The Tories say they would expand the role of the Army in reconstruction if they win the next election. A stabilisation and reconstruction force would be created to perform work like repairing bridges and local infrastructure in places like Afghanistan. Funding could come from other departments like international development.
Boeing say India is interested in buying 10 C-17s, seems everyone wants them at the moment but they are pretty good after all. Flight International's DEW Line blog has a photo of the F-35B prototype engaging it's lift fan for the first time.
Images of the wreck of the Australian hospital ship Centaur have been seen for the first time, 60 years after it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in WW2.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Monday, January 11, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Sunday Fail : Supermarine PB 31E Night Hawk
Military projects do not always work out as you know but usually the end result is something reasonably close to the original project aims (once you throw enough extra billions at it). But in this weekly series i will present projects that never made it. Military projects that simply never worked, not to say the projects were all bad. They failed for a variety of reasons, for the PB 31E it was probably just a bit ahead of it's time...
In this first week we go back to the First World War and the first aircraft to bear the Supermarine name, the company changed it's name from Pemberton Billing in 1916 (after Mr Pemberton Billing sold his interests to the company's other directors). One of the last aircraft Pemberton Billing had been working on had been the PB 29E, a large quadruplane for anti-airship defence. Unfortunately the sole PB 29E crashed during flight testing but the Admiralty decided to continue pursuing Pemberton Billing's ideas for combating the zeppelin menace so sponsored a further aircraft (Bruce 1969).
Supermarine PB 31E
This was the PB 31E, like the 29E it was a large quadruplane 37ft (11.27m) long and with a wing span of 60ft (18.28m). It was made more sturdy than the 29E with a planned crew of 5 and heavily armed with a 1½-pdr recoiless gun and twin Lewis machine guns. It was intended to be able to stay aloft for up to 18 hours and carried a searchlight that was powered by a separate engine and thus was probably one of the first aircraft to carry an auxiliary power unit (Andrews & Morgan 1981). Because of the long planned duration it was fitted with some basic comforts for the crew including a heated cabin. The aircraft also carried armour in some key areas and the cockpit was bound with fabric to avoid wood splinters in the event of a crash to protect the crew.
The problem with all of these features was weight, the PB 31E weighed over 6100lb (2787kg) when loaded and there simply wasn't the engine technology of the time to properly handle such a plane. Two 100hp Anzani engines powered the PB 31E and was enough to get it airborne but not enough to give it sufficient performance to perform in the anti-zeppelin role. The PB 31E took an hour to climb to 10,000ft which meant that zeppelins could easily escape it by ditching ballast and climbing rapidly. The design speed had been 75mph (120kph) which was considered fast enough to catch zeppelins (though some zeppelins could go faster than that in favourable conditions) but it is reported the PB 31E struggled to pass 60mph (97kph) (Bruce 1969).
Front view showing the search light on the nose
The PB 31E first flew in February 1917 but by then it was apparent there were flaws in the concept, highlighted by the PB 31E's poor performance. Unable to pursue a zeppelin it's only chance of success would have been the sheer luck of being in the right place at the right time and firing on the zeppelin before it got out of range (Bruce 1969). It's main armament, a 1½ pounder Davis non-recoil gun, was also rather unwieldy.
The sole PB 31E was scrapped in the Summer of 1917, the second planned example never being built. The PB 31E, which was given the name Night Hawk, was technically innovative and it's concept could maybe have worked with a better performance. It was an early example of what we would call today a "weapons system" (Andrews & Morgan 1981). In the event the zeppelin was near the end of it's time as a military weapon anyway, Supermarine survived the war. You may have heard of one of their later products.
Further reading :
Supermarine Aircraft Since 1914 (Andrews & Morgan, Putnam, 1981)
Warplanes Of The First World War - Volume 3 (Bruce, Macdonald, 1969)
In this first week we go back to the First World War and the first aircraft to bear the Supermarine name, the company changed it's name from Pemberton Billing in 1916 (after Mr Pemberton Billing sold his interests to the company's other directors). One of the last aircraft Pemberton Billing had been working on had been the PB 29E, a large quadruplane for anti-airship defence. Unfortunately the sole PB 29E crashed during flight testing but the Admiralty decided to continue pursuing Pemberton Billing's ideas for combating the zeppelin menace so sponsored a further aircraft (Bruce 1969).
