1. #101
    This thread is dying. It needs motivation.





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  2. #102
    That's actually quite an interesting point about manufacturing skills required. Spitfires were hand crafted compared to 109s, and lest we forget that s proportion of Messerschmitt's late war workforce weren't exactly doing it for love, were they?

    Makes you wonder what late war Lufty planes would have looked like but for human and material resources being so affected by factors outside the designers' control. The Salamander was an interesting example of a potentially effective stop-gap though.

    Same old tired and already discredited input from fanboy No1, I notice.
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  3. #103






    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiAIyX0l42M

    If you watch the runway as the Spitfire makes a low pass, you can really see the distortion.
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  4. #104
    TheGrunch's Avatar Senior Member
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    If you watch the runway as the Spitfire makes a low pass, you can really see the distortion.
    Kettenhunde, I think the point is that any pilot who was going to survive for more than 20 minutes would be weaving to scan his blind-spot or flying with a wingman anyway. You're absolutely correct about the distortion, of course, imagine if you went to the optician and they just gave you whatever lenses they had that fitted the frame, it's the same principle. I just think that the size of the distorted area would be less of a factor for anyone who was acting with any regard for his own life anyway. It's still worth bearing in mind, though.
    Kurf, you've pulled that picture out before, I've been lurking on these forums long enough to have seen it. But it looks fairly fabricated to me...watching the Paul Day videos from the previous thread on the subject, the only way those dimensions could be correct is if Paul Day gets bigger when he gets into the 109 cockpit. He has plenty of shoulder room in the Spit, and when he gets in the 109 cockpit you can really see the difference. Just give it up. Also, in answer to one of your previous comments, you realise that the rudder pedals in the Spit are adjustable for distance?
    I don't really get your vendetta against any WWII aircraft or air force that isn't German, it's really quite embarrassing to watch.
    Every aircraft and every air force had their flaws, just as they had their strengths, and it's really rather childish to be unable to recognise that with the benefit of 60+ years of research to draw on.
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  5. #105
    Kettenhunde, I think the point is that any pilot who was going to survive for more than 20 minutes would be weaving to scan his blind-spot or flying with a wingman anyway. You're absolutely correct about the distortion, of course, imagine if you went to the optician and they just gave you whatever lenses they had that fitted the frame, it's the same principle. I just think that the size of the distorted area would be less of a factor for anyone who was acting with any regard for his own life anyway. It's still worth bearing in mind, though.
    I think it highlights just how important tactics and wingman are to the success of a fight.

    It makes a difference. None of the blown canopies are so distortive you cannot operate the aircraft. This is not limited to one side or another either, it is physical limitation of the designs, not a nationality. Remember too, these canopies have to be hand made and are all going to be just a little different.

    Movement is the easiest to pick up for the human eye. Problem is other airplanes flying directly at you do not move. The speck just gets bigger. They grow from a tiny speck to an airplane in a surprisingly very short fraction of time.

    Having an optically correct view is an advantage.
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  6. #106
    TheGrunch's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally posted by Kettenhunde:
    I think it highlights just how important tactics and wingman are to the success of a fight.

    It makes a difference. None of the blown canopies are so distortive you cannot operate the aircraft. This is not limited to one side or another either, it is physical limitation of the designs, not a nationality. Remember too, these canopies have to be hand made and are all going to be just a little different.

    Movement is the easiest to pick up for the human eye. Problem is other airplanes flying directly at you do not move. The speck just gets bigger. They grow from a tiny speck to an airplane in a surprisingly very short fraction of time.

    Having an optically correct view is an advantage.
    Agreed on all counts. However I'd point out that the lack of such a large amount of canopy framing (especially compared to the particularly oppressive examples offered by the 109 and the Hurricane) and the mild benefits to rear view would likely make up for this to some degree.
    I'd also point out that, crucially to a rookie pilot, there's likely an overlooked psychological benefit involved in not being surrounded by all that framing.
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  7. #107
    However I'd point out that the lack of such a large amount of canopy framing (especially compared to the particularly oppressive examples offered by the 109 and the Hurricane) and the mild benefits to rear view would likely make up for this to some degree.
    The framing physically blocks your ability to see without moving your head.

    I'd also point out that, crucially to a rookie pilot, there's likely an overlooked psychological benefit involved in not being surrounded by all that framing.
    Any pilot likes to see everything and not have their vision restricted. The blown canopies have the illusion of all around vision.

    Both styles accomplish the same thing. One sacrifices optical clarity in order to remove framing while the other preserves optical clarity but requires framing.

    My whole point in this thread is these canopy designs are tit for tat and a very silly thing to argue back and forth.
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  8. #108
    AndyJWest's Avatar Senior Member
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    My whole point in this thread is these canopy designs are tit for tat and a very silly thing to argue back and forth.
    Maybe silly for you, but entertaining (and sometimes educational) for the rest of us.

    One observation on the Spitfire in-cockpit shots, though: it is filmed from behind the pilot in a two-seat plane, and the viewpoint is thus looking through the front of the bubble canopy at a very acute angle. I'm fairly certain you'd see less distortion from the pilots position.
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  9. #109
    TheGrunch's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally posted by Kettenhunde:
    My whole point in this thread is these canopy designs are tit for tat and a very silly thing to argue back and forth.
    I disagree...as a percentage of the all-round view, the severely distorted area in the blown canopies is much smaller than the area of the canopy framing in some other designs, particularly the 109 and Hurricane. This is especially evident in the Biggin Hill dogfight video you posted. Apart from the area near the canopy frame, the distortion is really quite manageable.
    On another note, I wish people wouldn't deface Spitfires by restoring them as two-seaters. I'm glad no one's done that to the 109 yet.
    But then, they probably wouldn't have the room, would they?
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  10. #110
    horseback's Avatar Senior Member
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    Kurf, you've pulled that picture out before, I've been lurking on these forums long enough to have seen it. But it looks fairly fabricated to me...watching the Paul Day videos from the previous thread on the subject, the only way those dimensions could be correct is if Paul Day gets bigger when he gets into the 109 cockpit. He has plenty of shoulder room in the Spit, and when he gets in the 109 cockpit you can really see the difference. Just give it up. Also, in answer to one of your previous comments, you realise that the rudder pedals in the Spit are adjustable for distance?
    This is typical Kurfy; he's always been more about winning the argument than getting to the truth. He does stay within the bounds of the facts as he sees them though, so you just have to parse his words more carefully than a Bill Clinton press conference 'confession'...

    To get a clear idea of the actual comparison, instead of superimposing the canopies at the sill line, you need a scaled drawing showing both whole cockpits at least from the bottom of the pilot's seat from sides, top and front, and indicating the amount of seat and rudder pedal adjustment as well (the Spit's seat adjusts up and down by a few inches; as I recall, the 109's seat is bolted to the cockpit floor).

    The Spit has a deeper fuselage; it's appreciably bigger than the 109's, as anyone who can put two same scale models of them next to each other can tell you. The Spit gives the pilot just a couple of extra inches on each side, and you may actually have to sit in each cockpit completely 'buttoned up' to appreciate the difference.

    Again though, it's largely a matter of what you're used to plus good ergonomics, and from a practical standpoint, it appears to have been a wash. From pilot field of view standpoint, neither was as good as say a Macchi MC 200 or F4F-3 Wildcat, but both were a hell of a lot faster and those 'base' designs were still frontline fighters at war's end while the Macchi and Grumman designs were replaced within a couple of years of their combat debuts.

    cheers

    horseback
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