So he's one of the guys responsible for crap like a friend's car that has to have the front tires taken off to change the freaking headlights... I wish I were kidding.

So he was NOT a good professor and NOT a good engineer. A good engineer considers the humans that have to maintain and operate the machinery they’re designing.

​@johngregory4801 you have no idea. I had a PZEV Focus that had to have the left wheel and fender liner pulled to change the lifetime sealed AIR FILTER.

@@jacobrzeszewski6527 Engineers - pissing off mechanics and owners without repercussions. 🤬

@@tdhawk7284 Those without a clue, teach.

😂 An old A&P told me of his first flight in a Navy SNJ trainer back when he was brand new. He was being ferried to a location to fix another downed trainer in 1945. The pilot, a young hot shot, decided it would be cool to do some aerobatics with the young mechanic. He looped the plane, the mechanic's tool box went right through the floor, and they were forced to bail out of the critically damaged aircraft!

A land version of the Botha would be the Vickers Valiant tank. Used for decades in tank school as a lesson on "how not to design a tank".

:-D

Tank was tasked with production of the 109 as demand ramped up so he knew every inch of the 109, so everything he did on the 190 was to avoid the mistakes of the 109, such as the heavily framed canopy, narrow landing gear, small cockpit and a host of other things.

Totall agee, and I think he was sending a message about the landing gear, at least.@@michaelbevan3285

They did, but they learned even more from Focke Wulf.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobilesEveryone seems to have learned from Fock Wulf. The FW-190 wasn’t the best fighter of the war performance wise, especially as the war continued, but it really did well on the ‘boring’ bits😅

Corky Meyer.

I'm not the only one waiting for "I'm on a horse"

That's very tiring for long periods of time, as in cruise. There, I think a circular scan across the instruments is better. Also it works easier with non standard instrument layouts.

LOL!

Ah yes - Old Spice's racist ad campaign. Hope that went well for them.

🤣

That's funny you would mention that machine. It was called the Vertigon, and I flew it at the Reno Air Races in the early 1990s. The FAA had it set up there and it was free to try. I did pretty well in it because at the time I was flying a lot of single pilot IFR, no autopilot so I was really strong on the gauges. I almost talked about this in the video. Oh, and I saw Dreadnought there too.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Hi Greg, there is a P-47M with a well restored original cockpit. I did photos for the owner of many of their airplanes, and would share these for your use. Don’t want to post my email address… maybe you can provide contact method privately?

@@briansilcox5720 there is an Email is listed in this video description above. Maybe host the photos online and link them over.

The human balance system is an adaptation of an earlier version designed to avoid falling out of trees. It's a miracle we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Don't get me started on the pelvis.

Hear hear!

Yup, some of the Soviet stuff seems to be trying to kill the pilots.

It would be fun to see someone do a WW2 cockpit layout tier list

My favorite hostile controls are the big garden spigot handles common in 30s soviet designs.

​@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles I can't wait until the Soviet cockpit layout video then!

