1. #101
    WWMaxGunz's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally posted by horseback:
    A little note about 'test' pilots during WWII:

    The expression was not as tightly defined as it is today. Very few of them were degreed engineers, and even fewer were military trained.

    **And a lot of good info about those test pilots**
    Except that the ones that tested performance were the better ones they had. I the US where
    pilots were rotated back away from the front (sorry son, you got too many kills, we can't
    afford to lose you) where some did become test pilots ad some did become instructors.
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  2. #102
    WOLFMondo's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally posted by horseback:
    A little note about 'test' pilots during WWII:

    The expression was not as tightly defined as it is today. Very few of them were degreed engineers, and even fewer were military trained. They were often guys with aviation experience who had not been able to get into the military for physical reasons (in the USAAF or USN, bad teeth could exclude you) or age, or in the case of prewar employees, because they were working in a job critical to the war industry.
    All the RAE test pilots were former RAF or FAA pilots. You cannot be in the RAE without being a military pilot because its a military establishment with civilian employees! The role of the RAE was to test and proof all RAF aircraft and assist in there design and refinement. These guys were offered the job AFTER active service.

    Allot of British companies had there own test pilots, many former RAF pilots themselves or there own designers. Both Roy Chadwick (Avro) and G.Dehavilland both flew there own aircraft, both were killed in there own aircraft. Dehavilland himself was a former RAF pilot. Geoffrey Quill I don't think was in the services but he still was able to carry out Seafire trials etc and flew almost every single Spit ever produced.

    Some companies, like Hawker actually used RAF test pilots like Roland Beaumont who was an RAF officer throughout the war. Test pilot and Typhoon/Tempest Ace and was English Electrics post war cheif test pilot. This guy had years of combat experiance. Eric Brown was head of the Enemy Aircraft flight but only got the RAE job after active service in the FAA as a fighter pilot, flying F4F's of HMS Audacity.

    I'd say most British test pilots were military trained and most of those were trained at degree level.<div class="ev_tpc_signature">

    Cheers!!
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  3. #103
    Geoffrey Quill was in the RAF, until 1937 or '38.<div class="ev_tpc_signature">


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  4. #104
    WOLFMondo's Avatar Senior Member
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    I happily stand corrected.<div class="ev_tpc_signature">

    Cheers!!
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  5. #105
    horseback's Avatar Senior Member
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    Since I was speaking about the expression 'test pilot' with the specific reference to WWII era 'test pilots', I stand by my statements.

    While the RAE or other test and development units may have required prior military service (and were these organizations developed prior to the war, or were they still trying to standardize their requirements and testing procedures by the end of the war?), the majority of US manufacturers and NACA apparently did not require military service.

    My point is that the engineering and science skillset of test pilots 60 years ago was considerably less than expected of pilots today. Anyone who has read Yeager's autobiography, particularly the section covering his immediate postwar career at Wright gets a very different picture of the US wartime military test pilots.

    Yeager excoriated them for not knowing what should be useful for a combat pilot, just as he ridiculed the guys who asked regular squadron fighter jocks to appraise the early F-100s (which needed a much more effective rudder in order to fly any kind of formation).

    It's just silly to pretend that the test piloting trade came into being in anything like the mature state it is in today.

    cheers

    horseback<div class="ev_tpc_signature">

    "Here's your new Mustangs, boys. You can learn to fly'em on the way to the target. Cheers!" -LTCOL Don Blakeslee, 4th FG CO, February 27th, 1944
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  6. #106
    [quote]Originally posted by Aaron_GT:
    Combat pilot reports have confirmed that the P-51 was widely regarded as a stable gun platform.
    Whereas one of the predominant comments from the JFC is that it was not sufficiently stable as a gun platform. So here we have a contradiction that needs to be examined. Which is right, combat reports, or the JFC? Neither, both by some form of reconcilliation of the data, or one and not the other?
    If the overwealming body of pilots in combat say an aircraft is a stable gun platform, it's a stable gun platform.

    To be honest I doubt many combat reports say things like "I found during this engagement the P51 to be a stable gun platform" and more like "I then saw the second 109 below me and engaged by diving down. I fired a one second burst and it turned over and went down smoking". The latter says very little about gun stability. Hence my contention that combat reports show the bravery of the men involved but determining FM parameters from them is very very difficult indeed. There are so many unknown parameters.
    First, if there's a problem, combat pilots will be the first to mention it. Their lives depend on it. Second, I think you're coming at this from the wrong direction. It's not that the combat pilot reports show FM parameters, it's that they show when FM (or weapons and damage) parameters aren't right. There's a difference here and it isn't as subtle as it sounds. They describe the problem but don't necessarily tell you what the fix is. Again, combat reports are verifying/validating/refining to what test pilots offer.
    Apparently contradictory reports on aircraft abound from AARs. Some are not actually contradictory at all as they are filtered through different perceptions of pilots, or there are additional variables not recorded that make the difference.
    At the sake of sounding like a broken record, don't take single or a few reports and try and extrapolate from them. Use the trends which result from many, many combat pilot's input. Trends discard the "one-off's" and are what establishes reputation because they're empiracal (and statistical) truths.

