[What's the last book you read?]

I just returned to the world of physical books after an eye condition had earlier favored e-books (where font size/type/color can be optimized). Wow, what a primitive technology! The heavy weight and tiny fonts are bad enough, but also I wonder where all those stains came from on library books. Reminds me of the US TV episode of Office where the boss lights up his hotel room for a party with just UV blacklight. It highlighted florescent splotches all over bedspread, furniture etc, which he is told is likely semen or blood. "I hope it's blood" is his feeble conclusion. Well, I hope it's coffee.

 

Anyway I want to highlight "Inside the Third Reich" memoir by Speer. It does have some Roman connections due to the theme of Euro integration, as well as connection to the present crises of disintegration with left vs right remedies. I haven't finished, but sometimes better to discuss during impressionable mid-read rather than the sometimes numbing rush to finish it. Before I forget, I just read how Goering had taken classical pieces (surely Roman sculptures) from Naples museum for his own collection - I hope they were returned OK.

 

The gist of the book is how architect Albert Speer experienced Hitler's inner circle during the 1930's thru mid 40's. Speer and Goebbels stand out as relatively cultured intellectuals in this circle of twisted anti-intellectual thugs and mediocritats, so it can be interesting to how they interpreted the Nazi drama. I may follow up on Goebbels next - although he could be even more evil than Hitler on various issues, he was against the invasion of Poland. He devised revolutionary campaign techniques still used today like bringing candidates to the people by way of airplane and media (then radio). I even detected a revival of some of his other tricks in the 2008 Obama campaign employing planted stories in NPR and NYT (maybe Soros remembered how they impacted WW2 Hungary, and recommended).

 

Speer was a architect, maybe of little artistic talent, but could wow Nazi bigwigs by throwing together vanity projects insanely fast with double construction shifts, etc. He had some interest in Roman revival and got Hitler to approve guidelines to make prestige buildings decay a thousand years hence like Roman ruins (minimize ugly rebar, overdesign walls to survive roof collapse). He both socialized and worked with the most famous Nazi's (he is remorseful and pleads being star-struck) so has endless insider views.

 

Speer's conclusions will be familiar because they are often repeated, but the book puts memorable flesh on the bone. Quirky stuff that is too strange for fiction - like how Hitler banishes deputy Hess from his dinner parties in a rage because Hess is a different kind of vegetarian and brings his own food. Hitler is vegetarian who has no qualms serving meat to "carrion eaters", but woe to any vegetarian rejecting the Hitler approved veggy selections. Hess just couldn't fit in and eventually sat out the war in England.

 

OK, enough of that. Let me make a few honorable mentions. I am following an audio verson of Third Reich at War, which NYTimes describes as "riveting final volume to Richard J. Evans's magisterial trilogy illuminates the endless human capacity for evil and self-justification." It doesn't dwell on the well known themes of troop movements or systematic atrocities, but the lesser known aspects of everything from informal atrocities to financing armaments to being bombed until asphalt streets melt and trap walkers like the mammoths in the La brea tar pits. Very engrossing, but some parts painful enough to tempt a fast forward.

 

Evans got me wondering how such fascist (and bolshevik) awfulness could arise. I realize the middle way was considered a failure, and that left polarized extremes, but such traditional explanations don't quite click or seemed kind of stale. So besides pursuing the high level Nazi angle, I wanted a fresh look at wider Europe. I took a stab at several books titled Mussolini and after some poorly written ones, think I have found an acceptable one (too early to denote).

 

I looked for books on the Spanish Civil War, but at first found only blatant bias. I can groove with being anti-fascist but that does not justify sanctifying opponents who vandalized and terrorized the middle. The first few books seemed to think you just couldn't get enough bayoneting of nuns, until I found a more balanced, award-winning "The Battle for Spain" by Beevor. I guess he is said to be sympathetic to the anarchist element, but for me he lays out an understandable historical vista of Europe's falling empires, economies, and the collapse of moderation in favor of entrenched traditionalists vs bolsheviks. In an oblique form, I think it sheds light on WW2 and even today.

 

Lucky for us the moderate center hasn't collapsed, and thru non-violent means a corrective cycle can proceed. Populist democracy recently brought unsustainable socialist utopianism to peripheral Europe and to the US, but Darwinian reality has been able exert push-back (to some traditional stuff as well).

[A new food for the world]

You must give a name to this thing

Apple Foam

Apple Sparkle

Apple Cake

Apple Fizz

Apple Dream

Apple Cloud

Apple Chuckle

Apple Garum

Calvadocious

Pomedocious

Pome Slime

Saucy Apple

 

Pressurized apple sauce might be a good picnic novelty. Add yeast mixture with little headroom. At your destination find the leather awl foldout on a Swiss knife... and stab the plastic container!. Squirt sauce thru the air into your or a companions mouth, like with a wineskin. (not tested)

 

P.S. if the container gets over pressured against your intentions, there is a way to prevent it from spraying too badly upon opening. You can tap it (slam it?) down on a table and tease the bubbles to consolidate at the top. So you can restore most of the headroom, and briefly vent the top. At that point, it will probably reinflate the sauce with bubbles, so you can close it back and tap down some more.

[Top Five fighters of WWII and why]

I find it both remarkable that theories like 'radiator thrust' only emerged in the last couple of decadss along with the rise of the internet and the self-appointed expert.

