engineering

A couple of good precision engineering solutions images I identified:

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center: North American P-51C, “Excalibur III”

Image by Chris Devers
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | North American P-51C, &quotExcalibur III&quot:

On May possibly 29, 1951, Capt. Charles F. Blair flew Excalibur III from Norway across the North Pole to Alaska in a record-setting 10½ hours. Utilizing a technique of cautiously plotted &quotsun lines&quot he developed, Blair was capable to navigate with precision where conventional magnetic compasses usually failed. Four months earlier, he had flown Excalibur III from New York to London in much less than eight hours, breaking the current mark by over an hour.

Excalibur III first belonged to famed aviator A. Paul Mantz, who added further fuel tanks for lengthy-distance racing to this regular P-51C fighter. With it Mantz won the 1946 and 1947 Bendix air race and set a transcontinental speed record in 1947 when the airplane was named Blaze of Noon. Blair purchased it from Mantz in 1949 and renamed it Excalibur III, following the Sikorsky VS-44 flying boat he flew for American Export Airlines.

Present of Pan American Globe Airways

Manufacturer:
North American Aircraft Organization

Date:
1944

Nation of Origin:
United States of America

Dimensions:
Wingspan: 11.three m (37 ft)
Length: 9.eight m (32 ft three in)
Height: 3.9 m (12 ft 10 in)
Weight, empty: four,445 kg (9,800 lb)
Weight, gross: five,052 kg (11,800 lb)
Leading speed: 700 km/h (435 mph)

Components:
All round: Aluminum

Physical Description:
Single seat, single engine, low wing monoplane, World War II fighter modified for racing.

• • • • •

Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Boeing 367-80 Jet Transport:

On July 15, 1954, a graceful, swept-winged aircraft, bedecked in brown and yellow paint and powered by 4 revolutionary new engines very first took to the sky above Seattle. Constructed by the Boeing Aircraft Company, the 367-80, better recognized as the Dash 80, would come to revolutionize commercial air transportation when its developed version entered service as the renowned Boeing 707, America’s 1st jet airliner.

In the early 1950s, Boeing had begun to study the possibility of making a jet-powered military transport and tanker to complement the new generation of Boeing jet bombers entering service with the U.S. Air Force. When the Air Force showed no interest, Boeing invested million of its own capital to build a prototype jet transport in a daring gamble that the airlines and the Air Force would purchase it when the aircraft had flown and proven itself. As Boeing had accomplished with the B-17, it risked the business on one particular roll of the dice and won.

Boeing engineers had initially based the jet transport on studies of improved styles of the Model 367, greater recognized to the public as the C-97 piston-engined transport and aerial tanker. By the time Boeing progressed to the 80th iteration, the style bore no resemblance to the C-97 but, for security causes, Boeing decided to let the jet project be identified as the 367-80.

Function proceeded rapidly after the formal commence of the project on Might 20, 1952. The 367-80 mated a big cabin based on the dimensions of the C-97 with the 35-degree swept-wing design and style based on the wings of the B-47 and B-52 but considerably stiffer and incorporating a pronounced dihedral. The wings were mounted low on the fuselage and incorporated high-speed and low-speed ailerons as properly as a sophisticated flap and spoiler method. Four Pratt &amp Whitney JT3 turbojet engines, every producing ten,000 pounds of thrust, had been mounted on struts beneath the wings.

Upon the Dash 80’s very first flight on July 15, 1954, (the 34th anniversary of the founding of the Boeing Firm) Boeing clearly had a winner. Flying 100 miles per hour more rapidly than the de Havilland Comet and drastically larger, the new Boeing had a maximum variety of a lot more than 3,500 miles. As hoped, the Air Force bought 29 examples of the style as a tanker/transport after they convinced Boeing to widen the design and style by 12 inches. Happy, the Air Force designated it the KC-135A. A total of 732 KC-135s have been built.

Speedily Boeing turned its consideration to selling the airline sector on this new jet transport. Clearly the business was impressed with the capabilities of the prototype 707 but never a lot more so than at the Gold Cup hydroplane races held on Lake Washington in Seattle, in August 1955. For the duration of the festivities surrounding this occasion, Boeing had gathered many airline representatives to appreciate the competitors and witness a fly previous of the new Dash 80. To the audience’s intense delight and Boeing’s profound shock, test pilot Alvin &quotTex&quot Johnston barrel-rolled the Dash 80 more than the lake in complete view of thousands of astonished spectators. Johnston vividly displayed the superior strength and overall performance of this new jet, readily convincing the airline market to acquire this new airliner.

In browsing for a marketplace, Boeing discovered a ready client in Pan American Airway’s president Juan Trippe. Trippe had been spending considerably of his time searching for a appropriate jet airliner to enable his pioneering business to sustain its leadership in international air travel. Operating with Boeing, Trippe overcame Boeing’s resistance to widening the Dash-80 design, now known as the 707, to seat six passengers in each and every seat row rather than 5. Trippe did so by putting an order with Boeing for 20 707s but also ordering 25 of Douglas’s competing DC-eight, which had but to fly but could accommodate six-abreast seating. At Pan Am’s insistence, the 707 was made 4 inches wider than the Dash 80 so that it could carry 160 passengers six-abreast. The wider fuselage created for the 707 became the common design for all of Boeing’s subsequent narrow-body airliners.

Despite the fact that the British de Havilland D.H. 106 Comet and the Soviet Tupolev Tu-104 entered service earlier, the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-eight were larger, quicker, had higher variety, and have been much more profitable to fly. In October 1958 Pan American ushered the jet age into the United States when it opened international service with the Boeing 707 in October 1958. National Airlines inaugurated domestic jet service two months later utilizing a 707-120 borrowed from Pan Am. American Airlines flew the 1st domestic 707 jet service with its personal aircraft in January 1959. American set a new speed mark when it opened the initial regularly-scheduled transcontinental jet service in 1959. Subsequent nonstop flights in between New York and San Francisco took only 5 hours – three hours less than by the piston-engine DC-7. The one-way fare, like a surcharge for jet service, was five.50, or 1 round trip. The flight was almost 40 % more rapidly and almost 25 percent less expensive than flying by piston-engine airliners. The consequent surge of traffic demand was substantial.

The 707 was originally designed for transcontinental or one particular-stop transatlantic range. But modified with added fuel tanks and a lot more effective turbofan engines, the 707-300 Intercontinental series aircraft could fly nonstop across the Atlantic with complete payload beneath any conditions. Boeing constructed 855 707s, of which 725 had been bought by airlines worldwide.

Possessing launched the Boeing Company into the industrial jet age, the Dash 80 soldiered on as a hugely successful experimental aircraft. Until its retirement in 1972, the Dash 80 tested quite a few sophisticated systems, a lot of of which were incorporated into later generations of jet transports. At one particular point, the Dash 80 carried 3 distinct engine kinds in its four nacelles. Serving as a test bed for the new 727, the Dash 80 was briefly equipped with a fifth engine mounted on the rear fuselage. Engineers also modified the wing in planform and contour to study the effects of various airfoil shapes. Quite a few flap configurations have been also fitted like a hugely sophisticated technique of &quotblown&quot flaps which redirected engine exhaust more than the flaps to enhance lift at low speeds. Fin height and horizontal stabilizer width was later improved and at 1 point, a specific multiple wheel low pressure landing gear was fitted to test the feasibility of operating future heavy military transports from unprepared landing fields.

After a lengthy and distinguished profession, the Boeing 367-80 was finally retired and donated to the Smithsonian in 1972. At present, the aircraft is installated at the National Air and Space Museum’s new facility at Washington Dulles International Airport.

Gift of the Boeing Organization

Manufacturer:
Boeing Aircraft Co.

Date:
1954

Nation of Origin:
United States of America

Dimensions:
Height 19′ two&quot: Length 73′ 10&quot: Wing Span 129′ eight&quot: Weight 33,279 lbs.

Physical Description:
Prototype Boeing 707 yellow and brown.