I thought it was good, but it has been a long time. Also, you have relevant experience and might spot errors that I missed.
Re the 337: two of these live at our local field; they are SO noisy compared to all the other planes that I once jokingly asked one of the owners if I could help him finance a new/different plane!!! His wife/co-pilot agreed .Apparently they are very loud for the pax as well as us bugs below .
In his book "The Big Show", French ace Pierre Clostermann claims that he encountered a Do 335 once while flying a Hawker Tempest for the RAF. Perhaps it was on another of its test flights!
James- Noise was never a consideration for the USAF on the 337, but did not know the civilian versions were just as loud.
Taz, the Republic Seabee was a loud pusher, too. I understood that anytime engine exhaust is run through a propellor disc there will be big noise.
And the Beech Starship... I read that it's not only the exhaust, but the flow off the wing being 'chopped' by the prop. One used to fly over my house several times a week going to Stevens at Rocky Mountain Airport. Very distinctive sound. And Piaggio Avanti...
Bob- Trying to think, but I have never been in a pusher that was not a jet. The ones I flew were pretty loud.
Bob - Thanks, that explains some of the noise ..although the Lake amphibian that used to live here was nowhere near as loud .although it had a very distinctive sound. Hmmmm ..I guess having 2 fans might also be part of the 337 noise issue .
I got to thinking about the time in 1952 when we were sitting in the kitchen and the dishes started to rattle. We thought immediately another Seattle earth quake but the dishes kept rattling for several minutes. Then we began to hear the deep rumble way off in the distance that got louder as we sat there. Then we figured out that it was a B-36 coming over. It took a good twenty minutes or more for it to pass. I had a friend who worked in ATC Regional and he said that they tracked it at 120mph ground speed.
I grew up right below the N end of the N-S runway at Kirtland AFB/ Sandia Base in Albuquerque. That's the runway the B-36's used to land. Wheels down, 6 huge pushers. Literally,,, pictures fell off the wall, dishes fell out of the cabinets, windows rattled like they were going to break. And that was just landing. I loved it. My mom hated it. We also had Beech shuttles every hour or so flying people up to and back from Los Alamos.
Not to mention the four turbo-jets hung on the outside to add to the cacophony. Dad was stationed in San Antonio in the mid 50s and Kelly used to have mass launches of B-36s for ORIs and other exercises. The ground shook as they flew over, sometimes 20 or more of them. Between the 6 recips and the 4 old, unsilenced, J-47 turbo-jets, it sounded like the end of the world. Emptied me out of the house to watch every time.
I had friends who flew the very similar RB-57 in VietNam. This is a USAF/NASA RB-57F in flight. We used them for recce in VietNam. Carried ECM because they were still vulnerable to SA-2s, like the one that got Power's U-2. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Bad pic but Antonov coming into Houston..... [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lflGK3C8iC8[/ame] Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
How about the Horten Ho-229? Don't think it had the same instability issues (although can't be certain of that). Thankfully, it wasn't fully "baked" by the war's end...could have been a game changer.
The aero guys with whom I worked all said that a swept wing planform was always unstable and was constantly trying to find a place between a stall and pitch-down unless there was an onboard computer to stay ahead of the pitch oscillation. No matter how small the oscillation, it's no good for a bombing platform.