​​@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles G'day, I suspect that the British regarded "higgledy piggledy" Cockpit Layouts as being governed by economic convenience and ease of construction for the Builder - and if the Pilot or other Aircrew Can manage to View and access and operate the User-Interface of such items and Systems..., then that'll be fine - not quite ideal perhaps, but not any kind of a problem requiring redesign and rectification. In fact such quirks were often thought of as being Character-building..., and Instructors could "grade" a pupil's skill-level and progress by how well (or badly) they coped with the inbuilt difficulties... The Spitfire Undercarriage Up/Down Selector on the extreme Right side of the Panel, comes to mind ; changing hands on the Stick to use the Right hand on that Selector Switch generally caused bit of a "Wobblie", when climbing over the Fence. Experience made the observable Wobblie shrink in amplitude, with practice ; and anyone who failed to lock the Friction Nut on the Throttle could find their Throttle vibrating back towards Idle, as their Left Hand moved over onto the Stick (!). Camel Pilots used to learn how to fly with the Stick held between their Knees - any time 2 hands were required to do anything else while airborne... It was still a thing, in 1981; in that before being cleared to fly in an IS-28 (Czechoslovakian built entry-level Aluminium Sailplane), I was taken up in a particular Airframe which had had it's Ailerons recently re-covered - and the Fabric had been "over-doped", and thus had shrunk slightly too much, resulting in Under-Cambered Ailerons... Bilaterally symmetrical, but Equally slightly the wrong Aerofoil - both sides. Which meant that there was a "Dead-Spot" in Roll-Control, Whenever the Stick was Central... One could deflect the Stick about 5 mm (1/5 of an inch ?) Either side and get no response...; but if one went another 2 mm further (1/4 of an Inch all up), then the Ailerons acted as if they had Servo-Tabs on them & they "Snatched" and tried to go to Full-Deflection... Which took a bit of getting used to. Part of the Briefing was looking at the "correct" Aileron Undersurfaces, on the one which I had been flying, dual & solo ; before being observed from the back seat while figuring out how to fly smoothly, with the deceptively Twitchy Ailerons.... I found them to be interesting but not scary, and for the next 3 days ; that was "my" Sailplane..., my final flight in it was a 2:13 Solo, bringing me to about 15 hrs Unpowered... after two 5-day weeks, starting off with Ab-Initio at a commercial Soaring Centre (Narromine, NSW). Eccentric Aeroplanes may actually be perceived as being rather "More fun" to fly... ; than are some Thoroughly de-fanged, well-mannered, and politely Modern Consumer-friendly Designs..., Once their eccentricities have Bin-Mastered (!). So it is said, and I don't disagree. Anyway, For a bit of a giggle, you might consider backtracking me to my Videos to see, "Pilot Debrief Versus KZfaq ; The WarblesOnALot Analysis..." I've rarely if ever seen a sense of successful greedy self-entitlement manage to Snooker itself so rapidly and so suddenly. The bloke who got all his Flying Licences in the Military, at Taxpayer expense, now flying for the Airlines - didn't want to pay Income Tax as a private CitiZen (!?!), so he told YT that he was Incorporating himself to become a Limited Liability Dodo-Eater... And they demonetised him, totally. Then when he appealed he was told that he stays demonetised for 35 days while they ponder his temerity... Lesson learned, eh, what (?) ; Pay thy Taxes, CitiZen...; Do not attempt to Incorporate One's YT Channel. Apparently. I had quite some fun trying to explain it all to my viewers, and also to poor young Mister SuckBroom ("Hoover"...!). If he hadn't blocked me, then he wouldn't have merited a dedicated Video ; when he's currently running around, clueless as to what he did to trigger YT into that response, and I'm the mangy-looking recovering Zombie who could (perhaps ?) enlighten him. Ah well, such is life. Today is my father's 115th birthday, if he hadn't died in 1982 (!). Have a good one, Stay safe.... ;-p Ciao !

That was Robin Olds.

@@themadinspector Thanks, I thought it was either Olds or Yeager, but it has been a long time since I saw the show where it was discussed. I found the article I mentioned. It is on an Australian site and titled: "Der Gabelschwanz Teufel Assessing the Lockheed P-38 Lightning"

I wonder if this difficulty in prepping the P-38 to fight was the reason Tommy McGuire decided to break his own rule and not get rid of his drop tanks in the fight where he was killed.

​@@jfess1911 Another P-38 pilot who was really too tall for that small cockpit, told of a situation in the ETO where he had stretched out his feet BEHIND the rudder pedals while in cruise. One tank suddenly ran dry, one engine quit, and the plane rolled off toward the dead engine while the rudder pedal slammed down on his foot trapping it! Both his feet were blocked UNDER the rudder pedals while the now single engine plane went over on its back into a spin! By the time he could recover., he was dealing with the infamous P-38 compressibility problems, so he's lucky to have survived!

@@fazole In the article I referenced, the author said he witnessed 4 p-38's that took no evasive action after being "bounced" and were shot down. He suspected that the pilots were too busy re-configuring the controls to save themselves. I recall another story regarding the poor placement of the headphones connector. One pilot who had bailed out in the PTO remained tethered to his plummeting plane for a while by this cord. Apparently Lockheed had developed numerous improvements but was told by the Powers That Be to not shut down production to change the tooling, parts and processes.

According to the pilots at VWC this was a common problem when transitioning from the Harvard to the P-40. The Harvard's landing gear control is a standard position selection lever, but the P-40's selects the direction of motion of the landing gear. If you forget to put the P-40's landing gear control back in the neutral position after lowering the gear, the struts won't actually lock in the down position. In that state if you touch the brakes on landing the gear will fold back and dump the plane onto its nose.

I remember reading how the P-38 was particularly difficult to transition from cruise configuration to combat, in think it had to do with the engine management being rather difficult to hurry through

​@@scullystie4389 Gun sight on, Gun heater on, fuel selector to primary tank, dump the drop tanks, mixture to auto rich, rpm to combat power, throttle to combat power. But being a twin engine fighter most of that stuff is X2. And I don't know if it was all period aircraft or if the Lightning was particularly sensitive to this but you do that out of order and the engines quit, or worse blow up

Apparently it got REAL chilly in there...

