Spitfire IX or later : 無料・フリー素材/写真
Spitfire IX or later / wbaiv
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示-継承 2.1 |
|---|---|
| 説明 | How can one tell? Two, big, rectangular radiators under the wings for the coolant, and oil, and an air-air intercooler because there's a TWO stage mechanical supercharger right at the back edge of the engine. The output of the first supercharger is heated by being compressed, gets piped to the intecooler, cools off, comes back to the second supercharger, where it gets further compressed, and heated thereby, but not as much as it would have if the intercooler weren't there. Unless it comes after both superchargers... no, between them, I'm pretty sure. Besides two stages of supercharger, these superchargers have TWO SPEEDS. As the plane goes higher, you can change the gear and get more compression.What's the point? At high altitude, the air is thin. Compress it enough and you've got it at sea-level pressure. Or more. Add fuel and make power. Without the compression, the power of the engine drops off with rising altitude. So the wings make less and less lift, and the motor makes less and less power, and eventually, you're at the "ceiling" of the airplane. It can't fly any higher. It might zoom up above, trading speed for altitude, but it won't stay at that altitude. It will settle gently to its maximum ceiling, or stall and fall out of the sky. Could be ugly.The power made by the engine is very simply the product of how many pounds of air and fuel flows through it. See Dr. Stanley Hooker's autobiography, "Not Much Of An Engineer", where he used Rolls Royce's labs at war time to actually do the experiment. Clean. No parasitic load from water pump or oil pump or supercharger. All the accessories were driven by electric motors, of several hundred horsepower. And a dynometer on the output of the engine. More air, more fuel, more power. The correct mix of fuel and air is pretty consistent over a wide range of engine speeds. All very simple. The two speed two stage supercharger version of the Merlin engine was rushed into production and the engine and its coolers were bolted on to the front of a pretty much otherwise unmodified Spitfire Mk V. A short term expedient. The Mark VIII was the clean design, cleaner, faster, required work to sort out. The Mark IX was a hot rod, big motor, otherwise the same airplane. And, with that, the Spitfire was again as fast as the fastest German fighters. FW-190s which had come as an awful shock.Champlin Fighter Museum94- |
| 撮影日 | 1994-01-01 00:00:00 |
| 撮影者 | wbaiv |
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