Edgar Schmued (chief design engineer on the P-51) and Edward Horkey calculated that an aerodynamic duct formed at the entry and exit of the radiator could provide up to 300 lbs of thrust by utilizing ram air to eject the warmed airflow and thus overcome the drag offered to the fuselage by the duct itself.

the British did not use this innovation and left it to his company to exploit in the design of the P51's radiator duct (the so called 'Meredith Effect'). He told an amusing anecdote <...> regarding this. Apparently, he met Willi Messerschmitt after the war who told him that the Germans couldn't figure out why the Mustang was so fast (in relation to its installed power) - they had stripped it down to the last nut and bolt but hadn't thought the shape of the radiator duct significant.

So if it wasn't the laminar flow wing that gave it it's high speed and

extensive range, what was it?

 

The most prominent speed secret was the dramatic reduction of cooling

drag. Placing the airscoop on the belly just in front of the rear edge

of the wing removed it as far as was practicable from the turbulence of

the prop and placed it in a high pressure zone which augmented air

inflow. Tests in the wind tunnel with the initial flush mounted scoop

were disappointing. There was so much turbulence that cooling was

inadequate and some doubted that the belly scoop would work. The

breakthrough was to space the scoop away from the surface of the belly

out of the turbulent boundary layer of the fuselage. Further testing

showed that spacing it further out would increase cooling but at a cost

to overall drag. Various wind tunnel tests established the spacing at

the current distance which represents the best compromise between

spacing out from the turbulent flow of the fuselage, drag and airflow.

 

With the flow into the scoop now smooth and relatively nonturbulent,

the duct leading to the radiator/oil cooler/intercooler was carefully

shaped to slow the air down (the duct shape moves from narrow to wide,

in other words a plenum chamber) enough from the high external speeds

to speeds through the heat exchangers that allowed the flow to extract

maximum heat from the coolant. As the air passed through the radiators

and became heated, it expanded. The duct shape aft of the radiator

forced this heated and expanded air into a narrow passage which gave it

considerable thrust as it exited the exhaust port. The exhaust port

incorporated a movable hinged door that opened automatically depending

on engine temperature to augment the airflow. The thrust realised from

this "jet" of heated air was first postulated by a British

aerodynamicist in 1935. The realization of thrust from suitably

shaped air coolant passages is named after him and called the "Meredith

Effect".

"The thermodynamic effect of the engine cooling was well-known in the 1920s and 1930s and in fact had been first pointed out by Hugo Junkers in 1915 when he acquired a patent for the "D

[A new food for the world]

the yeast I use won't find enough moisture to fully dissolve (maybe I should try another kind), so I have taken to spike it with a bit of a fruit juice chaser like cranberry.

Health Alert: using the common "active dry yeast" you want to be sure to rehydrate it before mixing with applesauce. Layer juice over the applesauce, then top with yeast to sit a while before shaking up or inverting. Or ferment the juice/water before adding. Otherwise some yeast may not get activated until in your gut and give gas pain. Stomach acid won't kill all of it since it is tougher than "instant yeast" (which is a preferable but more expensive new product).

 

The bubbles can give the sauce a thick consistency like moist bread for some reason

I think I understand this happy process now. The applesauce gets foamed up with CO2, then the uppermost levels drain applejuice down the cell walls formed by the fiber. Thus the top level becomes a rich "sponge cake" with a sort of banana bread flavor. The middle level has an addictive whipped cream consistancy, but is subject to collapse when spooned out because of more juice to pulp ratio. The bottom is a juicy gruel that is maybe best relegated to a fridge overnight to see if it evolves into something interesting. Reminds me of the Seinfeld muffin top episode - what to do with the bottoms after cherry picking the delicious tops. You can control the top thickness by amount of juice - maybe remove 15 or 20% of applesauce for expansion and restore 5% with liquid for best results.

[Detailed guide to Pompeii?]

The rest of my saved pompeii travel links:

 

Excavator blog (offering free old guidebooks to scholars) http://bloggingpompeii.blogspot.com/

 

Reservation site for touring closed villas http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.arethusa.net%2Farethusa%2Fhome.html&sl=it&tl=en Maybe you can just ask for any open slots on arrival to museum?

 

Select the structure to which you want to make a reservation

 

Events in Pompeii:

 

Suburban Baths

House of the Prince of Naples

Don't forget the official pompeii museum site for current info on the satellite sites Oplontis (do not miss!), Stabia, and Boscoreale. Maybe they mention various closures due to villas having collapsed in the rain, etc.

[Detailed guide to Pompeii?]

any online resources that list more than 100 buildings?

This goes in much depth on each neighborhood with individual building visuals (even when damaged since excavation) http://sites.google.com/site/ad79eruption/pompeii/map-of-pompeii

 

This resource list may have more http://www.skidmore.edu/classics/courses/2004spring/cl311/resources.html

[Top Five fighters of WWII and why]

You cannot achieve thrust by creating drag. Radiators create drag. They are designed to cool engines. They are not engines in themselves. You do not obtain thrust from radiators. All you casn achieve is to minimise drag. You cannot create thrust by forward motion alone - that breaks the laws of physics no matter what that article claims - in order to change interia, you need to add force by using additional energy, and since a radiator is designed to dissipate that energy, I don't see any evidence for your statements.

 

Incidentially your estimations of aeroplane factors aremn't that accurate. The P47 is, according to you, a draggy aeroplane. That was a criticism applied to radial engined fighters before WW2, and it was proved wrong. The teardrop shape is better aerodynamically than that despite the blunt face (which allows some air passage through it via cooling gills) and if proof were needed, I would like to point out that the P47 accelerated well and had a high top speed, so clearly drag was not that great an issue.

