Why the P-38 had an airbrake #shorts #il2sturmovik #plane #history

[lostamit]

I saw this in my aviation institute hangar. It has a funny comics-style drawning that says smth like "beware of angry lightning, it may snap your hand, before maintanence turn off controls"

[prestonjohnson]

If anyone is interested in hearing a pilot that went thought this and survived, it’s on YouTube, it’s Robin olds in the show dogfights. Insane story, and an incredible pilot

[notsureyou]

The P-38's dive problem was revealed to be the center of pressure moving back toward the tail when in high-speed airflow. The solution was to change the geometry of the wing's lower surface when diving to keep lift within bounds of the top of the wing. In February 1943, quick-acting dive flaps were tried and proven by Lockheed test pilots. The dive flaps were installed outboard of the engine nacelles, and in action, they extended downward 35° in 1.5 seconds. The flaps did not act as a speed brake; they affected the pressure distribution in a way that retained the wing's lift.

[Fizwalker]

The plane encountered a phenomenon called compressibility-- essentially the Lightning was approaching the speed of sound and the controls locked up. The air brake kept the plane below the speed where the transonic shockwaves from forming.

[fishjohn]

For everyone in the midwest, there is a beautiful P-38 that belonged to Richard Bong (the US's highest scoring ace) in Superior, Wisconsin

Its an absolutely gorgeous aircraft that you can even touch

The museum has some other incredible artifacts including Hermon Goering's personal hand blanket?!

Definitely worth the $20 admission

[Impetus-qxdb]

It's specific to certain speed regime. The airflow over the top of the wing accelerates more than the bottom side. The supersonic flow causes shockwave on both sides practically, but the upperside has a way progressed shockwave formation. The downwash itself is just fine as long as it's not turbulent. The turbulent flow created by the waves stiffen up the elevator hinges. It could have been mediated by either installing a thinner wing, swept-wing, and supercritical airfoil. The offcenter tails like shown in the video would be the fix. The center of lift moves aft as the shockwave formation progresses forward. The airblakes on P-38 kind of works like a mid-placed flaps for adjusting the cp.

[ves]

To be fair it is not quite an air brake, rather it is like an extra "elevator" under the wings.

[APotato]

Correction - it could dive, it was very good at it, too good at it

[Scimetar]

This issue in technical terms was called compressability, as air was warped and altered in such a way that it had minimal contact with a P-38's tailplane as they were near the sound barrier in dives. This is why later planes that were either transsonic supersonic would have the entire part of the tailplane rotate, not just the trailing edge for maximum contact with the air around it.

[tcook]

Unbelievable content true history. The P-38 suffered from something called compressibility which created a vacuum around the horizontal and vertical stabilizer in which they did not affect the air molecules. The Delta shape and the entire control surface of the vertical and horizontal stabilizer was designed to move in order to combat compressibility.

[O.J._is_Guilty]

They also used the lightning to intercept Yamamoto after the Japanese coded message got decrypted and it said the exact time and place he would be and a bunch of the lightnings intercepted them right when Yamamotos planes got there and shot him down. There were two planes and luckily the picked the right one. They had no idea if their lightnings would make it back or not but they still did it

[ComdrStew]

It was still really hard to pull into a hard turn or out of a dive. Was talking to some WW2 pilots at the USAF Museum in Dayton, OH back in 2000. While talking to a P-38 pilot one of the other guys called him Popeye. They told me they use to call P-38 pilots Popeyes, because their forearms would get big from flying it, lol.

[RV-N]

The raised tail was also in tandem with the development of a float plane variant of the P-38 and the raised tail prevented it from being effected by the wash during take off and landings.

[zoltangobolyos-hideg]

Thank you! You re solved a old problem

[TheUndoneWork]

From a place or state that has the world’s renowned American ace richard bong who has scored over 40 kills in his p38 I can say it’s a very very hard plane 2 use in a dive not even I am close to getting to pulling up like he did in his p38 the plane was also massive in person(p.s. I have no idea what I’m saying)

[Spectre-]

You'd think a warplane being able to descend without blanking its control surfaces would've been noticed *before* they threw them into actual combat. Like it should have been immediately apparent during development tests

[MrJord]

Weird that this shows up after I’ve been playing il2-1946 all day

[angry_eck]

The lifted tail would have been better but it was more expensive

[alt]

Woah the bananas image triggered my fluidics concern engineering instincts .

[Starwarsfanboy]

P-38 *shoots me*, me all a military pilot:* dives* (p-38 before update)