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Little known / experimental aircraft

Griz882

Frightening children with the Griz-O-Copter!
pilot
Contributor
The Super Phrog, Boeing Vertol 360.
1024px-Boeing_360_%28N360BV%29_flight_testing.jpg
I thought it was the Phast Phrog! 😀
 

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
Sorry to quote Tom Cruise, but it’s not the aircraft, it’s the pilot! The average naval aviator of late ‘44 or early ‘45 would have had vastly more experience than the average Luftwaffe pilot. An interesting way to look at it this…the P-51 (and good pilots) proved to be a superior design to German models but the Corsair proved to be superior to the P-51 during the “Football War!” On a more serious note, you can read about the Navy’s analysis (1944) of the two aircraft from the Pax River team here, https://militaryhistorynow.com/2021...-up-between-the-two-fighters/#google_vignette it briefly notes testing that was done against some axis fighters…both the Corsair and Hellcat could turn inside the German models, something the P-51 could not do.
The video from Greg’s airplanes was set in 1943 - so an F4U-1 time frame. The American fighters compared quite well, alot to be said for the massive R-2800.

Good article about one of the only piston engine fighter that could engage the ME-262 in airborne combat were the 500 mph hotrodded P-47M’s flown by the famed highly experienced 56th Fighter Group known as “Zemke’s Wolfpack.”

 

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
The Heinkel HE-219 night fighter was the first military aircraft with ejection seats, it also had a pressurized cockpit. It had quite the debut on this day, June 12, in 1943 when Group Commander Werner Streib test flying the aircraft shot down 5 British bombers between 1am and 2am. Top speed was 420mph, armament included 2 forward firing 20mm and 2 upward (65 deg) firing 30mm

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Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator

PhrogPhlyer

Two heads are better than one.
pilot
None
During the '80s the Soviet Union designed, but never build a huge heavy lift tri-rotor helicopter.
The MI-32 would have been larger than an Airbus A320, with a max takeoff weight of 140T with a 60T payload.
With this rotor configuration and overall aircraft mass, it would have been extremely stable in a hover.
b47fa1e1908c4edc87f1e273fca1516d.jpg
 

Llarry

Well-Known Member
During the '80s the Soviet Union designed, but never build a huge heavy lift tri-rotor helicopter.
The MI-32 would have been larger than an Airbus A320, with a max takeoff weight of 140T with a 60T payload.
With this rotor configuration and overall aircraft mass, it would have been extremely stable in a hover.
b47fa1e1908c4edc87f1e273fca1516d.jpg

It seems to me that figuring out a sling load lifting point (or points) would be complicated.
 

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
Everything is bigger in Texas - as exemplified by the B-36 Peacemaker bomber built in the Corvair plant at Fort Worth. In contrast to the 30,000 lb bomb recently dropped by the B-2, the B-36 with 6 Pratt and Whitney piston engines and 4 jets could carry the monstrous 43,000 lb T-12 earthquake bomb.

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B-36, B-29 and B-17

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A T-12 dummy stands on compound of US Army Ordnance Museum in Aberdeen, Maryland.


A B-36 making a lowwww pass over the pilot’s neighborhood in Fort Worth.
 
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phrogdriver

More humble than you would understand
pilot
Super Moderator
During the '80s the Soviet Union designed, but never build a huge heavy lift tri-rotor helicopter.
The MI-32 would have been larger than an Airbus A320, with a max takeoff weight of 140T with a 60T payload.
With this rotor configuration and overall aircraft mass, it would have been extremely stable in a hover.
b47fa1e1908c4edc87f1e273fca1516d.jpg
Would it have been stable, though?

With 3 rotors it still has unbalanced torque, plus you’re going to get some strange wake interactions and effects of gyroscopic phasing.
 

taxi1

Well-Known Member
pilot
Would it have been stable, though?

With 3 rotors it still has unbalanced torque, plus you’re going to get some strange wake interactions and effects of gyroscopic phasing.
We actually worked on 3 rotor multi-rotor control designs here for a bit, demonstrating we could train an AI autopilot to operate one. We picked the 3 rotor design because it is a hard problem. Much more complicated than a 2 or 4 rotor design problem, oddly enough. Balancing the lift and torque is not simple.

We couldn't get one to learn it from scratch, had to train the AI on a quadcopter first, then transition it to learning on a 3 rotor design.
 

PhrogPhlyer

Two heads are better than one.
pilot
None
With 3 rotors it still has unbalanced torque, plus you’re going to get some strange wake interactions and effects of gyroscopic phasing.
One of several papers on the subject, doesn't seem to much of an issue.
Also, with the overall size of the MI-32 I would estimate torque effect to not be much, torque would have to overcome a lot of mass.

 

taxi1

Well-Known Member
pilot
One of several papers on the subject, doesn't seem to much of an issue.
Well, they are kind of cheating by adding a servo that tilts one (or more?) of the rotors. Last sentence in conclusion.

The tri-rotor UAV can solve the yawing moment problem by tilting the tail servo
motor.


I guess if you have cyclic on the rotors you can get the same effect?
 
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