WWII Bugatti 100P Plane Rebuilt | Hacker News Reader

WWII Bugatti 100P Plane Rebuilt

ibtimes.co.uk

31 pointsx43b19 comments

It's a lovely project, but I wouldn't be so sure it would "win the war". Raw speed and aesthetics sometimes take a back seat to other considerations. For example, what was its range? Its ammo load? Its durability and aerodynamics when damaged? Its reliability?

If the plane doesn't have the range to get to the battle, fight the battle, and get back home again, it will fail. If it dies the moment it is grazed by some flack, it will fail. If it runs out of ammo while dogfighting, it will fail. If it's too unreliable to stay in the air without excessive maintenance, it will fail. If it costs twice as much to manufacture as a slightly less effective plane, it will fail. Et cetera.

In WWII, there was something of an arms race for the largest, most heavily armored and heavily armed tanks. Germany developed the Maus, and Great Britain developed the Tortoise, and the US had the T-28. None ever saw battle. They were too expensive to build and too difficult to transport to the battlefield.

I suspect the Bugatti Veyron fighter might have been another case of the same problem, had it ever made it to production - overoptimizing one sexy feature at the expense of other, necessary ones.

Kinda reminds me of the 'Cats on ship' submission and the Bismarck reference. That (and the Tirpitz) was arguably a failure as well, trying to 'build big'.

I agree, estimating how things would've turned out is .. next to impossible. And 'Look what this thing can do!' was proven to be irrelevant in a good number of cases.

The Bismark and Tirpitz were arguably well balanced as battleships, their failing was not being aircraft carriers.

The V-tail tells me it was not designed as a fighter. I'm not a mechanic but they are supposed to be a nightmare to maintain

There is also a small fin + rudder below the v-tail. It's possible the 'V' parts are elevators only. They are at a rather shallow angle and therefore wouldn't contribute much to the yaw axis.

Looking at the thing it likely would have been some kind of scout or spy plane. It would have been small enough to not be noticed easily and hard to hit with AA fire. Fast enough to get in and get out before anyone knew it was there, and could outrun anything chasing it. Agile enough to out maneuver whatever attacks it would have come under while fleeing it's chaser.

If you could have had these guys 20 miles behind enemy lines reporting troop movements, incoming bomber runs, etc. It would have been very handy at the time... considering they were still using messenger pigeons...

"Jet Fighter that Could Have Won Battle of Britain for the Nazis"

Jet?

Already pointed out, but not a jet. Also, the requirements for a racing aircraft and a fighter are different enough that it is not at all clear to me that there is any relevance to military applications in this case.

The spectacularly effective British Vickers Supermarine Spitfire (against which this plane would have hypothetically been pitched) was based on a peacetime racer, the S-6B.

And its main opponent, Bf109 was based on sport/racing Bf108 :-)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_108

Lovely plane, shame about the article.

The Germans already had the fastest plane, the rocket powered Messerschmitt Me 163. It was so fast that it was completely impractical in dogfights against slower planes that had tighter turning circles. Also, it kept blowing up on landing. And take off. And any time anyone looked at it funny.

The Me 163 didn't fly terribly fast during combat. In fact, it was a glider during the combat stage of flight. It took off using its rocket motor, climbed very quickly above the flight level of the bombers it was attacking, then switched the motor off and made one or more attack passes while gliding, before finally gliding in for a landing. It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a dogfighter. It was designed purely as an anti-bomber platform. Think of it as a piloted SAM (with guns and rockets, rather than a warhead).

The jet powered Me 262, on the other hand, was a reasonably capable dogfighter, and did suffer from the issue you describe (being out turned by just about everything...)

As a somewhat of an air combat simulation enthusiast I have experience that trying to dogfight me262 in anything that is not jet powered is an exercise in futility.

If Messerschmitt pilot can fight vertically instead of horizontally. 262 was the best aircraft of the theatre in terms of potential. However its fragility and reliability did make it a dangerous machine for the pilot and the opponent.

Thanks, I appreciate the correction. I thought it used the rocket during combat, I didn't realise it was just to get altitude.

Yeah... Even crazier, right?

The ME 262 and 163 weren't available until the late war period, long after the Battle of Britain. In 1940 Germany had the ME BF 109, which was outclassed by Britain's Spitfire. The more capable Focke-Wulf 190 entered service in 1941.

What a beautiful design:

- http://i.imgur.com/nbBSgrZ.jpg

I found more about this project here:

- Official website: http://www.bugatti100p.com/

- Pre kickstarter video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9A4Fx1SBQc

- Kickstarter is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/525000827/reve-bleu-bug...

Does anyone know the benefit of the dual prop?

Dual prop - not sure (I'm just an amateur drone builder) but it would counteract centrifugal forces, meaning the higher prop speeds can be achieved.

The Germans actually lost the air war by themselves despite a huge technological advantage over the Allies. The Germans developed something of a love affair with the dive bomber. They were effective early in the war, but once Allied dog fighters caught up with their German counterparts, dive bombers became obsolete. The Germans continued pumping out dive bombers at the expense of producing more relevant fighters. It ended up costing them the air war.

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