WesWorld

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Originally posted by Kaiser Kirk
Brockpine:
The Avia B-135 did come out in early 1935 btw. Same as the historical plane.

Yes, and I have a few in my lineup. But Bulgaria also attempted to manufacture their own in-house at DAR, under the "DAR-11 Ljastuvka" title. Apparently they had some... engineering difficulties that prevented them from building their own, but allowed them to assemble twelve B-135s based on the Avia engines and parts. At that point the Czechs were incorporated into Nazi Germany and the Bulgarians lost their source of parts and design expertise; they ended up with captured PZL and Dewoitines and bought Bf109E and G fighters from Germany.

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Originally posted by Kaiser Kirk

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Originally posted by Brockpaines at startup. We ended up with a... difficulty (read: flaming spat)

ROFL
I can't imagine.

The only Space-based game I tried was a variant of "Star Fleet Battles" with a buddy. It was supposed to be counter based galactic warfare, but we decided to fight the tactical encounters and had production rules. Unfortunately running a tactical turn-based encounter with 30+ starships takes forever. However, few serious disagreements, just not enough time.

Indeed. We actually ended up with a serious disagreement on that one: anger, typeshouting, accusations of cheating and powergaming, verbal recriminations, and eventually the removal of a weeks worth of threads.

...aye, that was a mess. And even after that, no-one wanted to make rules for technology or production at all. Tsk tsk.

Aiee!

SFB is a favorite way of mine to waste time, but BOY, does it EVER waste time!

SFB was fun with a couple of ships. But running ~20+ Lyrans against ~15 Kzintis backed by a base meant long turns.

Then add in the Kzinti carriers spitting out fighters, and huge hoards of drones incoming- I think he could control 150+. The Kzin cruisers would fire, and as the drones passed the outer line of frigates they would fire.

Then I would tick him off by concentrating my fleet's disruptors on a single Kzin frigate, pop it and let the explosion reduce the drone problem...

Huh, no Kzinti Lesson???

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Originally posted by Brockpaine
Huh, no Kzinti Lesson???

Unless you're talking about the non-Star Trek books, afraid I do not recall, or perhaps know the reference... but all this was a long, long time ago, they have revamped the game since.

Lyrans and Kzinti were foes, Lyrans had the ESG and good point defense, Kzinti had ridiculous drone control capacity and tons of ways to spit them out. Detonating small Kzinti ships was simply a great way to cut down the drone waves.

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Originally posted by Kaiser Kirk

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Originally posted by Brockpaine
Huh, no Kzinti Lesson???

Unless you're talking about the non-Star Trek books, afraid I do not recall, or perhaps know the reference... but all this was a long, long time ago, they have revamped the game since.

Lyrans and Kzinti were foes, Lyrans had the ESG and good point defense, Kzinti had ridiculous drone control capacity and tons of ways to spit them out. Detonating small Kzinti ships was simply a great way to cut down the drone waves.

Oh. *Does some quick research.*

Okay, I see now. The Kzinti were originally a race from Larry' Niven's "Known Space" universe. But Niven wrote the Kzinti into a Star Trek animated episode and that got made canon, apparently; I'm not a Trekkie (B5 forever!) so I rather missed that point.

The Kzinti Lesson is one of the timeless lessons of hard-science fiction:

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"A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive."

In the Known Space universe, the Kzinti learned this lesson the hard way, attacking "primative" and unarmed human ships... equipped with nuclear photonic drives (read: giant space laser beam propulsion).

In the first contact, a Kzinti battlefleet attacked a lone, unarmed human colonization ship, which pointed its engines at them and powered up. Colony ship 1, Kzinti Battleship 0. Eventually the humans built real weapons, an FTL drive, and a war fleet, and spent the rest of the First War creatively slagging bewildered Kzinti warriors who had no clue the humans were winning until the humans had already won.

The Kzinti Lesson, Illustrated

All inclusive Tech and Economic Rules where tried in N-Verse, my personal opinion is that they failed miserably. Q-Reports there are monsters and the rules themselves cause problems and powergaming.

A Gentlemen's agreement could work OTOH.

I could even accept some limited Aircraft Economic Rules, so long as they don't penalize smaller countries too much. Perhaps based on actual aircraft factories present in country?