​@@spindash64yes, all those actions while not necessarily being able to feel your fingers. There were a whole load of other human factors of this sort, like needing to always be on oxygen in a Typhoon to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning or the P-39 filling up with cannon fumes. Or trying to juggle cannon ammunition drums in a Beaufighter.

​@@GMdrivingMOPARguy from what I read, some air groups actually forego dropping drop tank as they considered endurance was far more important than performance in Pacific

Very similar to time-and-motion studies.

Preach it, bro! I got the leans a few times in the C-130, but that's not a big deal in the flight engineer seat. The pilots were still doing fine, so no issues.

This is where the engine management in the FW-190 stood apart. The pilot only had to set the desired "thrust" and the mechanical computer took care of the rest. Mostly. 😊

Lindbergh taught them to go against their training and set the propeller pitch to 1900 RPM and manifold pressure left at cruise power, which went against normal practise. This meant that the P38 cruised at a much slower speed than normal but used far less fuel, especially when they leaned the mixture according to his instructions. The Japanese were already doing this with the Zero.

That's probably about right.

😮 Certainly true in the case of the Bf-109. I doubt that is remotely the case for the Spitfire Mk.II as it was far easier to maneuver and land.

More US pilots were lost in training than in combat. They were 19 or 20 yr olds given 2000hp hotrods! Ira Kepler of VF-17, Jolly Rogers fame used to fly his Corsair upside down and run trucks off the road!

Lots of stuff on the P-40 were a direct reflection of the aircraft design ethics of the early 1930s. It was ridiculously hard to deal with its myriad of silly complexities, which probably got a lot of airmen in trouble and which made the aircraft much less combat-efficient than it could have been.

From reading "Thud Ridge", I recall that the F-105 cockpit filled with jet fuel fumes while refueling. I also read that Vietnam era pilots SMOKED in their cockpits!

That makes me happy. I didn't expect many people to care about this topic, I just felt it had to covered.

This is an extremely important topic. Human factors are not only ergonomics related, but also psychological.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles I have a beautiful black/white photo of my grandfather in front of his F4U-4. I am trying to get into aviation because of him, and so I want it ALL!!!

Congrats and welcome to the club! I still remember the first time I lifted the nose and the plane left the ground.

@@jaym8027 Yep first solo is awesome...first solo landing...greased it...by coincidence a big social in the evening...it felt as if I was celebrating my birthday!

Can relate, hearing that first line is always great.

I didn't get into the Japanese stuff, but the short version is that the Japanese Navy had it together. The Japanese Army didn't.

Wasn't the Oscar just as good as the Zero?

Yes, artificial horizons, which Army plane lacked, are welcomed addition in heavy cloudy conditions.

@@offshoretomorrow3346Maneuver wise, yes, armament wise, no, It had only 2 machine guns on the engine deck and no wing guns. It might be due to thin wings.

Not so easy to get out of in flight, I thought. Certainly, early Typhoons were not easy.

​@@wbertie2604That's why the P-39's door was able to be jettisoned in an emergency. Ideally to get out you'd trim the aircraft for straight and level flight (or glide), roll out of the cockpit and slide off the wing.

@@martijn9568 with the Beaufighter you folded down the seat and slid out of the floor. Unless you were carrying bombs. Oops.

@@wbertie2604 Yeah, the Beaufighter and most WW2 bombers were really bad to bail out of.

@@martijn9568 Blenheim gunners rarely got out as the turret was in their way until Bristol changed it fairly late on.

I'll finish my IL2 series and then consider if it's worth it to cover the Soviet stuff any further.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles I see, that makes sense. Thanks for your continuous and detailed uploads! There’s no other aviation channel like yours

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Please do. Convergent/Divergent design philosophies are fascinating.

Many of those tiny switches were activated while wearing heavy gloves.

Thanks, and that's funny. We all see things through the prism of our own experiences.

I agree, and I think it's true to an even greater extent with cars.

On the plus side, it's one way to get them to answer the damn intercom.

😅

​@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles "This is your pilot speaking. Please return the flight attendant to the vertical position"

Yup, a lack of cockpit standardization was a big problem back then. Retracting the gear on the ground was actually pretty common because of it.

Took a "Design for Manufacture Course" where it was drilled into us that if it could be assembled incorrectly, it would be assembled incorrectly at some point. Good design allows things to only go together one way.

@@fafner1 *" Good design allows things to only go together one way. "* I remember reading about a part that had a protruding pin to do just that. The accident report found the pin had been sawed off so the part could be installed incorrectly!

