Originally Posted by
Hydro Junkie
Gee, Ernie, does that mean I've got you stumped? Let's see if this helps:
I'm looking for an aircraft:
- This aircraft was single engined
- This aircraft first entered service during a war
- This aircraft was phased out of service when a similar and superior performing "iconic" aircraft, built by a rival company, entered service(Correction to this clue, the iconic aircraft was actually first into production)
- This aircraft was designed and built by a very famous manufacturer that had designed and built "iconic" aircraft
- Only half as many of the subject aircraft were built as the rival design
- Roughly a third of the subject planes were delivered to an allied country where they never saw combat
- Ironically, the rival's "iconic" aircraft was being phased out by a new, more advanced, single seat design by the subject aircraft's manufacturing company before the end of hostilities
- All three aircraft mentioned in this quiz used the same landing gear configuration
- While the landing gear design was actually fairly common, it was only used on a few aircraft during the conflict by one enemy air arm
- Almost all of the rest of the type that flew in the conflict used a higher drag design that is still common today
- Both the subject and iconic aircraft had a crew of two, seated in tandem
- The subject aircraft was powered by a different style engine than the "iconic" aircraft and the single seat aircraft
- Going back to clue 3, the performance difference was due to "cleaner" aerodynamics that what was used in the subject aircraft
- Interestingly, the subject aircraft had a 12 cylinder engine with 50% more power than the 9 cylinder of the "iconic" aircraft but less than half of the power of the 9 cylinder engine used in the single seater
Good Luck
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Well, I'm certainly all over the place on this one. Thanks; Ernie P.