Awesome I actually got my medical at AVDOC. Same place and the P-51 is also on my list of to do. Possibly at a place which combines it at an High-Altitude rating. I flew in a Harvard training flight in Duxford on the 3rd June 2019. That was awesome.
2 Likes
@Chewbacca You are hard to impress 
My P51D tour will include a lowlevel strafing run at 12 parked zeros and a 20 min dog fight with 2 me109s and two fw190
3 Likes
I didn’t know there were 12 zeros left!
2 Likes
I am impressed, I am just happy I am not the only one who is does this “Crazy stuff”. Although I think the rest of the world except for you is crazy for not doing it. 
But to be serious I am lucky to (still) have the financial means and I intend to do a few fun things with my money before I die or lose my health. Organisations such as that P-51 place are very safe places to do it (they know what they are doing and really explain things).
1 Like
Here is the video of Gregg on Octane and compression. He doesn’t do 12 minute snack bites and it is a long vid with lots of info. So it can be a bit overwhelming. Best to try to understand the parts.
I timestamped it at the part of the Battle of Britain/Spitfire where the delivery and means of making of 100 Octane fuel from the US to Britain meant the Spitfire had a 25 MPH speed increase at see level and 35+ at higher altitudes. As opposed to the 87/91 of the Germans. So the Merlin had a bit of help with its magic spells!.
But like I said he engines need to be able to handle the fuel, but that is relatively simple to change.
I hope you like it,
4 Likes
I almost linked this video. It was my introduction to the channel. Full of really cool info.
3 Likes
So if I put a 91 octane fuel in 100 octane engine, it goes kaboom because (am I guessing here) because 91 octane compressed with a 100 octane engine causes the exhaustion gas to expand faster than expected causing it to go boom?
if that is the case what is the expected tolerance level for an engine in terms of octane level in order for it to not go boom? (for example say if I put 97 octane fuel in 100 octane engine and it does not go boom).
2 Likes
Hi Finn all,
Not the real thing but DCS has a really good TF51D simulator for home PC’s and it is free as it is the unarmed training plane. There is a inbuilt course to learn about the systems etc. It is a complex hardcore sim but fun.
I actually used it to prep for my L-39 and MIG 15 UTI flight. That really helped because if you spent time the flying is much easier 
And to get back to the trains, with the paid oneseater you can blow these of the rails.
3 Likes
I like trains lol. Leave them alone.
Just as an aside to trains today. Did anyone ever consider with today’s just in time economy how truly vulnerable the entire economy is to even a low level attack.
Scary
4 Likes
Yes - one ship in the Suez canal could paralyze the World evonomy 
4 Likes
WRT low octane av fuel- given what countries were trying to do, I don’t see any of them actually using low octane fuel.
Germany was using NO2 injection, which is notorious for having some high octane requirement or excellent controls. And they also used alcohol injection - for the cooling effect.
All of those aircraft engines were massive engines- and the larger the engine, the more susceptible they are to knock. And by massive, I really mean each piston- you can keep adding more- but even so, they had massive combustion chambers (relatively speaking). Given the ability to control fuel and spark, there were some very extreme engines in WWII on all sides.
4 Likes
There are multiple reasons for this, partly the amazing success of Japanese manufacturers in the 1970s & 80s after they had adopted the just-in-time philosophy and ironed out a lot of the inefficiencies in their supply chains, but partly also late 1970s tax code changes in the US and other countries which began to heavily penalize “excess” inventory held by manufacturers. After the tax rules had been implemented, it became almost a religious mania among industrial firms to eliminate as much inventory as humanly possible to minimize the tax burden and the J-I-T example from Japan (and to a lesser extent, Korea) showed that it was possible to achieve.
This works very well in a fully functioning economy with cheap and dependable transportation links from producer to consumer and every stage in between. Toss in a global pandemic with unpredictable variations in manufacturing, distribution, and transportation and you’ve got a really badly unbalanced situation.
3 Likes
Containerization, which is how this problem would be dealt with today (and is, when goods are transferred at the Russian/European break of gauge today) wasnt a practice back then. You had to unload and reload whole trains if boxcars and flat cars.
3 Likes
Given how ubiquitous the containers are today, it’s hard to believe it took so long to make an impact in global trade. A few years ago, I happened on a factoid that was quite eye-opening: “In 1956, hand-loading cargo onto a ship in a U.S. port cost $5.86 per ton ($55.58 in today’s money). By 2006, shipping containers reduced that price to just 16 cents per ton ($0.21 in today’s money).” This linked to an article about Malcolm McLean who really was the father of containerization (https://www.humanprogress.org/heroes-of-progress-pt-17-malcom-mclean/).
4 Likes
The US army started to load the trucks in UK and land them by beached LSTs in Normandy, some of the same thoughts and a ro/ro concept.
3 Likes
Lol, last time I was going to reply here the program said I was hogging the conversation lol. Today containerization is everything but go back to 1956 and look at who fought it. Everyone who made money shipping cargo. Unions and the mob owned unions were big then.
Still, it was inevitable.
3 Likes
Did you read that for Guadalcanal, the army had to repack the ships for combat loading as they were originally loaded for transport? Can’t recall where I saw this but they had to do it themselves. Cause dock workers were on strike.
4 Likes
Yes, Richard B. Frank have a detailed descriptions of this.
(But I think it was the Marines, the Army came later)
3 Likes
Yes I should have said marines. I goofed.
2 Likes
I think this thread has been in so many places. I’m sorry for derailing it.
4 Likes