Human Factors In British and German WW2 Fighters
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- Опубліковано 19 лют 2024
- Let's go over some of the Human Factors pros and cons of some British and German fighters. I'll throw in some comments on Soviet stuff as well.
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Hi. I flew the Hurricane, Spitfire and Me-109 as a test pilot and airshow pilot. I have a few comments: You mention the omission of cockpit heaters as an oversight, since they were not needed in earlier open-cockpit designs. I think that misses the point. Optional devices, such as heaters, were omitted due to weight, cost and complexity. A wise airplane designer once said that he throws all of the optional parts into the air, and those that come down are too heavy. The undercarriage control is a perfect example. The Hurri and Spit designs require the pilot to change hands immediately after takeoff to retract the undercarriage. A modern test pilot thinks, "Dumb design!" Remove the cowling, and the designer's thinking becomes clearer. The hydraulic pump is on the lower, right, aft part of the Merlin. The shortest, lightest, cheapest, and easiest-to-build solution is to run the hydraulics straight aft into the cockpit. The pilot's job wasn't made easier, but the fighter was made incrementally lighter. Lighter = better, even if the pilot's job is harder. That IS ergonomics in the 1930's. Likewise, tailwheel locks; best left out of the design unless the aeroplane needs it. The Spit and Hurry don't by virtue of their CG location with regard to the wheels. The Bf-109 had a comparatively VERY heavy tailwheel load. Omitting a tailwheel lock was not an option, so it justified the weight/cost/complexity. Speaking of which, the Bf-109s tailwheel lock is a great example of a bad idea; situated on the left canopy rail where movement of the throttle will cause one's forearm to accidentally dislodge it. (Ask me how I know!) The inherent ergonomic limitations of operating systems on these fighters represent the 1930's state of the art. A similar example of human factors is cockpit field of view. The Spit was utterly blind for takeoff and landing . The Hurri was better, with the cockpit raised up high on the fuselage. Was this an ergonomic decision? Nope. The Hurricane pilot sits higher to allow for a better depression angle over the nose for deflection shooting. The benefits for takeoff and landing were incidental. The design thinking was to use EVERY BIT of the pilot's ability if it made the airplane an ounce lighter. So much to say...Great video!
I'm glad you mentioned the ammo counters, it's amazing how hard it is to try to keep track of ammo in a sim. I can only imagine what'd it be like with the pressure of real combat.
About the spitfire, I’ve never talked to or heard a British person talk of the spitfire like it didn’t descend from heaven.
I wonder how many allied pilots died by starting a dogfight with almost all the ammo used up.
Did you know British Ww2 pilots were disproportionately left handed?
Eric Brown noted in one of his books that the birdcage noses on German bombers were not only optically poor with lots of distortion from the curved plexiglass they also had a nasty tendency to fog. I'm pretty sure it was in wings of the Luftwaffe but I don't remember which chapter. In any case a blurry or foggy windscreen isn't just an inconvenience it also takes a psychological toll. Humans are visually oriented and blurry windows are both maddening and distracting. A foggy windshield drives me nuts when I'm driving a car; I can't imagine flying a plane with a fogged windscreen is any less annoying.
The Soviets used the handbrake-and-push system UNTIL THE END OF THE COLD WAR... the Yak-52 that David Gilmour (yes, THAT Pink Floyd) had such a system; Magnar recently posted a video about flying the bird.
That Magnetic Compass in British planes must be like the Clock they put into all Russian planes and tanks and other land vehicles that you need a University Degree to just understand!
The Russians. . . In the original IL-2 Sturmovik I had an early mission that flew you straight into the clouds without so much as a bubble. You gotta love the Russians, you get thrown straight into the shark tank and it is sink, swim, or just be devoured.
Butthurt Report Form! LoL
"group of people offended by facts" Thank you sir!
The early models of the Fw190 were quite well heated... though this was unintentional 😂
Just another reason to love the FW190. It's my favorite of the non-U.S. prop fighters. There is elegant design everywhere in that airplane.
Glen Curtis being a long time pilot and designer from the dawn of aviation putting a heater in his aircraft makes perfect sense. MAKE the time to go to his museum in NY.
As an engineer, ergonomics is always on my mind. Attention to detail is key. Two engineers can design similar things, and people will know one engineer is better, but not be sure why exactly. The difference will be in the engineer who paid close attention to details and just an all around better refined design.
Most of the circa 1939-40 Spitfire and Hurricane pilots were transitioning out of aircraft that didn't even HAVE retractable gear, flaps nor variable pitch props: They had NOTHING to compare cockpit layout to.
If you watch film of Hurricanes or Spitfires doing a scramble take-off you may see the wings rocking as they swap hands on the stick to raise the wheels.
I'm having an absolutely fantastic day. I got started paying attention to Human Factors / Ergonomics a bunch of years ago when trying to design and build decent work station areas for multiple computers with multiple monitors. The best references that I've found have been NASA and of course the Human Factors Statistical data. I've run into several instances where the design started not with where is the bet position for accessibility for, pardon the expression, altitude challenged personnel, but with where is it easiest to install this required device. Often the relocation of the switch from 7 feet above the deck to a better location is non-trivial, requiring outside assistance to run new wiring. Other times it merely requires a bit of outside the box thinking.
The US navy's standardisation of instrument layout made a huge change in
Just last week I answered a "which fighter would you rather fly?" with "The more comfortable one". Some of those fighters were about as comfy as a steamer trunk.