Where are peoples proposals for top 5 fighters? Boring to quibble like lawyers back and forth about my initial words - let's see constructive cases made for a p-38 or la-7 or something. I have explained my proposals clearly enough and linked to supporting references for points in controversy. If words fail to get my points across, I give up and can only offer pictures...

 

Below I will depict

1) NASA (naca in 1941) model proving radiator thrust, using electric heating element to simulate radiator

2) successful Tory-IIC nuclear powered ramjet (eg. propulsive duct, thermal jet, stovepipe jet)

3) flat nosed standard p47 (draggy fuel hog replaced ASAP by sleek merlin p-51 for long escort missions)

4) sleek 500+mph xp-47j when they got ducted fan religion (still big turbo scoop)

5) supersleek xp-72 with scoop moved out of nose (xp-47 follow on... these had longer, slimmer radials)

6) slim Corsair with big p47 type engine more tightly cowled, and scoop relocated to wing leading edges

7) stubby late war Bearcat with flat nose

8) sleek post war racing Bearcat (probably internal fan to assist slim duct area)

9) sleek ducted radial Hawker Tempest2... a (US) pilot scored 11.5 kills in one (p47 in background)

 

 

[Top Five fighters of WWII and why]

 

Anyway, how about I pull together MY BEST FIGHTER CANDIDATES in an ordered list with consistant template of issues. And they don't all have to be pretty-boys like the Spitfire. Spitfire beauty does reflect good design principles, but would you believe the above asymmetrical BV-141 is a successful too - it balances out the tendancy of propeller torque to turn left. I won't fact check everything on this list and will let eccentricity run rampant, so feel free to put up alternatives. Knock out two (first and last?) and you have 5.

 

1. Tempest2
   
   • KILL RATE: significant, but mainly it's own pilots when passed on unperfected to postwar India
     
   • WING EFFICIENCY: good
     
   • BODY DRAG: great for a radial engine, with a tight ducted fan cowling
     
   • POWER: lightweight robust radial
     
   • QUIRKS: not debugged or battle tested enough by war end, and an unfair preference by me
     

[*]Corsair

• KILL RATE: hurt it's own pilots until perfected kind of late in the war to find many targets
  
• WING EFFICIENCY: poor; draggy inverse gull wing; was optimized for sturdy stance on carrier.
  
• BODY DRAG: fairly tight cowl (no duct fan though) and clever cooling vents in wing leading edge.
  
• POWER: massive double radial with battle damage robustness
  
• QUIRKS: I think it had amazing potential not fully proven due to Pacific war wind down
  

[*]P-51

• KILL RATE: great
  
• WING EFFICIENCY: excellant laminar flow design with room for storage.
  
• BODY DRAG: pretty sleek, with oil cooler somewhat obtrusive
  
• POWER: great engine but with water cooled vulnerability
  
• QUIRKS: amazing range
  

[*]Fw-190

• KILL RATE: great
  
• WING EFFICIENCY: criticized as too short (high wing load) but fine to chase bombers
  
• BODY DRAG: efficient with innovative tight ducted fan cowl over radial
  
• POWER: great robust radial (sometimes replaced with inline)
  
• QUIRKS: propeller torque yawed it a lot to the left due to lightweight + radial
  

[*]P-47

• KILL RATE: good
  
• WING EFFICIENCY: good
  
• BODY DRAG: nasty; wide cowl for radial plus turbo which was bigger than bomber equivilents
  
• POWER: massive robust radial
  
• QUIRKS: heavy and sluggish until big paddle prop was introduced. 8 machine guns.
  

[*]Spitfire

• KILL RATE: good
  
• WING EFFICIENCY: excellant but expensive unroomy eliptical, later replaced by laminar flow
  
• BODY DRAG: excellant
  
• POWER: very good, but vulnerable water cooling
  
• QUIRKS: sleekness meant short range, and big engine upgrades hurt handling
  

[*]Bf-109, Hurricane, Hellcat, Zero

• KILL RATE: great
  
• QUIRKS: ageing technology, eg. light Zero could barely dive or turn right (major prop torque)
  

 

Weight means very little regarding dive performance since the aeroplane is accelerating faster than gravitional pull.

I doubt they go faster than gravitational pull. The below suggests to me that weight is always helping push you into a faster dive. But GRANTED the effect will be small and sometimes washed out by factors of a low drag design or powerful engine.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_%28physics%29 sez "Note that the power needed to push an object through a fluid increases as the cube of the velocity." and "velocity asymptotically approaches a maximum value". With grav pull adding 22mph every second, you'd redline at 500mph in 23 seconds of freefall. If diving at an angle maintaining freefall you would tear off your wings sooner than that due to covering more diagonal distance per second. I believe this would happen in less than 15+K feet shown in the P51 dive diagrams. If furthermore a WW2 propeller can thrust almost it's own aircraft's weight in a climb, then it could accumulate 2G going down in a drag free world. That would halve the numbers above, leading to wings off on a dive of as little as 10 seconds.

 

I can see the phrase 'net thrust' is causing confusion.

Net thrust means the vent thrust exceeds the vent drag (sort of like a net profit), which I was denying. The Spitfire article on wiki says what I was affirming by reversing the phraseology "this used the cooling air to generate thrust, greatly reducing the NET DRAG produced by the radiators". That should clarify the meaning, regardless of factual disagreements (I don't like their word "greatly").

[Top Five fighters of WWII and why]

I would suggest you be more discerning in your choice of sources when learning about aeroplanes, and get some instruction on the fundamentals of physics and aerodynamics which you clearly lack. Coming out with this sort of stuff doesn;'t impress me. I might not be an expert as such, but I have dealth with aircraft design before and have practical experience of aviation spanning some thirty years or more. Also, I remember the time when people read aviation publications that were written by serious authors, not sensationalist journalists chasing ideas on the internet.

Wow, you don't accept that actual p51 manual link as a good source. Pretty serious p47 book too in my link. These and the documentary reference aren't the source of my knowledge, but an attempt to point to shared or verifiable sources. So you didn't see or believe the Dogfights documentary - they often had the actual pilots giving accounts which I have read before, so can filter out the bombast. I used to check out 5 ww2 books a week from an air force library in the 1960's but I can't now reference page numbers for you out of Robert Johnsons "Thunderbolt", whozits "Stuka", or whoevers "Hurricane" for example.

 

Also I flew in that air base's aero club 42 years ago, even as a civilian kid too young to legally drive cars. It was crazy - There could be a military scramble at any moment, and I almost sheared off the landing gear on an arrester cable at the beginning of the runway (didn't know B-52's used them for overrun protection). They did make me solo offbase however, and I really learned more since then on gliders where engines can't pull you out of a jam. Now I remember the club had a ww2 trainer plane that I was too timid to sign up for time on, although I did have a ww2 pilot for ground school class. Most of the questions I missed on the pilots lic written test were about obsolete symbols only used on ww2 era training bases.

 

Anyway back to the fighter comparison. Here is a source of some juicy comparison teasers http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/ . Oh, mercy... it probably has some flaws! But it is handy in a quick search vs the famous hardcover books we may have seen of UK, US, and German comparison tests or vs oral or newsgroup or ipod accounts. That reminds me... there are a lot of good ww2 aircraft lecture recordings on military museum sites, and I have listened to umpteen hours (maybe with fuzzy recall though).

 

54. The Thunderbolt has a greater radius of action at all engine settings and at all heights

 

Acceleration in straight and level flight

 

56. The Tempest has an advantage at all heights. Even at high altitude where the Thunderbolt is faster, the Tempest pulls away initially.

 

Zoom Climbs

 

58. At low altitudes and equal power the Thunderbolt has a slight advantage, but at full power and at high altitudes the Tempest has a definite advantage.

 

Dive

 

59. The Tempest II always out-dives the Thunderbolt, the advantage being more marked at full throttle.

 

Turning Circle

 

60. The Tempest II can always out-turn the Thunderbolt, the advantage being more marked to the left.

 

Manoeuvrability

 

65. The Tempest II is easy to fly and handles pleasantly in all manoeuvres. Its very high speed has been achieved with moderate wing loading and a high degree of manoeuvrability has therefore been retained. This aircraft, however, can never be equal in this respect to the current "Ju Jitsu" Japanese fighter which has sacrificed speed and armour for exaggerated manoeuvrability.

[Entry to South /West Palatine area]

Is it possible that we're talking about two Stadia of Domitian? One that forms the outline of the Piazza Navona and the other in the area of the Palatine? Can anyone clarify this?

Must mean the hippodrome high up on the hill http://romeitaly.ca/attractions/stadiumofdomitian.html

I wonder if you can descend inside now - I always have been able to peer in.

 

Don't forget the upper (NE?) corner overlooking the Colosseum where an unobtrusive hole is now signposted as the probable location of Nero's famous dining room with rotating roof. Can see how the mechanism might work, although it looks a bit small. Also the lower level area opposite the Colosseum has huge temples opening just after my last visit.

[Cargo Ship off Albania]

http://news.yahoo.com/roman-wreck-full-wine-jars-found-off-albania-144452643.html

 

Roman wine ship found and declared "among the top 10 most scientifically interesting wrecks found in the Mediterranean". Albanian coast described as rich in underwater archeology, and more finds are expected.

[Top Five fighters of WWII and why]

The effect is insignificant. Unfortunately for fans of jet mustangs, there's something called thermodynamics which gets in the way. Part of that is the fact you cannot get something for nothing. In order to provide thrust you need to supply energy in such a way as to push the aeroplane forward. The whole point of a radiator is to get rid of that heat. There is no function of a radiator that mysteriously pushes an aeroplane forward. If you ran a mustang on the ground without a propellor, I guarantee it won't go anywhere. Quite why anyone imagines a P51 has anything in common with a nuclear thermal rocket is beyond me.

Significance: I said that some claim there was a bit of thrust. A bit, as in cancelling out the drag of a few rivets. Typical thing that raceplane designers do to just get that 1mph edge at any cost. Like eliptical wings - sounds like Meridith-chasing originated at Supermarine and was foisted onto North American during the Brit P-51 order.

 

Fanhood: I called P-51 a tiresome candidate, beloved by many so at least needing discussion. I don't like it, but respect it. A long p-51 evaluation in Smithsonian Air&Space magazine was not entirely glowing, but I have long lost it. I recall they did the same for the Zero and punctured some myths there to - the designer didn't intend for such a light fragile craft but was driven to desperation when the original engine proved weak.

 

Meridith: If you click on the nasa.gov footnote in my Meridith link, you would see pictures and discussion of 1941 electric powered "open-duct jet propulsion" (now called ramjet) which uses no combustion at all and becomes especially effective by mach .75. It ran at 300 degrees, but the temperature "difference" is key so maybe hot p51 oil in -50 degree ambient air at full combat speeds starts to get efficient. Another source claims measurable performance at one half mach, but like you say none at all at rest. As for the nuclear option, look up Tory-IIC nuclear ramjet which is simply an air pipe with hot uranium instead of combustion. In spite of proving itself for 5 minutes at full power, US green extremists squashed the dream of having those spewing overhead.