Supermarine PB 31E
This was the PB 31E, like the 29E it was a large quadruplane 37ft (11.27m) long and with a wing span of 60ft (18.28m). It was made more sturdy than the 29E with a planned crew of 5 and heavily armed with a 1½-pdr recoiless gun and twin Lewis machine guns. It was intended to be able to stay aloft for up to 18 hours and carried a searchlight that was powered by a separate engine and thus was probably one of the first aircraft to carry an auxiliary power unit (Andrews & Morgan 1981). Because of the long planned duration it was fitted with some basic comforts for the crew including a heated cabin. The aircraft also carried armour in some key areas and the cockpit was bound with fabric to avoid wood splinters in the event of a crash to protect the crew.
The problem with all of these features was weight, the PB 31E weighed over 6100lb (2787kg) when loaded and there simply wasn't the engine technology of the time to properly handle such a plane. Two 100hp Anzani engines powered the PB 31E and was enough to get it airborne but not enough to give it sufficient performance to perform in the anti-zeppelin role. The PB 31E took an hour to climb to 10,000ft which meant that zeppelins could easily escape it by ditching ballast and climbing rapidly. The design speed had been 75mph (120kph) which was considered fast enough to catch zeppelins (though some zeppelins could go faster than that in favourable conditions) but it is reported the PB 31E struggled to pass 60mph (97kph) (Bruce 1969).
Front view showing the search light on the nose
The PB 31E first flew in February 1917 but by then it was apparent there were flaws in the concept, highlighted by the PB 31E's poor performance. Unable to pursue a zeppelin it's only chance of success would have been the sheer luck of being in the right place at the right time and firing on the zeppelin before it got out of range (Bruce 1969). It's main armament, a 1½ pounder Davis non-recoil gun, was also rather unwieldy.
The sole PB 31E was scrapped in the Summer of 1917, the second planned example never being built. The PB 31E, which was given the name Night Hawk, was technically innovative and it's concept could maybe have worked with a better performance. It was an early example of what we would call today a "weapons system" (Andrews & Morgan 1981). In the event the zeppelin was near the end of it's time as a military weapon anyway, Supermarine survived the war. You may have heard of one of their later products.
Further reading :
Supermarine Aircraft Since 1914 (Andrews & Morgan, Putnam, 1981)
Warplanes Of The First World War - Volume 3 (Bruce, Macdonald, 1969)
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Armistice Day
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month 1918 the guns finally were silenced in what was to be the end of the "war to end all wars". Of course it did not prove to be that way, indeed the fighting continued in Eastern Europe for a few years more as the 3 great Central & Eastern European empires collapsed. And in 1939 the world went to war again.
There has scarsily been a period of peace since then, somewhere in the world the guns rumble on. This year the British forces have lost more troops than at any time since the Falklands War. On this day we remember the fallen of the First World War and those who have served and fallen and been affected in conflicts ever since including those left behind to grieve and cope with the aftermath of warfare.
There has scarsily been a period of peace since then, somewhere in the world the guns rumble on. This year the British forces have lost more troops than at any time since the Falklands War. On this day we remember the fallen of the First World War and those who have served and fallen and been affected in conflicts ever since including those left behind to grieve and cope with the aftermath of warfare.
Monday, August 10, 2009
90 years of RAF military pilot training
Some nice photos celebrating the 90th anniversary of RAF military pilot training. A number of events were held to celebrate this at RAF Linton-on-Ouse.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Dreadnought project
Fear nothing, dead nought.
Late-Victorian to WW1 era military technology is something I am very interested in these days, especially in terms of battleships, zeppelins and gas warfare (OK now i am starting to sound a bit weird). The Dreadnought Project is an excellent website dedicated to modeling the ships of the Dreadnought era and there are some nifty computer models on there.
The part i like the best though are some of the photo galleries which show photographs from a number of collections, what i like about the photos is they are largely "ordinary". They arn't posed or familiar action photographs but images of ordinary every day life in extraordinary times. Gold dust to anyone interested in history like me.
Another interesting site covering the olden days of naval warfare is My Victorian Navy.
Late-Victorian to WW1 era military technology is something I am very interested in these days, especially in terms of battleships, zeppelins and gas warfare (OK now i am starting to sound a bit weird). The Dreadnought Project is an excellent website dedicated to modeling the ships of the Dreadnought era and there are some nifty computer models on there.
The part i like the best though are some of the photo galleries which show photographs from a number of collections, what i like about the photos is they are largely "ordinary". They arn't posed or familiar action photographs but images of ordinary every day life in extraordinary times. Gold dust to anyone interested in history like me.
Another interesting site covering the olden days of naval warfare is My Victorian Navy.
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