Bugatti 100T

They should know what happened before too long.

This was to be it's last flight ever, it was going from there to a museum.

BTW, the title of this article calls it a 100T... it's not, it's a 100P if you're doing a search.


A bit more info:

Historic replica airplane, the Bugatti 100p, crashes near Burns Flat, pilot and designer Scotty Wilson dies | KFOR.com

 

Just saw this. RIP. Very saddened by this news.

 

I was always surprised it flew at all. Not coarse, agreed. But pretty amazing making the thing work in first place. Never looked like control surfaces adequate, or wing area enough.

Sad still. RIP.

 

the original plane never flew?,it was never finished?

 

Aw man...
I followed their design and build almost since the beginning. Saw the original at the EAA museum in Oshkosh. http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/141514388-post14.html

A truly dedicated, passionate group that accomplished what many thought was impossible.
Hate to see it end like this
RIP

 

Correct.

WW II reared it's ugly head and it was put away and hidden to keep it from the Hun.
After the war it ended up in storage then a museum.

It was to have 2 Bugatti auto engines... heavy... mounted mid-ship with the 2 driveshafts.
They were never installed, probably.

 

Not really, I don't think.

It's a conventional tail, only the vertical stabilizer is low, instead of on the dorsal surface.
The horizontal stabilizer is vee'd.

Like an upside-down F-4 Phantom II tail.

 

The engines were installed origionaly, the plane was bought after the war for the engines which went into cars. Dont know what a bug engine weighed, but it was surely light and powerful for the era.

In any event like many experimental high performance aircraft this one was probabbly marginal on takeoff and landing. Everything seems optimsed to work at speed, plus Bugatti was no engineer let alon an aerodynamicist.

 

The airplane was originally designed to race in the Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe, an almost uniquely French event. This was a race with two 1,000 km legs with a 90 minute refueling stop in the middle. More importantly there was a displacement limit so you couldn't just throw in a big Allison or Merlin or MB motor.

Given the rules that they were competing under this design makes a lot of sense... Just as in any racing series where the rules limit displacement, then if you spin the motor up you'll get more power. The engines were supposed to make 450 hp each (from 5 liters each of displacement), which is pretty respectable.

The folks designing this weren't dummies, they wanted something very fast, and were willing to sacrifice some low speed stability to get it.

 

Thank you... good perspective on the raison d'etre (French) for the plane.

There are a couple of sites that promote it's possible use as a fighter... shooting down ME-109's by the boatload.


And,

Saw this on the Bugatti wiki page,
There was an effort to lighten the engines:

"Type 50B
A racing version, the Type 50B, was also produced. It shared the 5.0 L 2-valve engine but was blown to produce 470 hp (350 kW). It was used from 1937 through 1939. A pair of these engines were installed in the Bugatti P100 airplane, with specially cast magnesium crankcases."

 

How unfortunate. There are some preservation projects that I would want to fly. This was not one of those projects.

RIP to the pilot and his family. He went out doing the things he loved.

 

Gee Bee comes to mind. One could say there was no art involved in that design. Yet even with its early lethal history it was mastered decades later by Delmar Benjamin.

Wonder if the Bugatti design could be matched to a turbine, either prop or not. Were there ever any tailwheel jets?

 

Production: Supermarine Attacker and Yak-15. Essentially, once aircraft were designed from the ground up to be jet aircraft, they were all tricycle gear.

 

The first 4 ME262s were taildraggers, but supposedly the "engines and wings "blanked" the stabilizers, giving almost no control on the ground" so all further ones were trikes.
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Hitler micro managing... to the detriment of his military.

Only 'trikes' we had that I can think of were the twin engined bombers (and B-24). Oh, the P-38.

P-51 and P-47's were ruling the skies.

 

and P-39 (Airacobra)

 

Cool pic, thanks for posting that.

 

Yeah acording to Adolf Galland once up to a certain speed they had to hit the brakes just so to raise the tail and establish aerodynamic control authority.

 

F7F Tigercat and P-61 Black Widow also. And another that's escaping me now...

 

The other fighter with a nose wheel I was trying to think of wasn't American.
The wonderfully wacky DO-335
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Ok... I'm way short on trikes.

Both of those were in the waning days, and I think the Tigercat was Pacific only... Navy and carriers.

Yes, and the ME-262 was waning days also with Aldolf Galland's group.