Warbird Information Exchange

Can anyone confirm the ME-262 having another problem! Apparently while doing some acro, one of the main landing gear came out of the wheel well, gear door ripped off and went into the engine speed ring! I don't think it's a rumor!

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John Lane, Jr.

I hope that every one is alright and this VERY ambitious project does not suffer too much.
By the way, what an engine speed ring?

Rgds Cking

Speed Ring is the engine inlet or nose bowl cowling. I was incorrect as to the location of the damage, it was just aft of main gear on the #1 engine nacelle

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John Lane, Jr.

Hi All,

seem a shame that with all of the work that has gone into these projects that thye would be a prone to trouble as they seem to be. Hope no one was hurt and the damage repairable.

Paul

Seems the 262 and the Ki-43 projects are suffering the same type of recurring trouble. I've got an entirely new respect for the complexity of the landing gear systems in these planes.

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Rob Mears
'Surviving Corsairs' Historian
robcmears@yahoo.com
http://www.robmears.com

Yes,

These aircraft all, US, British and Axis aircraft, all were designed and thrown together as quickly as possible. I say thrown together, because of how quickly the designs were adopted for production. And given the time frames that were faced during the war, and the technological advancement of the aviation industry during those years, they were trying everything.

I had the opportunity to work on a Spitfire once and while I found that it was an amazing aircraft for it's day, the brake system on it left much to be desired. But, I say this based on my knowledge of more modern aircraft. Additionally, if you take a quick look at many of the other WW II fighters, they too, all had many "quirks" about them. For example, the P-40 and Corsair and how the whole gear rotates to fold backwards, or the Bearcat, which has an "knuckle" above the strut to help aid the long gear into folding into a small shape back into the wheel well. Of even the P-47, which has a dual piston arrangement that takes two different nitrogen charges on it for the cylinders.

I do hope that they get the bugs worked out...these are amazing aircraft for their day. And adopting production techniques of today versus "yesterday" is tough enough.

Respectuflully,

Paul

Thanks John, I've never heard it called that before!.

Rgds Cking

Rumour has it B-17 gunners came to the aid of the B-24 whilst enroute to Paine

I heard from the B-24 pilot that when the 262 made his run, his ball turret gunner had everything under control !