Mexico has been playing around with pulsejets, but nothing much will come of that for quite a while. The first Mexican Jet will be the He-162, and that won't be untill the 40s.

I'm thinking gentlemans rules is the ONLY way to go at this point.

I'd still love to see a factory tally for army and airforce stuff too but I seem to be the only one in that reguard.

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Originally posted by Desertfox
All inclusive Tech and Economic Rules where tried in N-Verse, my personal opinion is that they failed miserably. Q-Reports there are monsters and the rules themselves cause problems and powergaming.

That´s part of the reason why I fight against such rules here.

To get back to the original topic this thread was on:

Gavin - In two or thre o f my posts I asked a few questions about Whittle and jets above which where directly aimed at you but you may have missed them. Could you please provide some more info? Thanks.

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Originally posted by HoOmAn
Gavin - In two or thre o f my posts I asked a few questions about Whittle and jets above which where directly aimed at you but you may have missed them. Could you please provide some more info? Thanks.

I just left it as not to get sidetracked. Von Ohain states that he developed the turbojet independantly, I wonder what he stands to gain by claiming that? Wilhelm Gundermann, Von Ohain's team leader at Heinkel states completely the opposite "Naturally we kept track of other patent applications..and became familiar with the very similar work of Frank Whittle in England" Cpt Eric Brown said a similar thing in one of his lectures last year but going into more detail, stating that the day after Whittle's patent came out in 1931, the German embassy in London obtained copies (most likely entirely legally) and circulated them to the technical institutions in Germany. Why would Gundermann lie?

Looking at the engines themselves, the HeS 2 and Whittle's patent. The engines aren't just similar, they are the same apart from the HeS using a radial flow turbine. Von Ohain used hydrogen as a fuel because he had problems burning diesel or kerosene. Hydrogen has a much lower flash point and is easier to burn. Whittle in the mean time had moved on to a different concept using a double sided centrifugal compressor to increase the mass flow. The first engine running months before the HeS 2 and on normal diesel fuel.

Strangely, the early problems with Whittle's gas turbine weren't anything to do with the turbine. It was manufactured from stainless steel and stood up reasonably well to the heat. The problem was in the combustion chamber where a massive amount of fuel needs to be burn in a very short time, in a small space and in a howling gale. Once this problem was solved in 1940-41 things really started moving.

Axial compressors were developed mostly from steam turbines. The RAE in the UK had been doing work on gas turbines with axial compressors since the 1920s but these were for turboprops and excessively heavy. In the late 30s they built a series of lgihter units that were very efficienct and reasonably light, these led to the Metrovick series of jet engines, which weren't really adopted until the Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire.

Other gas turbines; Lysholm's designs from Sweden would probably have worked, but would be very heavy given the multiple stage centrifugal compressors and turbines. Gyorgy Jendrassik in Hungary has a barely working turboprop by the late 1930s but with little power and I've no idea about weight, a normal piston engine would most likely have been better. A few Russian projects in the early 40s, but all were massive, heavy and low-powered. Brown-Boveri in Switzerland produced a nifty multiple stage turboshaft in a train in 1938 which worked pretty well but again heavy and massive fuel consumption. It did last for years however. The less said about US research the better, starting around 1940-41 at the earliest, the designers managed to come up with engines that didn't work, and most likely would never work, even with the technology of today.

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Originally posted by Red Admiral

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Originally posted by HoOmAn
Gavin - In two or thre o f my posts I asked a few questions about Whittle and jets above which where directly aimed at you but you may have missed them. Could you please provide some more info? Thanks.

I just left it as not to get sidetracked. Von Ohain states that he developed the turbojet independantly, I wonder what he stands to gain by claiming that? Wilhelm Gundermann, Von Ohain's team leader at Heinkel states completely the opposite "Naturally we kept track of other patent applications..and became familiar with the very similar work of Frank Whittle in England" Cpt Eric Brown said a similar thing in one of his lectures last year but going into more detail, stating that the day after Whittle's patent came out in 1931, the German embassy in London obtained copies (most likely entirely legally) and circulated them to the technical institutions in Germany. Why would Gundermann lie?