 

The P51 wasn't designed for transonic speeds. No-one in 1941 knew anything about transonic flight or even if it was possible.

This is a really famous issue for p-47 and p-38 in dives. You can see transonic dangers elaborated over many pages in the P-51 flight manual (link below), although it is called "compressibility". They basically say at 0.75 mach some of the air funnels over airframe bulges around mach 1.0 and you are going to die unless doing so and so procedures. They have many explanatory pictures if you scroll upwards, including how P-51 laminar type wing delays this critical mach onset vs all other aircraft. I speculate it's worst possible oil duct location may be the limiting factor. But I don't care what they knew - I am judging bestness not best effort. http://books.google.com/books?id=SfwqCTY9I6MC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=compressibility+p-51&source=bl&ots=hOFFTwYSE_&sig=BHmEe5LoThoB6pcOdv6R7LRnqwE&hl=en&ei=hcZSTouCFeHliAL-rLBt&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CFcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=compressibility%20p-51&f=false

 

The Hellcat was still a capable aeroplane in 1945 if not a podium finish anymore, such is the progress of performance. I would like to point out that removal of a type from service removes those airframes from action, and unless you can have better replacements available, you have no choice but to contiue using the older ones. In any case, the Hellcat was not regarded as a poor design, and remained competitive at the end of the war because it was still flying against older japanese aircraft. The japanese were never able to supply their newer and more capable aeroplanes wholesale.

 

If moved to the European theater I think the Hellcat would be hopelessly mauled, yet the (late-late model) Corsair might be king of all. Hellcat couldn't engage in normal dogfights - it's tactics relied on things like dive at the enemy then flee or the thatch weave. Japanese planes couldn't dive fast - light weight relative to drag gives a low terminal velocity hard to overcome without gobs of power. The Corsair packaged that massive 2000hp double radial in much sleeker, lighter, and more nimble package than similar engined p-47. I have seen it carve pretzels in the air yet speed away like a drag racer. It reminds me of seeing a canard equipped Saab jet demo - unbelievable maneuverability and straight speed. In the Corsair case, instead of canards they relied on pilots who could handle a difficult plane without easy stability.

 

High altitude performace is necessary if the enemy are going to fly higher than you. Further, as an escort fighter, high altitude performance was necessary to protect high flying bomber formations. Further, air begins to thin appreciably from 8000ft above sea level thus to be competitive at twice that height, the only way to derive maximum output from an engine was to supercharge it in some way, and the P47 employed turbines for that purpose. Ducts do not provide any particular protection for the pilot being built of sheet metail which is easily penetrated by cannon rounds. Weight means very little regarding dive performance since the aeroplane is accelerating faster than gravitional pull.

I can't find the reference now, but I read the P-47 extreme, over-the-top turbocharger wasn't deemed helpful in combat - they preferred lesser supercharged p-51 instead. I can't reference everything - maybe the Nazi competition wasn't turbocharged or suffered from their lower octane? It was far more bulky implementation than other turbos which only gave them diminishing returns. Anyway the p-47s shifted to low altitude ground attack. Here is a link below depicting the massive p47 ductwork and how it shielded battle damage and smoothed belly landings in actual experience (scroll up). http://books.google.com/books?id=Sq5pPTWlbqAC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=p47+supercharger+ducts&source=bl&ots=mHYtOcTUIK&sig=d9trjkfU7gXs5JvQuduObGkXJJE&hl=en&ei=otBSToHdNOnUiAK0hMjuDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

I seem to recall you were statistically almost safer flying a p-47 in combat than driving at home after a few beers on Sat night. The dogfights documentary series covered a p-47 under relentless attack that simply flew home while Germans emptied their magazines into him. I think a deflection shot could have penetrated the ductwork into the pilot, but it was hard to even see where the pilots body was in that huge mass.

 

I question weight not helping in power dives. Weight was a famous dive advantage in published tactics for large US fighters - even without power it tends to give you a higher terminal velocity. You are fighting a lot of drag even in a dive, so will need plenty of power to achieve that magical state of acceleration you would experience while falling in a vacuum. After that, weight would indeed detract your further acceleration, so maybe a little Storch can dive best of all? No, you may need to have power to weight ratio more than 1 to achieve that (thus can climb straight up without losing speed) which I don't think was the case.

[Top Five fighters of WWII and why]

I forgot all about sea furys and Tempests, assuming we were talking best piston engined fighter of WWII - although I concede, the Tempest did see limited action before May '45. Typhoons I believe were a bit lacking in manoevrability compared to the Mk. XIV Spitfire. When I was at Duxford last year, the fighter that impressed me the most was actually the P47. Chunky body, 12ft. prop and massive radial enginne - its just a no nonsense beast that, with its eight .50 Brownings, could knock a steam engine off its tracks.

The BBC quote in question is: "The Spitfire is one of the most vaunted examples of British engineering's history. The greatest ever single-seat, piston-engined fighter, it had played a vital role during the Battle of Britain the year before." No restriction to WW2, although how do you prove greatness without that test. No distinction of interceptor vs ground attack vs escort fighter, although how to compare between classes. So we can't get overly serious about it, but fun to brainstorm.

