Torpedos with Wings - race plane

[Starman]

Inspired by the twin fuselage race plane thread ...

When you think about it the entire effort to build a new aircraft -if designed solely for the purpose of winning at Reno, is expended on something that only lasts eight minutes and has no other use . (and the speed record is slower than your grandmother going on holiday ....) As I keep saying -we need a NEW challenge that has some ongoing purpose and will bring out the best in designers --we need a challenge that has NOT YET been satisfactorily met --an 'undone' thing, just as the air races of the 1930s were pushing the boundaries that led eventually to the airliners of today that are faster than they ever were. I think we know what particular KIND of race-plane I refer to...

In any case the Dornier Do P247 and Do 252/3 are described and pictured on the web -google "images for.." for lots of pictures and links or for two short addresses -
http://www.luft46.com/dornier/dop247.html and Dornier Do P.252 ("Luft 46' includes spurious 'might have been' aircraft as well as actual designs that were just flown by the war's end or were close as these two were . They give a top speed of the Do P 252/3 as 930 kph or 577 mph --still much faster than the 'current' piston driven record.)

Starman -you have just about reinvented my 1974 HP 18 config but with more wing area than needed and a much longer nose gear etc (with flaps down the effective AoA is quite large already - HP's land nose DOWN as a bit of googling will show ) Now go figure the top speed and rate of climb with 1000 HP on board (!!!!) -you are into the WW2 fighter region and beyond --wouldn't that be a blast! I thought about what sort of 'application' such a thing could have and came up with the 'thrill ride' as the only real 'justification' (trying to "make' one of course ) the Virgin Galactic $200,000 'space thrill ride 'is in the same class. A two seater could give the average pilot (or aircar driver of the future) a real taste of what it might have been like to have a Spitfire or Mustang at your command . And then turn him loose in the single seater to go carve up some sky! --if you have seen the BD5J in action you will "get" it -- it looks much faster than it is and does those three thousand foot diameter loops and just accelerates vertically like nothing else . That and that alone is reason enough to build something like this -bugger the Reno races (but you could 'gatecrash' and just blow their speed measuring equipment...... (see "one good run" -the story of garage living New Zealander Bert Munro who broke a heap of Bonneville race speeds on a homemade 'junk' bike... Anyway,back to earth -the degree of difficulty in getting all the nitty gritty engineering details and engine/driveline.prop etc worked out will not be as simple as it might look or scale down with the aircraft size --see the history of the Pond racer as an example. I still haven't gotten out to see the local firm offering flights in a Folland Gnat (1/2 hour = $3000 +....) but THIS is the sort of market there could be . (the passengers donate to your retirement fund but get a free flight in your experimental sort of thing

A contra rotating prop allows for a shorter gear and some other advantages --two engines driving two concentric contra rotating props is also the logical best for a two seat "trainer' . Either Autoreply's "front end of a two seat glider (tandem) or other arrangements give an idea of sizes and the rest . Anybody have comments?

That plane look like what I was thinking about. Now, rearrange the packing of fuel, engine and transmission and get a healthy “residual thrust” from the turbo set up, build, test and go racing.

So it looks like what we need is a two seater torpedo with wings

 

[Starman]

 

[Starman]

 

[N804RV]

 

[Starman]

 

[bl_dg]

 

[autoreply]

 

[Starman]

 

[JamesG]

 

[Starman]

 

[Starman]

 

[Starman]

 

[Brian Clayton]

 

[Aircar]

 

[Aircar]

 

[Aviator168]

 

[BoKu]

 

[Aircar]

 

[autoreply]

 

[WonderousMountain]