there and back while
the bomb
gets left behind at the halfway point). I think I saw this in the
William Green
review of the aircraft in his Famous Bombers of twenty years ago.
It's also interesting to note that when the B-29s were changed to
night area
bombers, the camoflage scheme used by some units was to apply black
paint to
the _undersurfaces_ only, leaving the top in natural metal. As the
stripped
down night operating aircraft were relatively defenseless (all
armament removed
excepting tail cannon, making them particularly vulnerable to the
upward firing
Japanese nightfighters), this made some sense.
(And, for what it's worth, it may interest others to know that the
Japanese
either first came up with the "Schragmuzick" (sic?) concept, or
invented it all
together and passed it on to the Germans, depending upon who you want
to
believe. Lucky for the Twentieth Air Force that they never put enough
of them
up in the air to contest the low level night bombing operations.)
And, even though removing the paint saved a lot of weight and perhaps
a few
lives in the bargain, I still like the looks of the olive drab B-29 a
lot
better. Much more early 1940's "high-tech" looking.
The paint added a not insignificant amount of weight and drag to the
airplane. This burden was thought to be justified as long as the
camouflage
provided some help in delaying detection and identification by enemy
fighters. But once air superiority had been won over Europe, the
balance of
benefits shifted in the other direction. While many bombers that had
already
been painted continued to soldier on in their colors, new planes
coming into
the theater, or those emerging from a major rebuild, would be without
Hardly. No matter how well armed, the B17 was always vulnerable to
fighter
attack, and the much vaunted tight defensive formations became even
tighter
more to provide a smaller area for the escorts to defend than through
any
advantage of massed crossfire. In fact crews of the first 'silver'
B17s
tried to wait until enough of them were available to form a formation
rather
than risk being singled out by the enemy.
The fact is that all that paint has a certain amount of weight and
causes
drag in itself, so dropping the paint and having a smooth metal skin
led to
a measurable boost in speed, which more than made up for whatever
dubious
advantage there was to camouflage at height. Another factor was that
from
late 1944, despite record production rates for German fighters, a
shortage
of trained pilots meant that any danger from that quarter was by then
considerably lessened.
the definitive source the "Men and Planes" volume
of the US Army Air Corps official history
Flightengineer
Well-Known Member
This plane will outlive us all, no doubt about itDC3s still going strong:
The future is bright for the DC-3 | Flightradar24 Blog
The DC-3 is one of the finest aircraft ever made, but it's pushing 80+ years old. New BT-67 turbo versions may continue to fly for decades to come.www.flightradar24.com
Flightengineer
Well-Known Member
I've also been associated with the warbirds restorers here for a long time, and agree with all your words.
The only point is that the gradual renewal and replacement gradually lead to survives very little of what it was at the beginning when plane roll out from plant. For example, in our flying IL-2, approximately 20% of the original remains, everything else has been replaced or made anew ... if she will fly long years and will not finde one day new home in aviation museum, then one day, only nameplates in the cockpits and a pair of antennas will remain from original on these birds.
Micawber
Well-Known Member
Pa12
Well-Known Member
This is true. But there are lots of excellent original examples safely tucked away in museums. I’d like to see the flying examples keep flying regardless of wether the parts are original. And really, a great deal of the parts and components are replaced several times in an aircraft’s operational history anyway. Either time expired or failures. Serialized components such as engines, props etc , would be swapped out for new or overhauled ones. All the components it came with out of the factory would rarely end up back on the same aircraft once removed. The only exception is in modern times when a leased aircraft goes back to the leasing company. They usually want the same engines and props put back on when returned. On vintage cars people pay a premium for “matching numbers”, meaning the original engine ,tranny etc are the serial numbered units that were on it when it left the factory. Not the case with aircraft generally. Cars were designed to be driven until they’re done and then scrapped out. Aircraft are a compilation of replaceable components. I think the ultimate demise of these aircraft will be the lack of interest in future generations. Seems the further we get from the 40’s , the less people are interested. You wouldn’t believe how many young guys I’ve worked with (aircraft mechanics) who don’t know what a p-51, or b-17 is. I was absolutely flabbergasted. Every person of my generation, wether they’re interested in aircraft or not, can recognize many ww2 aircraft types by name. Times are a changin.
Flightengineer
Well-Known Member
Here is the same shit (I'm talking about the most of today's young). At the end of my career, I was amazed that young pilots who had just joined our airline didn't know not only many historical aircraft, but also the names of people who were inscribed in golden letters in the history of aviation- names which in my childhood was known not only by every pilot or technician, but every schoolchild.
Pa12
Well-Known Member
It’s sad. Even Yeager is unknown.
Flightengineer
Well-Known Member
Another time, another idols for many of them. It is also sad that most young now come to the cockpit first of all for a big salary (and only second reason cause they want to fly and cannot live without flights and the sky). Not all, but many...many. It used to be exactly the opposite
Chandler
Well-Known Member
Sound barrier? What's that?
Pa12
Well-Known Member
The mute on their phones
Nickb123
Well-Known Member
Funny semi-related story.
My mom had a friend, an airline stewardess. On one flight she noticed a man sitting in first class looking uncomfortable.
She approached the man, and asked him “do you do much flying?”
He replied, “I’ve done some.”
When she walked over to the other flight attendants and relayed her observation they all snickered and said, “Do you know who that man was?”
It was Charles Lindbergh.
My mom had a friend, an airline stewardess. On one flight she noticed a man sitting in first class looking uncomfortable.
She approached the man, and asked him “do you do much flying?”
He replied, “I’ve done some.”
When she walked over to the other flight attendants and relayed her observation they all snickered and said, “Do you know who that man was?”
It was Charles Lindbergh.
Pa12
Well-Known Member
Chandler
Well-Known Member
Probably nervous because he wasn't behind the yoke.
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