[Crumpp]

You are most welcome Boomerang. I personally am most thankful to Col Feidler for joining us too.

Clearly, it is impossible to assess the reliabity of the cause and effect relationship set out in this statement. What is striking, however, is the statement that one aircraft was significantly faster than the others in the squadron. This is entirely consistent with the idea that there were considerable variations between the performances of aircraft of the same type.

Absolutely.

It's funny too the bond that forms between a pilot and his aircraft. Even my little GA family mover has an emotional attachment.

I mentioned to my wife last flight that I was thinking about getting a Mooney. It's faster and more economical than what we have now. The wife wouldn't have a thing to do with that idea. Completely out of character for her, she snapped at me to quit being disloyal to "Bravo Fox" as the plane had always carried us safely through every encounter. I though it was funny as she is not a pilot. Women huh? God bless em.



Of course, I will admit that the last thing I do before shutting out the lights in the hanger is get pat her on the cowl and thank her for being such a good airplane.

Oskar told me he was extremely upset when he lost one particular FW190 after being shot down. He was really upset when they hauled the plane off to the scrap yard an still remembers little details about that one aircraft. It was definitely his favorite.

You might also wish to consider his Fig 16, where the 1g and 4g flight envelopes for the F-5E can be seen to be very close together, at max speed at sea level. That's very little change for a 300% increase in weight. You can see why the change in level speed due to a 5% increase in weight is regarded as insignificant.

I think we are still just looking at maximum speed and nothing has changed in my opinion:

Crumpp says:

Now I understand you only wanted to make the point that "in regards to top level speed" in a very narrow definition, the affect of weight is insignificant.

I guess you could make that statement. I certainly would not make it. Once again it sounds to me like a Doctor claiming the small size of a cancer tumor means it is insignificant to the body.

From Perkins and Hage, "Airplane Performance Stability and Control"










Additionally it is very hard to compare aircraft like the F-16 to WWII designs. The entire design emphasis has evolved over time as to what is important in the fight due to the abundance of thrust available.

From Andrew M Skow paper "Agility as a Design contributor" AIAA library:




Mr Skow's paper is a worthwhile read and I meant to share it but unfortunately it exceeds the boards allotted attachment size for pdf files.


All the best,

Crumpp