In article ,
"Mike Walsh" writes:

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...


Derek Lyons wrote:

ROTFL. I *love* how everytime someone points out the low performance
of the SS1 as compared to the X-15, or how it only spends a couple of
minutes in 'space' as compared to the Russian 'tourist' flights....
Someone else always parrots the 'its cheaper though! and privately
built! and carries people!" as though that changes things.


It's good at what it's intended to do; but the thing's overall impact on
spaceflight is going to be about as important as the GeeBee racer's
impact on fighter design.

Interesting. I don't know about the specific impact of the
GeeBee racer, but it was my understanding that racer design
and development did have an impact on fighter design.

Most of the GeeBee's impact was with the ground. This wasn;t entirely
the fault of teh various airplanes - Pilot experience and, more
importantly, Pilot background was a much bigger factor. Delmar
Benjamin (The builder/owner/pilot of the R model replica that's been
flying the Airshow Circuit the past few years) has more GeeBee time
than had ever been accumulated by all other pilots before. But he
also had the advantage of 3,000 Hrs of Pitts Special time before he
climbed in, and a much more mature approach to flying the airplane
than any other GeeBee pilot except Jimmy Doolittle. (Who was not only
an experienced Military Test Pilot, but an Aeronautical Engineer).

Most 1930's air racers were built to a very simple, not innovative
formula - get the biggest engine that you can, and build the smallest
airframe possible around it. Structure was simple - welded steel tube
fuselages, and wooden single-spar wings, with fabric covering. This
happened for two reasone - Most air racers were built by small
operations hand-building airplanes in a garage or hangar, with no more
design work than a chalk outline on the floor, with a shoestring
budget, by technically unsophistocated designers. There was some
support from engine manufacturers, notably Pratt & Whitney and
Menasco, but that was confined more to getting the latest Military
protptype engine released for use, than anything else.

The mission of an air racer was to fly very fast at low altitude
around a short course, and be cheap enough to build that you didn't
go broke in the attempt, if you lived through it. Military aircraft
have much different requirements, having to actually go somewhere,
carry a useful payload of guns, bombs, and ammunition to perform its
mission, and have the performance and controllability to be able to
succeeed, with the structural lifespan to do it again, and again.

The one attempt to build a fighter by a manufacturer of racers, teh
Weddell-Williams XP-34, was a dismal failure.

In terms of raw performance, as well as the other requirements noted
above, military fighter types began exceeding teh dedicated racers in
the late 1930s. From 1937 until teh race was suspended during WW 2, ,
the Bendix Trophy was securely held by one of several Seversky SEV-2s,
which were civilian models of the P-35 fighter.The MacRobertson
U.K.-Australia race was narrowly won by a specially constructed
DeHavilland, but the Number 2 and 3 spots went to stock U.S. built
airliners. (AN unmodified DC-2, flown by KLM, and running a commercial
doute, which came in second, (And would have come in first if it
hadn't returned to Djakarta to pick up a passenger who missed the
flight, and a Boeing 247 with slight modifications - extra fuel tanks.

Even in the earlier days, when, say, the Schneider Cup races were
financed by various National Governments (Notably the U.S., Great
Britain, and Italy), very little of what was used to build the winning
contenders went into service aircraft. FOr example, the
surface-cooled radiators used on the liquid-ccooled competitors were
far too vulnerable to be used in service aircraft, and, in fact, were
too much of a maintenance nightmare for the pampered racers.

The fact is, the State of teh Art in aviation in teh 1930s ws advanced
far more by the efforts of the NACA, Cranfield, thw
ReichsLuftMinitrie, and the Italian AIr Ministry than by any air
racers.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster