And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
What an amazing flying machine. It was the B-36's competition. I can only imagine what it would have been like if we had had a fleet of those and its turbojet version, the B-49.
main structural keel would be centered where you think the cockpit should be. the decision of which to buy was political. technically, Jack's wing was really good, but had inherent pitch stability affecting bombing accuracy, according to the test program results. More wing sweep would have fixed that, but slide rules and a good eye was all that was available to ensure the guesstimates were right. Honeywell crafted an autopilot and pitch stabilizing system to fix it before the testing was over. pilots were somewhat surprised that the aircraft didn't respond to pitch inputs the same as a B-29 did; pretty much the criteria of the chief test pilot. Old pilots are resistant to change because there are no old, bold pilots. another severe problem was the gearbox failures of the propeller systems, but that is a missive for another day. Convair had better politicians in their pockets than Northrup did and a lot of cash went to the Dallas area as a result.
Jack Northrop, and that Boeing fella built some planes.
ReplyDeleteWhat an amazing flying machine. It was the B-36's competition. I can only imagine what it would have been like if we had had a fleet of those and its turbojet version, the B-49.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why the cockpit's offset to the left?
ReplyDeletemain structural keel would be centered where you think the cockpit should be.
Deletethe decision of which to buy was political. technically, Jack's wing was really good, but had inherent pitch stability affecting bombing accuracy, according to the test program results. More wing sweep would have fixed that, but slide rules and a good eye was all that was available to ensure the guesstimates were right. Honeywell crafted an autopilot and pitch stabilizing system to fix it before the testing was over. pilots were somewhat surprised that the aircraft didn't respond to pitch inputs the same as a B-29 did; pretty much the criteria of the chief test pilot. Old pilots are resistant to change because there are no old, bold pilots.
another severe problem was the gearbox failures of the propeller systems, but that is a missive for another day.
Convair had better politicians in their pockets than Northrup did and a lot of cash went to the Dallas area as a result.
Love the P-61 Black Widow in the background
ReplyDelete