 

I think Duxford has US planes all sequestered in one hanger, with so much metal polish they seem like showpieces rather than warbirds. The Hendon RAF museum (alight at Colindale, not Hendon London underground stop) has a P-47 right next to a Tempest2. That Tempest2 stole my heart, even though my head favors P-47 as what I would have done best with. Tempest2's tight radial cowl using ducted fan for cooling is so, er, cool. First on the Fw190, then picked up by Hawker, and even attempted once on a post war P-47 (looked silly) - I think it was the ultimate answer for piston technology.

 

P.S. I may have an anti eliptical bias vs the Spitfire because an acquaintance of mine terrorized the paragliding industry in early 1990's with his patent on eliptical canopies. I think it is an obvious ideal shape based on physics that shouldn't be patentable, but simply used as the default if you don't have important other issues driving the design. I heard he had initial success in getting some fat royalties, but I suspect his claim since fell apart. Some late model Spitfires departed from elipticality.

[Top Five fighters of WWII and why]

In other words, the only way to get thrust from a radiator is to dump fuel into the back of it and ignite it.

It is called the Meridith effect, and was apparently introduced in the Spitfire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Effect . Same principle as a nuclear thermal rocket - apply a heat source to incoming fluid and expel the expanding fluid in a way that provides some thrust without stagnanting the incoming fluid flow. I think some confusion comes from sloppy wording that implies oil coolers provide NET thrust rather than a partial offset of the vent's drag. I speculate that the Spitfire offsets a tiny part of the oil cooler drag, and the Mustang offsets a small amount.

 

The position of P-51 oil cooler always bothered me because it creates the worst possible "area rule" for transonic drag. The cooler vent coincides with the wing and canopy in a cross sectional view, and maybe restrict the max dive speed due to max pressure-wave creation. Is it the Spitfire that has that weird assymetrical cooler location under one wing (or Hurricane)? Seemed strange to me until I thought it might help to balance torque by countering yaw. Sort of like that weird Nazi (B&V?) plane with engine on one side and cockpit on the other - I think they put the draggy part to port which balanced propeller torque.

 

As for the mighty but unloved Corsair, I only consider it a contender in the last year of the war when they fixed a scary assymetric spin/stall pitfall with what wiki describes as "These potentially lethal characteristics were later solved through the addition of a small, 6 in (150 mm)-long stall strip to the leading edge of the outer starboard wing". Before then it had an accident rate many times that of combat losses. By the last year, surely you gotta consider Hellcat as an old duffer - oddly it was hardly changed from it's early introduction yet had a huge kill rate. Oh, that reminds me the Bearcat could be argued as best prop fighter. But the corsair was still used in combat as late as 1969 (shot down a mustang), while Spitfires were pulled out of combat patrols in 1954 (unlike Sea Furies).

 

Turbocharger locaton was the rear in P-47 IIRC, as opposed to more midpoint for P-38. I wish I could find again an amazing semitransparent color coded drawing of the P-47 ductwork, wrapping around the pilot and under the wings to and fro. They were very wide ducts in order to create free flow efficiency. Air came into the cowling which was extra large for this (unlike the Corsair which sipped it's tc/oil air thru wing inlets). Massive ducts brought air to rear for compression, then returned all the way forward to feed the engine. The engine expelled this air into exhaust piped to the rear to power the turbocharger - three lengthwise trips! All for ultimate high altitude performance that wasn't needed. Ducts, etc gave a lot of pilot protection and weight for diving - I would be happy to experience it's great safety record during the war.

[Rating Rome on Fukuyama's Ideals of Governance]

Athens : low - high - medium

Sparta : low - medium - medium

Thanks for the reality check on Athens. I think Fukuyama is too dismissive of Rome and England, maybe in a spirit of multicultural revisionism. I would like to revive the place of Rome using his own framework; he seems to leave room for interpretation based on the spirit of the rules rather than just literal. Surely the Roman republic was mostly a shining step forward in good governance and state building.

 

Oddly, he seems to applaud French revolution executions of aristocracy due to them always passing power and property to their children - can't we more appreciate the way England or the US reduced inherited power and turned loyalties toward the state or is that too stuffy and traditional? He praises accountability of ancient Chinese emperors (well, at least a couple) based on fuzzy notions of their morality rather than explicit procedures. However he does consider the current China situation as dangerously unaccountable, with possibility to go unstable with an unlucky change of rulers.

[Rating Rome on Fukuyama's Ideals of Governance]

Francis Fukuyama is a famous political scientist with a simple theory of ideal governance, as discussed in book/video http://www.booktv.org/Watch/12427/The+Origins+of+Political+Order+From+Prehuman+Times+to+the+French+Revolution.aspx . In summary, he looks for statehood, rule of law. and accountability.

 

He apparently rates Greece, Rome, and England lower than usual on the evolution of governance (England succeeded by a fluke), and rated institutions like ancient China, Ottoman empire, and medieval Catholic church higher than usual (barely missed ideals). He doesn't think democracy is always the best form of accountability (maybe stabbing Caesar or Caligula is as good as Greek voting?). He doesn't think bigger is better for statehood, altruism just has to extend beyond genetic kinship ties. And rule of law was normally religious because it has to absolutely overrule all political machinations.

 

I wonder if we can make a case to restore primacy to Rome using those same principles, maybe using the hook of Rome's boosting of the Catholic church. He saw the reforming pope Gregory7 as starting the return of rule of law to Europe (both on religious and secular tracks). A lot of it was done thru those odd celibacy rules which is also what Ottomans demanded from certain rulers. This promotes statehood when they have no children to subvert loyalty of the powerful to kin rather the greater state. Anyway, I wonder if we speculate that Constantine wanted the church to be in place partly to play the check and balance role it did in medieval politics?

