quote:

Originally posted by Frankthetank36:
Well look at the P-80, it has airbrakes on the nose, nowhere near the wings

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/SP-468/ch11-2.htm

I stand corrected, but they still are not actually on the wings. And I still don't see why they didn't just add flaps on the fuselage sides.

Fuselage-mounted dive brakes will disrupt the airflow behind when opened - putting them in the belly looks a sensible choice. There are also structural and weight factors to take into consideration.

quote:

Another reason for adding airbrakes: if you have them and the bandit on your tail doesn't, you can force an overshoot much more quickly than by slipping and using zero power with cowl flaps.

That only works in F14's when being chased by F5's and A4's.

"I'm gonna hit the brakes Goose, he'll fly right by."

quote:

Originally posted by TS_Sancho:

quote:

Another reason for adding airbrakes: if you have them and the bandit on your tail doesn't, you can force an overshoot much more quickly than by slipping and using zero power with cowl flaps.

That only works in F14's when being chased by F5's and A4's.

"I'm gonna hit the brakes Goose, he'll fly right by."

Yes, and only if you firewall the throttles and pull back on the stick

quote:

Originally posted by NZ_Tui:
Hmmm I believe the very early P-51's had dive brakes but where not wired up to work....is this true?

The dive bomber version of the Mustang, the A-36 Apache, had dive brakes, but many of them did eventually have them wired closed because divebombing was simply not that effective at that point in the war. It was usually better to convert the energy gathered in a dive into speed so as to get the heck away from all that ground fire...

The main point of dive brakes in a dive bomber is to provide the pilot with more time and control to aim accurately. The purpose of dive brakes in a fighter is to slow down before important pieces of your airplane start coming off at an inconvenient time.

As a side note, the contract for the A-36 was placed primarily to keep the Mustang line in production until the Congress authorized more funding for new fighters in early 1942; apparently, there was still some money left in the Army's purse designated for ground attack so they could use that. The A-36 turned out to be quite effective in its intended role, but by the time they figured that out, the production line had moved on to churn out P-51As and then in late 1942, several people on both sides of the Atlantic got the bright idea of putting a Merlin in it...

cheers

horseback

quote:

many of them did eventually have them wired closed

Hi Horseback,

quote:

A sort of urban legend has sprung up about the A-36A's dive brakes. According to some stories, the dive brakes of the A-36A were next to useless and were deliberately wired shut at the manufacturers so that they could not be used. This story is totally incorrect. On the contrary, the dive brakes proved to be quite effective in combat, and the aircraft was so stable with the dive brakes extended that bombing while in a dive was particularly accurate. The origin of this legend seems to have been in the United States, at a time before the A-36s first went overseas. It seems that A-36A pilots were told by their officers in the USA that their dive brakes would be all but useless in combat and it would be best if they simply wired them shut. This turned out to be incorrect, and the dive brakes were used to great effect throughout the Sicilian campaign and the Italian invasion.

http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p51_6.html

Wiring them shut does not make any sense at all. It does not fit into the aerodynamics or the tightly controlled way in which all airplanes are maintained.

It smacks of the same uninformed speculation that gave rise to the "wiring the Bf-109's slats shut" myths.

All the best,

Crumpp