P-47 Thunderbolt ideas.

[Old Wombat]

Looks like it's been removed from a power station rather than from an aeroplane! 

My initial thought as well!

[Weaver]

By the time the air'd gone 20 feet from the intake, through the cold side of the turbocharger, through the intercoolers, 20 feet forwards to the engine, through the engine, out through the exhaust pipes, 20 feet back down the fuselage, through the hot side of the turbocharger and out, it'd done some work...

No wonder it was described as 'exhaust' by that stage...

[kitbasher]

P-47 supercharger system removed from the airframe:



Pic posted on Twitter by Tev Clarke: https://twitter.com/TrevClark1958/status/1297156572909432832?s=20

Isn't that a ride at Disneyworld?

[NARSES2]

Fascinating photo, and I to like the air indicator arrows.

If I'm honest I really don't understand what it's meant to do, let alone how it does/did it. But then I've never really had a mechanical bone in my body. I can just about grasp a basic steam engine or internal combustion engine, but add anything to it and I'm lost.

[Rheged]

It looks like a pipe-fitters nightmare.   Was the extra power it is supposed to have provided worth the extra weight/complexity?   Wasn't it Camm who said designers should "simplicate and add lightness"?   I know simplicate isn't a word you find in most dictionaries, but you know exactly what he meant!

[PR19_Kit]

It looks like a pipe-fitters nightmare.   Was the extra power it is supposed to have provided worth the extra weight/complexity?   Wasn't it Camm who said designers should "simplicate and add lightness"?   I know simplicate isn't a word you find in most dictionaries, but you know exactly what he meant!

Camm may have said it first, but Colin Chapman (Mr. Lotus) definitely said so in the late 60s. There's a movie of him saying it that I've seen somewhere.

[Weaver]

[scooter]

It looks like a pipe-fitters nightmare.   Was the extra power it is supposed to have provided worth the extra weight/complexity?   Wasn't it Camm who said designers should "simplicate and add lightness"?   I know simplicate isn't a word you find in most dictionaries, but you know exactly what he meant!

Its Republic.  They just carved it out of a chunk of solid aluminum, as they did with the rest of the plane.

[PR19_Kit]

I wonder WHY did it like that, why not put the turbo right behind the engine and thus shorten all the pipework?

Maybe it had something to do with CG issues perhaps?

[scooter]

I wonder WHY did it like that, why not put the turbo right behind the engine and thus shorten all the pipework?

Maybe it had something to do with CG issues perhaps?

Fuel tank between the firewall and forward cockpit bulkhead

[PR19_Kit]

Put it under the pilot............ 

[Weaver]

Put it under the pilot............ 

That's where the auxiliary fuel tank is...

[Old Wombat]

Looking at where everything is, it has to be CoG issues. The fuel tanks are located on or near the CoG, which is optimal, as the changing mass as fuel is used is going to be an issue anywhere else, & the big engine needs something at the rear to counterbalance its mass, either added length (not good, given its already limited manoeuvrability) or the turbo-supercharger (which looks larger than normal).

[tahsin]

Was the extra power it is supposed to have provided worth the extra weight/complexity?

ln a book l have somewhere in which a Republic test pilot meets a Hellcat. Same engine, larger wing, lighter though practically everything was lighter than a P-47. This might even be the 1944 series of flights where every American fighter was flown against each other. Depending on altitude the extra power was worth everything. Had there been an Amerikabomber, P-47 would have been the most famous American fighter of the Second World War, in addition to being the hardest working.

[Jesse220]

How about a Jet powered Thunderbolt?