 

BTW he points to early periods of Chinese history as having a great state, so-so accountibility, but lousy rule of law (no religious constraint on emperors). It all came together in England, but under such accidental conditions that it shouldn't be used as a recipe for developing countries. Leave democracy for last, get your state in order first (not so big as to merge conflicting values, such as Greek vs. Danish retirement practices?). Get a bulletproof rule of law before democracy. Don't dwell only on individual votes for accountability.

 

So would anyone like to non-cynically rate historical regimes on statehood, rule of law, accountability... eg:

England: high, high, high

China: high, low, medium

RomeRepublic: high, med, med

RomeEmpire: med, varied, med

Greece: ? ? ?

[Top Five fighters of WWII and why]

It is remarkable for a fighter initially designed as a commercial competitor to the P40 for the european market at short notice, that it proved to be such an adaptable and capable design.

Well, some say the laminar (non turbulent) flow airfoil design did the trick but others say laminarity was lost the moment you hit some insects or raindrops. Others claim the oil cooler cancelled out it's drag with a bit of hot air thrust vs. much draggier competing designs. But it was really key that Mustangs needed the British engine upgrade or else it was mediocre.

 

So I speculate that the Corsair maybe should be the unsung hero American design. It packaged the same monster radial engine in a much sleeker package than the bloated P-47. The P-47 was eccentrically optimized around an efficient turbocharger in it's tail, which required huge internal air ducts going back and forth. Yet it didn't really need to sacrifice everything for high altitude - it became a ground strafer.

 

The Corsair had more problems than poor landing visibility - there was some scary aerodynamic pitfalls that were only cured late (sudden spins?). After that I think it became awesome, at least in the hands of an expert. I could barely believe my eyes watching a demo flight (I have been an airshow fanatic for decades and soloed at age 15). A possible clue for it's downplay came from a pilot interview who said he felt safer in the Hellcat. That is a low performance aircraft, but maybe adaquate for the weak competition near end of war... and built like a tank so an oversight of enemy on your tail wouldn't end your prospects of going home alive.

 

But the radial Corsair was more survivable than either Mustang or Spitfire in the other theater of war. And let's not overlook other issues like the crude flight computer of FW190. I believe the throttle had fancy linkage to something like mixture or prop pitch or some other controls. Then you could slam it forward when spying the enemy, vs a bunch of fiddling in other aircraft that could result in you missing sight of the opponent before reving up. I think one of the last stretched Fw models (but before the Ta152) was a good contender.

 

To me the pretty elliptical wings on the Spitfire were kind of a gimmick. It's well known that is the best aerodynamic shape, but at what cost? You could replace the awkward inverted gull wings on a Corsair with sleek ellipticals, but maybe you would then have to remove a lot of fuel and replace the 50 calibers with 30 caliber (deer rifle category) that the early Spit's had.

 

But based on being the right tool at the right time, I might have to concede the Spitfire won WW2. That if I extrapolate from a video by (eccentric?) historian John Lukacs at http://www.booktv.org/Program/11432/The+Legacy+of+the+Second+World+War.aspx IIRC he says the Pacific theater was a sideshow and Japan never had a chance. And that Stalin admitted he couldn't conquer Germany on his own - only eliminate German expansion. German conquest required USSR plus USA (esp it's supply donations) but not the UK. However, UK played an essential role in not "losing" the war to Germany early on. And while Hurricanes had a high bomber kill count, all may have failed if there weren't just enough Spitfires with enough performance edge to keep fighters from mauling the Hurricanes

[Nazi Stealth Fighter]

note that despite some intriguing technological systems that were tested or put into service, the Germans struggled to make them a success.

I might have to read A. Speer's book about his role as Minister of Amaments. It seems he wrestled with the tradeoffs of futuristic engineering vs practical use. I read some bits about him realizing early on that US/UK/USSR manufacturing ability was going to swamp that of the German empire. One of his responses was to shut down the ambitions of engineers, drastically cutting back refinements and planned projects. He was extremely successful in raising aircraft production, even as bombing ramped up (except in German occupied France, where they could never get production above 10% of Britain).

 

Well, he had other techniques like firing department heads older than 55 and deputies older than 40 (to avoid routine and arrogance). Maybe some of these are applicable to improving business conditions today. Anyway, towards the end the emphasis had to swing back to exotic weapons because nothing else had a shred of hope except for a wild gamble.

[Top Five fighters of WWII and why]

Hmm... P51d yes, FW 190 maybe, P47 debateable, Vought Corsair debatable. Which other piston engined fighters outperformed the Supermarine Spitfire?

I am more of a Hawker fan, so permit me to mudsling. The Supermarine Spitfire was an expensive short ranged racehorse that would have been inadaquate on it's own, but served well in smaller numbers to defend Hawker Hurricanes that were doing the real bomber interception work. I say inadaquate because frills like the eliptical wing took forever to construct, which would reduce producable aircraft numbers. Also the sleek design didn't accommodate heavy upgrades in weapons and engines easily, and I hear later fast models maneuvered poorly. In spite of it's short range, I recently heard that it was a couple of Spit's that strafed Rommel's car in France - good show!

