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Originally posted by waynos
You do enjoy grabbing the wrong end of the stick don't you Forschung.
From what I can see Sminkey never said anything about Kurt Tank being shameful, but the thread is called 'India's Third Reich Fighter Plane' which, apart from being innacurate, as it implies the Marut itself originated in Nazi Germany, does dwell on the Nazi period of Germany's history, as do several other posts that stealth spy has put up lately, one of which even enthusiastically exhorted us to 'just think where we'd be if Germany won the war'.
The other Kurt Tank design you are referring to was the Argentine FMA Pulqui II, which was not supersonic but in the Hunter/MiG 17 performance class. This aircraft IS very interesting however as, being designed by Tank, it is actually the closest relative to the Ta-183 to actually fly.
Pulqui II
Willi Messerschmitt did however get to design a supersonic fighter as he produced the Helwan HA-300 for egypt. It never acheived its design performance of Mach 2 due to a lack of suitable engines but did manage to fly supersonically.
'Messerschmitt' HA-300
Originally posted by Forschung
SmikeyPinkey, I re-read you post but then I re-read your previous post. Both taken together are not what I first believed. I am sorry to jump to conclusions.
Nevertheless, Kurt Tank was someone who would not work for the East or West. Generally speaking, there was a whole group of former German scientists who went to South America and other countries because they could not fit in in the "new" Germany.
Kurt Tank was instrumental in recruiting at least one very famous, numbered, German scientist for Juan Peron. In fact, Tank made all the arrangements. I cannot say with certainty that he was an ardent Nazi, but I suspect he had Nazi lienings. Personally, I could care less one way or the other, just as I don't care about the communist sympathy of a Soviet designer.
Most of the 3rd World didn't care either and they snapped up unemployed German scientists, regardless of their politics. So did the USA. As I once mentioned, the greatest volume in a Paperclip file is concerned with trying to clean up German scientists on paper and it is usually simply a sham put on in order for the American agents to say they didn't recruit any Nazis.
I read into your post what I believed to be an extension of your undervaluation philosophy into a personal attack upon Tank. I see I was wrong and again, sorry.
Originally posted by waynos
The MiG 17 was subsonic but was superior to the MiG 15 in the same sort of way that the Hawker Hunter was superior to the P.1081
Are you aware of the supersonic fighter the Russians, or more correctly Stalin, threw away? I have tried to get discussion about the Sukhoi Su-17 going a couple of times butr nobody seems interested
its ambition is interesting to me in the same way as the 'Luft 46' type designs.
- But IIRC like the Hunter supersonic (just) in a shallow dive?
have you seen 'The Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft' by Bill Gunston?
Originally posted by waynos
Forschung; The MiG 17 was subsonic but was superior to the MiG 15 in the same sort of way that the Hawker Hunter was superior to the P.1081 (actually that probably doesn't help you)
The first Russian production supersonic fighter was the MiG 19 with a top speed of roughly 860mph (I always say 'roughly' because there are so many slightly differing sources)
Are you aware of the supersonic fighter the Russians, or more correctly Stalin, threw away? I have tried to get discussion about the Sukhoi Su-17 going a couple of times butr nobody seems interested
It fascinates me because, when it was canned in 1949, the prototype was virtually complete whereas the design of America's first supersonic fighter, the F-100, hadn't even begun. Of course there's no proof that it would have worked but its ambition is interesting to me in the same way as the 'Luft 46' type designs. Equally, there is no reason to suppose that this fighter, which looked like a 'stretched out' MiG 15, wouldn't have worked either as Sukhoi was no fool.
Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
Originally posted by Forschung
SmikeyPinkey, I re-read you post but then I re-read your previous post. Both taken together are not what I first believed. I am sorry to jump to conclusions.
- That's perfectly ok, it's very easily done when 2d text on a screen is all you have to go on.
Nevertheless, Kurt Tank was someone who would not work for the East or West. Generally speaking, there was a whole group of former German scientists who went to South America and other countries because they could not fit in in the "new" Germany.
- I'm sure that was true of very very many.......and maybe given what had happened to Germany in that 12yr period perhaps many just felt the need to get away from Germany amd Europe?
Kurt Tank was instrumental in recruiting at least one very famous, numbered, German scientist for Juan Peron. In fact, Tank made all the arrangements. I cannot say with certainty that he was an ardent Nazi, but I suspect he had Nazi lienings. Personally, I could care less one way or the other, just as I don't care about the communist sympathy of a Soviet designer.
- Fair enough but his friendship with Galland makes me lean to the idea he wasn't much of a nazi......but as you say his politics aren't really the issue with his designs.
Most of the 3rd World didn't care either and they snapped up unemployed German scientists, regardless of their politics. So did the USA. As I once mentioned, the greatest volume in a Paperclip file is concerned with trying to clean up German scientists on paper and it is usually simply a sham put on in order for the American agents to say they didn't recruit any Nazis.
- Quite.
There was a feeling that the public at large needed to know little of this and despite the large numbers involved (east and west) it was not exactly made widely known - even to the extent that Stalin wouldn't aloow his designers to produce planes that looked too similar to some of the German designs (famously the Sukhoi Su9, for instance).
I read into your post what I believed to be an extension of your undervaluation philosophy into a personal attack upon Tank. I see I was wrong and again, sorry.
- No worries, you are welcome.
Originally posted by waynos
Well I have really enjoyed these debates Forschung, sure we often seem to go round in circles (recessed intakes?) but on the whole they are very thought provoking.
About the Russian fighter, there were two rivals to the MiG 15 which actually flew, the Yak 30 (which was said to be superior) and the Lavochkin La-174.
The supersonic Su-17 was more of a 'MiG 15 replacement' than rival (and when Sukhoi restarted his design bureau in the early '50's he started his designation system again from 'Su-1' which is why there is a much more famous Su-17 from the 1960's.
Originally posted by Zaphod58
www.fas.org...
Click that link and you can read everything you want to know about the MiG 19. Not a bad airplane at all. One of the big problems with the MiG 15 was the bulletproof canopy. While it DID stop the bullets, it also gave very limited visibility under certain conditions (read landing). Basically to make it bulletproof they made it really really really thick.