I've seen an M1 Garand fire out of battery which should be impossible due to the design of the firing pin. When we found all the parts, someone had ground off the l-shaped tail that prevented such a thing from happening. @@feathermerchant

I know he's commented before, accurately, that the P-38 was designed in the 1930s and many features were finalized immediately before certain revelatory NACA papers that influenced later designs. The Lightning had great performance and was a terrific heavy fighter, but should be considered under the "of its time" label where it was quickly being surpassed by newer designs. Like the P-40 and B-17, the P-38 was an older workhorse that remained relevent throughout the war but were retired almost immediately after. The P-51 was not a particularly revolutionary plane, mostly it just took advantage of the best design practices of the new decade, but this meant it was a very modern plane when compared to older designs like the P-38. On top of excellent performance (eventually) and cost efficiency, the sheer quantity of small advances in the Mustang outweigh any niche advantages for the Lightning.

@@ChrisSmith-mi2zo See, I don't agree with that at all, the performance of the P-38 was far superior to that of the P-40 for instance, with a much greater climb rate, top speed and armaments, and the K variant even out performed the P-47 and P-51. As well as having fantastic lift capacity for carrying bombs (P-38H carried over 1,000lbs more bombs than a P-47). The P-38 wasn't of its time, it was far ahead of its time, it was like the F-22 of its era. The real downfall of the P-38 and why it was stopped while the P-51 and other aircraft lived on is simple cost. You could build far more P-51 compared to P-38 and it was half as expensive to maintain them too, with only 1 engine per aircraft. The P-38 cost over twice as much as a P-51 to produce. The late war P-38 could and did out perform the P-51 but it just wasn't justifiably cost effective to produce. The P-38K for instance had 2 engines Allison V-1710-75/77 (F15R/L) powerplants rated at 1,875 bhp each. That's 3750 bhp, which pushed the P-38 test platform to 432mph, and its top speed was estimated to be in excess of 450. On top of this it would have had a incredible bomb lift capacity. "The initial climb rate was 4,800 ft (1,500 m)/min and the ceiling was 46,000 ft (14,000 m). It reached 20,000 ft (6,100 m) in five minutes flat; this with a coat of camouflage paint, which added weight and drag." If you're not aware of the numbers comparatively to other fighters of the time, the P-38K was faster in top speed and climb rate to virtually all other allied fighters of the time. Not surprisingly too the two top American aces of the war Majors Richard I. "Dick" Bong and Thomas B. "Tommy" McGuire both flew P-38.

The P-38 was revolutionary, and incorporated the best of the best of its time. It also paved the way for Turbocharged fighters, hydraulic boosted control surfaces, compressibility considerations. Plus utilized the best concepts of the day like constant speed propellers, inline liquid cooled engines, tricycle gear, concentrated heavy firepower. Etc. It was a world beater. And could easily match or beat anything in the sky at any given time in the war. BY THE NUMBERS. But it was exceedingly difficult to fight with and rarely performed at its best. A common issue in Europe was pilots would be frostbitten and numb by the time they reached Germany at altitude. They would get bounced, as they were in long-range cruise configuration and relatively slow. The process to reconfigure to combat ready was so long and laborious, the P-38 pilots would be shot down before they reacted. These were ALL human factor related, and not performance related. Kelly Johnson learned and gravitated toward Simplicity and re-use of components and even designs. "Never re-invent anything that isn't necessary" ~ Kelly Johnson. And keep in Mind. The P-80 Shooting Star was the first frontline jet fighter in history. It flew into the last days of WWII in 1945. And that distinctive fuselage, nose, and cockpit still fly on the U2 spy plane. Not only that, they built new models in the 1990s. So it's one of the newest and oldest airplanes in the USAF inventory. *Edit, P-80 was the first frontline US jet fighter* naturally the 262 and Meteor beat it by weeks and months.

The P 38 had lethal dive characteristics until eventually sorted out.

From 'inside'?

@@offshoretomorrow3346 Outside, as in the 3 to 8 cameras outside the ROV. But yeah, form inside the control van... Brain hurts now, your fault.

An interesting topic for a video or book would be the high accident rate, non combat losses, beginning in the inter war period to the 1960s. When seeing statistics for non combat loses the numbers are truly staggering. The wide range of factors that influenced these losses and how the accident rate finally declined would be a great story.

I believe there were around 8 HUNDRED crash deaths in the Gloster Meteor alone. (Known as the Meat Box) Horrific.

Replay at 1.25x

Thanks for commenting, I'm glad to hear I'm not alone on that hill.

Makes sense. Artificial horizon provides minute details about attitude and bank, nearly instantaneously. Bouncing from known-known, to verify with the altimeter then VSI and back. Then heading and back. Airspeed and back. And occasional look at the turn/bank indicator just to be sure it's tracking straight/coordinated.