 

I'm not saying the Hurricane was better, but oh man, have you seen the Hawker Tempest 2 in the north London museum? Not the models with droop intake but the svelte ducted-radial, like an Fw-190 mated with a Spit. It had great promise, but never got the chance to be fully debugged by war end. Also what about the similar macho design Hawker Sea Fury, which not only carried over to Korean war but apparently played a big role in Castro defending Bay of Pigs 1961. OK I realize these aren't WW2 battle tested (as I was about to bring up the Fiat G55 which Kurt Tank supposedly liked enough to recommend replacing his Fw190).

 

I've seen the Corsair do mock battle with a Mustang and it was so utterly dominant that I wonder if it was more than just pilot differences. Both were uninteresting until late war refinements, then they flew in different theaters. I do realize an early version of Corsair was flown by England, and don't recall how they rated it besides wresting with the carrier landing quirks. So the Spit may have been top dog early on, but by late war I think Corsair, Mustang, and maybe a long nosed or long tailed Focke Wulf were stronger contenders.

[Nazi Stealth Fighter]

Why does everyone call them Nazi's and not just Germans?

Maybe the bf109 started as a German peoples defensive weapon, but in 1939-45 German weapon designers knew they were enabling the Nazi goals of aggression. Von Braun, Messerschmitt, Kurt Tank (best aircraft), and Ferdinand Porsche (worst tanks) are sometimes spun as well meaning folks caught up in a police state, but...

 

That was spun more positively when we needed to borrow such folks to help oppose communism. An Austrian scholar details the escape of many Nazis thru postwar Italy in book/video http://www.booktv.org/Program/12710/Nazis+on+the+Run+How+Hitlers+Henchmen+Fled+Justice.aspx where a pattern of acceptance by German speaking Italians, the vatican, and the red cross were eventually joined by the US gov't in getting such Nazi's across the Atlantic.

[Nazi Stealth Fighter]

What aspect of that story interests you? I seem to recall that old documentary as slow paced and not as good as others in it's class of Nazi leading edge engineering. Not as bad as some that bordered on science fiction, but there was a particularly good one about 2 hours long that covered many such advanced Nazi aircraft designs. Probably shown on History Military or Discovery Military channels about twice a year.

 

This makes me nostalgic for "real" documentaries, which are virtually never shown anymore on National Geographic, History, or Arts&Entertainment. It's just those "nowcasting" reality shows (whatever they are called) where cameramen follow blue collar drama queen workers doing somewhat adventurous jobs like lumberjacks or offroad truck drivers or state troopers. Oh, that and things like pawn shops and auctions are wildly topping the ratings. Military themes seem banned in favor of handbag fights by bluecollar toughs. Only the somewhat dry Smithsonian channel seems to buck the trend here.

 

Or are you thinking of the technology content? I'm fascinated by German technology, both now and WW2. My last visits to England centered on museums featuring masses of Nazi aircraft and tanks. In air and water sports I have used eccentric German technology. My present car is of the same design line that Hitler had 50 of. Although mine is used, humble, and small (especially the engine, which putters easily in stop and go traffic), it has a big teutonic SUPERcharger that turns it from a kitty to a lion at times. I don't mean one of those neanderthal TURBOchargers that teens adore, but a stealthy velvety warp drive as used by all dragsters and fuhrers ready to flee assasination attempts.

 

Or were you thinking of the historical implications? Nazi Germany was on the brink of amazing weapon technology at the end of the war. Not only fast stealthy aircraft, but long time submersable subs that would have drastically threated Atlantic convoys again (they carried their own oxygen, and were potentially going to carry missles). Maybe not nukes, but enough weaponry to hold off Allies. If you look into the details of these programs, their main holdup seemed to be cutoff of critical supply components. Not just from the derided "carpet" bombing, but time after time their oil or special metal or fabrication centers were pinpointed. Thank you Brits for blocking Rommel from oil country. Thank you Ruskies for blocking Nazi southern thrust towards oil country. Thank you Yanks who apparently did make that Norden bombsight succeed a few times.

[What the hell is going on in the UK?]

Moral values derided in the UK for decades still seem to be quite prevalent in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_mob#Legal_incidents sez that violent flash mobbing has been experienced and dealt with in the US and Germany with enforcement and preventative measures. It said in the UK it was addressed by police "urging" to refrain.

[Gender headcount imbalances]

There are observations of imbalances of gender ratios thru history or in sectors of a society. The most recent example is a deficit of perhaps 100 million baby girls in Asia - said to be due to modern sex selection technology in http://www.unfpa.org/gender/selection.html or more in depth at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/27/where_have_all_the_girls_gone?page=full .

 

But there is a Trivers-Willard explanation that could apply to not only recent times but all thru history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivers

[Rome's Pantheon may have been built as a massive sundial]

my point being, as it is aligned north - south, as opposed to being scewed or slightly offset, it does indeed function as a sundial.

There is a pantheon webcam sometimes panning the entrance from about the same angle of your photo here (although mounted lower) where you should be able to see the below effect (if not the March equinox thingy). Easily found on the web, although I like to use the android app "rome webcam" in spite of it falling out of date and not showing other Roman sites very well.

 

A similar effect is seen on April 21, which the Romans celebrated as the founding date of their city, when at midday the sun beam strikes a metal grille above the doorway, flooding the colonnaded courtyard outside with light.

[Rome's Pantheon may have been built as a massive sundial]

The oculus does indeed enable one to use the building as a sundial, and quite an accurate one, as the building faces due south.

It faces north, so the sunbeam can slant in towards the entrance from the south. I found a picture of the supposed Vatican reconstruction of the original pantheon interior, and it is obviously just a loose allusion or a mistake of intentions by a guidebook: