In the wake
of use of aircraft in combat, the key element identified by all the aviators
for success in air combat, is speed. During the early days of military aviation
until the 1930s, aircraft were using straight wings, light in weight, made out
of wood and other lightweight materials. These aircraft could achieve speeds no
more than 300 km/hr. This was attributed to using normal two and four stroke
motor engines in the early days. In the mid 1920s, aircrafts began to be
equipped with dedicated aircraft engines, driven by wood and metal propellers.
This type of new engine used, is known as the “Radial engine”.
Soon, in the
mid 1930s, aircrafts became fast, travelling around 500 to 600km/hr. By the
middle of WWII, aircrafts became as fast as 650km/hr. This was again attributed
to the use of supercharged radial engines, which provided additional thrust. It
is also to be noted that, the wing shape also started to change. The wooden
wings began to be replaced with all metal wings, with a smooth surface.
Aircraft wings were being equipped with flaps for increased speed, drag and
manoeuvrability controlling. One more impressive innovation was the
introduction of “Butterfly slats”, which was incorporated by Dr.Hideo Itakawa,
in the famous Nakajima Ki-43”Oscar”, enabled it to overturn early and mid war
allied aircrafts, such as the P-40 Warhawk and early Spitfire models. These
slats, could be extended whenever required according to the situation, from a
fully retracted slat for high speeds, to a semi retracted slat for agile
manoeuvrability to a fully deployed slats for low speed flying or landing.
By the end
of the war, engineers aiming to increase the aircraft speed, able to fly faster
than the speed of sound, made a crucial discovery. At speeds close to the sound
barrier, the pressure exerted on the leading edges of a straight wing, was
equivalent to that of a concrete wall, when an aircraft rammed on it with full
speed. This meant that the aircraft could disintegrate at such high speeds.
Adding to this discovery was the fact that, pilots faced an irresponsive
control surface at such high speeds. So alternate research was being made to
solve this issue on both the fronts, i.e. Alliedand Axis fronts. The Germans
were the first to discover the solution for this problem. The discover was
first used on Germany’s first operational jet fighter, the Messerschmitt Me-262
“Schwalbe”. The solution, was that, the leading edge of the wings to be swept
backwards, to reduce the contact area with the drag. In layman’s terms, this is
called as the “Swept wing”. The wings of the Me-262 were swept back by 18.5°.
The aircraft could achieve a maximum speed of 850 km/hr, faster than any of the
allied aircraft in service. It was 100 km/hr faster than the P-51 Mustang. The
problem was, the engines were underpowered and was very sluggish at low speeds.
Another example can be the Messerschmitt Me-163”Komet”, which was powered by a
Liquid propelled engine, which achieved a high speed of 1,100km/hr, the fastest
of any WWII era fighter aircraft. It was just short of 128 km/hr to beat the
speed of sound.
The war
ended in Summer 1945 on the Western front and in fall of the same year on the
Eastern front the world was split into two new fronts, the NATO with USA, UK,
France and other allies, and Soviet bloc, which comprised of the former USSR
and smaller states which signed the Warsaw pact. The treasure troves of
discoveries made by Nazi German and Japanese engineers were distributed amongst
the former allies. Soon tension started to increase over the Korean peninsula,
which could potentially lead to a third World War. Both the sides started to
use jet technology in their new jet aircrafts…
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