Actually, both could be true, as Whittle himself came to believe after meeting von Ohain in the US. Von Ohain's "garage engine", from the period before he went to work for Heinkel, could be entirely original, while his work at Heinkel could have had help from the Whittle patent.

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Originally posted by Red Admiral
Wilhelm Gundermann, Von Ohain's team leader at Heinkel states completely the opposite "Naturally we kept track of other patent applications..and became familiar with the very similar work of Frank Whittle in England"

Sounds like "We were doing our thing and then learned others did the same." Doesn´t sound like a proof of the claim Ohain simply copied Whittle.

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Cpt Eric Brown said a similar thing in one of his lectures last year but going into more detail, stating that the day after Whittle's patent came out in 1931, the German embassy in London obtained copies (most likely entirely legally) and circulated them to the technical institutions in Germany. Why would Gundermann lie?

There is no reason he has to lie. It´s also no proof that Ohain got such copies and worked with them. Just become somebody in Germany got them doesn´t mean Ohain got them and even if so it doesn´t mean Ohain copied Whittles work.

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Looking at the engines themselves, the HeS 2 and Whittle's patent. The engines aren't just similar, they are the same apart from the HeS using a radial flow turbine.

I´m not talking the HeS2. According to my sources there wasn´t even a HeS2. The first working (!) turbine Ohain build for Heinkel was labeled HeS1 and the second one HeS3. The HeS2 never made it from the drawing boards. The HeS-series was started when Papst von Ohain began to work for Heinkel but he had been working on gas turbines since 1930. The HeS1 was at least the third jet Ohain build. He may have used Whittles work (if available) for improvements on details be see no link of Whittles paptent to the early works of Ohain, not with my current sources, that is.

"Von Ohain used hydrogen as a fuel because he had problems burning diesel or kerosene. Hydrogen has a much lower flash point and is easier to burn. Whittle in the mean time had moved on to a different concept using a double sided centrifugal compressor to increase the mass flow. The first engine running months before the HeS 2 and on normal diesel fuel."

I thought it had something to do with hydrogen burning much easier. No doubt Whittles engine ran earlier on nromal fuel than the first HeS-series engine did, which was the HeS3 in 1938 and producing 450kp and later used for the He178.

Thanks for all other information.

My sources say otherwise. The S1 was Von Ohain's first "garage" engine which didn't really workvery well. The HeS2 was the proof of concept engine built at Heinkel using hydrogen fuel. Looking on the net, things say otherwise, with the HeS 1 being the hydrogen powered one.

As Whittle said "The invention itself was nothing. The real achievement was making it work."




Spot the difference. It should be noted that Whittle's sketch is for a patent rather than an actual cross-section of the design.

Hmmm... Completely different statements. :o/

Guess I will spend some money on books on early jet engines soon. That´s a field of science I´ve not digged into very deep so far. Of course there are chapters about the history of jets in several books (like the one I referred to above) but probably more in detail info is necessary.

Until then I´d rate any proposition regarding Whittle/Ohain at least as dubious.

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Originally posted by HoOmAn
Guess I will spend some money on books on early jet engines soon. That´s a field of science I´ve not digged into very deep so far.

And you working in the aerospace industry.....
for shame, Sir, for shame!!!!

....runs from the wrath of the Keeper of the Sacred B.C.!!

Well......

Can´t know everything, right? :o/

There aren't really many good books on early jet engines around. "Not much of an engineer" is Sir Stanley Hooker's biography and includes lots of details, plus its a good read. Theres also "Genesis of the Jet" and "Jet and Turbine Aero Engines" by Bill Gunston.

Material considerations were only a part of the problem. They restricted power output. More problematic were compressor surge problems especially in the axial engines. Problems with burning so much fuel in a short space was also problematic, the heat release value/time being about 25 times anything previous and its all surrounded by thin sheet metal.

Just looking for a clarification on the CR-35 and CR-35 bis. Is the climb rate 4300/4400 fpm or meters per minute?

If its the former it would seem that it seriously outclasses many cutting edge designs which border around the 2500/3000 fpm range.

I would gamble it's 4,000 fpm, meters would be way out of range.

RA's got a very small, very lightly built plane with a powerful engine, which gives the performance. I'm a little surprised the 20mm fits with the weight budget, but tinkering with maximum speed frees up lots of weight. The negative would likely be fragility.