    As previously noted the P39 had the reputation of being a dog in USAAC/USAAF service to the point where the major part of the production was diverted to the USSR where it was cherished. At first glance this seems contradictory, but if you dig into other variables then it isn't nearly so contradictory. But in AARs we have only a brief summary and those other variables may now be entirely lost to us.
    Again, context is vital in making remarks such as these. The P-39 was simply inadequate at higher altitudes (say, above 18k feet). The Russians primarily used these planes (quite successfully) at lower altitudes where the P-39's limitations weren't an issue. So with this perspective, it's clear why one group found a plane wanting while another did not. Interestingly, this provides context where combat pilot reports of both groups were right. Also, the Russian pilot reports helped Bell Aircraft not only sort out why the plane tended to flat spin but actually proved to the company that this problem existed.

    The problem of taking old records and assessing them for trends is one that faces statisticians looking at long-term disease trends. The gold standard is to have a well-designed long-term study over several decades, but there are attempts t short circuit this by analysing old records so as not to have to wait another 40 years or something for a trend to appear. Doing such analyses is fraught with difficulties as old data may not have the full set of data recorded that is needed. A lot of research also goes into determining what doctors in time past meant by various terms. Sometimes such analyses get the trends wrong. In fact just before Christmas two reports came out within a couple of weeks ago, one suggesting that a glass of wine a day was beneficial, another suggesting that alcohol allowances (roughly a glass of wine a day) should be halved as one glass a day would be harmful. And this is from well controlled studies!
    "Long term study over several decades"? Respectfully, that one made me chuckle a little. The REAL gold standard is a group of seasoned combat pilots telling the new guys what's what. Let me give you a rhetorical example. You're a newly assigned pilot just entering a war zone. On one side there's Professor Slide Rule to tell you how to fly your plane. On the other there's a group of seasoned combat pilots with a differing point of view based on hard-fought experience. Whose "gold" would you believe? (i.e. a company engineer from McDonnell Douglas or several Mig killers in Top Gun.)

    So at the end of the day, test pilot/company parameters provide the initial guide lines as to where an aircraft can be operated. This information is then refined by input from combat pilots to provide a fuller picture. My view is that the importance of the combat pilots' information then trumps that of test pilots because this knowledge is gained in the arena and the arena for a combat aircraft is the only environment that matters.

    GR142-Pipper
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  7. #107
    Badsight-'s Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally posted by GR142-Pipper:
    If the overwealming body of pilots in combat say an aircraft is a stable gun platform, it's a stable gun platform.
    stable compared to what ?

    its not like getting to fly all the different fighters your side had was a commen thing

    pilots can relate what they saw sitting in their cockpit - they knew nothing about what the other guy was going thru<div class="ev_tpc_signature">

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  8. #108
    [quote]Originally posted by Badsight-:
    Originally posted by GR142-Pipper:
    If the overwealming body of pilots in combat say an aircraft is a stable gun platform, it's a stable gun platform.
    stable compared to what ?
    Compared to being unstable. Pilots know the difference and they won't be shy in telling you if a plane's an unstable gun platform.

    GR142-Pipper
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  9. #109
    fordfan25's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally posted by Badsight-:
    <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by GR142-Pipper:
    If the overwealming body of pilots in combat say an aircraft is a stable gun platform, it's a stable gun platform.
    stable compared to what ?

    its not like getting to fly all the different fighters your side had was a commen thing

    pilots can relate what they saw sitting in their cockpit - they knew nothing about what the other guy was going thru </div></BLOCKQUOTE>stable compaired to something that is not stable.<div class="ev_tpc_signature">

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  10. #110
    WWMaxGunz's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally posted by GR142-Pipper:
    It's not that the combat pilot reports show FM parameters, it's that they show when FM (or weapons and damage) parameters aren't right. There's a difference here and it isn't as subtle as it sounds.
    In FM we are talking about speed that if it is even 2% off then some people throw fits and
    5% off what their chart says is considered a milestone in tactical won or lost? No, not
    subtle at all, just down to percents and tenths of percents, the tolerances some demand.
    When it can take as little as 2 to 5% +/- to declare the plane porked tactically then how
    subtle is the scale of that?

    They describe the problem but don't necessarily tell you what the fix is. Again, combat reports are verifying/validating/refining to what test pilots offer.
    They do not describe the problem with sufficient detail to fit a model beyond 1980's-arcade
    level, those reports. How you make an FM from them that isn't tabled? Oh. Easy. Sounds like just take a sim and adjust the plane up till it feels right and meets numbers within so
    close everywhere of the plane you have the charts for. Yeah, simple but how will it behave
    and will the player controls fit which now almost everyone should know the difference of
    control interface, right?

    I expect if you mean that plane in the sim has a problem that enough pilots had nothing to
    say about or clearly stated an opposite opinion then yeah the difference is gross not subtle
    and indicates that something about the model, FM or control interface needs to be changed
    and maybe you can understand that the task of finding what to change and by exactly how much
    so as not to cause more, possibly 100x, other problems and then look at the time they have
    had to do everything in then what they have is all fantastic.

    I am able to smoothly move and shoot in the 4.05 P-51's. They are stable for me but then I
    run 40% filter on pitch with the sliders in a line from 44 to 100. It's slower reacting
    but it's smooth and the FM returns for the difference. Now you all have 4.07 (mine was
    ordered Sat at GoGamer, not here yet) and what do I see for threads on FM?

    I don't think that engineers in general should be fighter pilots. And I don't think that
    fighter pilots in general should design airplanes. Some are both though, they count more.

    A sim is a model of a world with other models inside it. You want a very detailed and
    accurate sim, you have to provide it with full sets of detail level information. Stability
    should be good just don't begin to cut it.
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