Hard to fly form off a Sopwith Camel in a Supermarine Spitfire.
I’d give it a go though.
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Blip SwitchBy lex, on January 3rd, 2010
34 comments to Blip Switch |
Targets of Opportunityblog advertising is good for you Credo"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones "Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra" "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche "A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier "Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas "Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex Amazon AssociateFor the Effort!Winnar! Subscribe CategoriesPagesTagsacademy
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Oh my how sweet was that. Perfect end to a blustery New England day where it has been snowing since Thursday afternoon and where the temp today never got above 16 degrees.
A gem! Just amazing how much engines developed in a generation! I hope you dropped by the mothership webpages to see the wonderful plane pr0n.
http://thevintageaviator.co.nz/
Building these aircraft seems more akin to canoe building.
Hmmm… That gives me a wonderful idea. Better get a shop built first though!
Real men, flying Real Airplanes.
It’ll be interesting to watch…the centennial of World War 1 is coming up, and while a WW2 warbird is beyond the means of most rich pilots, a WW1 replica is not. Build your Fokker D-VII, stuff in an auto engine, and you’re good-to-go.
Yeah, but could you afford the plane captain? That’s hazardous duty pay, that is.
The sound of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine is one of the great sounds in the world of machines…the hair on my neck is standing up. That unique wing design made the Spit a very graceful and agile bird as well. Lovely, just lovely.
As amazing as the Sopwith was/is, I don’t know if anything can fly next to the Spitfire and look as elegant. Of all the great aircraft designers the story of RJ Mitchell is particularly poignant. Probably well known on the site, he built the Spitfire while knowing he had terminal cancer and that Britain was on the brink of a war it was ill-prepared for. As a result he poured himself into it, knowing it would be the only thing left he could do that would matter in the world. He wanted it to be both beautiful and functionally effective, and succeeded superlatively on both counts.
In Rhinebeck New York, (on the Hudson River), there is a replica of a WW-1 Aerodrome with vintage Aeroplanes that fly. On the weekends they have a flying show: Stunt pilots, The evil Red Baron and Trudy Truelove, whatever, fun. But, the best part, you can walk around and touch stuff. They also have a museum, (really a bunch of buildings with piles of rusty engines, etc. and old original flying machines). Cool, especially for the kid in all of us.
aka “coupe switch.” Circa ’80-81 during A&P school we took a field trip to Spanaway to check out a Sopwith Pup and some other functional wood&wire birdcage airframes. The owner joked about the gyro effect that it was easier to just make a 270 to the right if you wanted to go 90 degree to the left (or something like that).
Wow.
When the Spit came into frame in the form video, ’twas a true “Eff me!” and chills up the spine. Sexy birds both, in their own right.
But the end was cool: “Very well then. I shall be closing my canopy now, and making the sexy noise with my Merlin for a bit, if you don’t mind.”
Lex,
And you didn’t like that A-65 Continental in that 7AC Champ… so I’m guessing you’d do the join up in the Spit…..
Best,
Dust
Another use for the scarf is to filter the pilots breathing air contaminated with the engines exhaust. That total loss system used castor bean oil. It not only lubricated and cleaned the engines internals it did the much the same for the pilots. A not so nice part of flying in those early days.
Love the Merlin, nothing sounds quite like it. Off to dreamland with a smile!
Quick flying question. If the Spit was having to fly on the edge of it’s stall speed to stay in a semblence of formation wouldn’t you put a bit of flaps out? Or am I perhaps thinking too hard?
Spitfires had simple split flaps (upper skin is part of the wing, lower skin has the hinged flap section). Much better at making drag than lift!
That was a great video. The comment at the end that “there was no doubt that Spitfire was the most famous aircraft of WWII” seems presumptuous. B-17s, B-29s, Corsairs, the Zero, I think there are other claims to be made.
The most famous British aircraft of the war? Sure.
Mustang!
Thunderbolt!
Mosquito!
L-4!
Fi-156!
Mustang + 1
Most strategically effective fighter ever.
Tho toward the end of the war the Temptest gave it a run for it’s money and the Bearcat would have if it had gotten into the fight in time.
No coincidence those are the Big Three at the Reno Air Races.
I still like the Hellcat best.
Nah. If you want strategic effectiveness, Old Musty can’t hold a candle to the P-38. Could do damn near anything, damn near anywhere, against damn near any kind of opposition, at ranges that even the P-51 was never able to touch. In the Southwest Pacific, P-38s escorted B-17s and B-24s on missions against targets a thousand miles away.
+1 to Scott the Badger and a vote for the SBD Dauntless.
- SJS
Speaking of Great Airplanes, Theo, yesterday, linked to some great pictures from the Udvar Hazy annex to the Air and Space Museum. Some pretty cool shots.
What a difference twenty years makes.
A magnificent sight. Also a magnificent bit of flying. And a lot of stuff I didn’t know about the WW1 generation of aeroplanes. I finally understand a little about why those engines sounded that way, as if they were always on the edge of quitting.
Exit question: when did John de Lancie move to England and become a warbird enthusiast? If that ain’t him flying the Camel, it’s his twin brother.
And then come forward another 20 years to the beasts like the Starfighter. Amazing how far things have come in so short a time. That first flight in NC was just a bit over 100 years ago.
Watching the Camel in flight, I was struck by how smoky the engine was; if you saw some current general aviation type doing it, one would worry that the engine was about to go bad, flyingwise.
I assume that they looped in sound from ground operation for the flying portions, or does the Gnome really sound that rough at cruise?
Steve,
I think they WERE worried about the engine going bad, even when it was new!
The Gnome really is that rough in cruise. Remember, these motors were more like nine-cylinder 2-cycle chain saws than 4-cycle units. Gas, air and oil mixed in the carb, through the crankshaft thence into the cylinders if my memory serves. There really wasn’t a throttle per se, just wide open and the ignition cutting out when it hit redline or we needed to reduce speed. Hence the exhaust note and the ever-present popping.
One bad thing about total-loss oil systems is the oil splattering around. Tends to make for very intense fires if that oil is ever lit off. Which it’s been known to happen. When one of these motors quits smoking is when you have to get worried, because it’s probably out of oil.
Amazing power-to-weight for the time, though, and very respectable horsepower figures for something spinning at only 1100rpm. Given metallurgy of the time, I am impressed.
– Max
Max,
You are close enough to Minnesota to know about the upsidasium mine near Frostbite Falls, where upsidasium, the anti gravity metal comes from. Think of the performance you could get out of a Sopwith Camel equipped with an R-2800 mounted on an upsidasium motor mount.
Kinda sounds like freedom to me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmFJ08E0l1k