Two clues for today, hope they help.
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
- The subject plane had a top speed of 172mph, a cruising speed of 123mph and a range of 1150 miles
- The subject plane was armed with a single fixed 30 caliber gun forward and a flexible one aft
- One of the issues that "doomed" the subject aircraft was an overheating problem at slower speeds
- Speaking of speed, the subject aircraft, which was 3 feet longer and two feet wider, was only 8mph faster than the "iconic" aircraft, even with 150 more horsepower
- The speed difference could have been due to weight. The "iconic" plane was 271lbs heavier at max take-off weight but 161lbs lighter than the subject plane
- Both the subject and "iconic" plane had a range of 1150 miles or, up to 8 hours of flying time. Interestingly, the single seat plane that replaced them both, with it's almost "fighter like" performance, could fly out 625 miles
- The engine used in the subject aircraft was shared with trainers while the "iconic" aircraft shared its engine with numerous smaller military and civilian planes as well as some helicopters. The later single seater shared its larger and more powerful engine with several kinds of "iconic" bombers, fighters, trainers and transports
- Of the three planes referred to in this quiz, only the single seater had more than two blades on the propellor, it had four
- This type of aircraft was predominantly used in one theater of the conflict. In the other theaters, some commands used the type, but most didn't
- One enemy command used the type of aircraft, not the subject aircraft itself, to great effect early in the conflict
- When that command ran out of spare parts (due to a very long supply line) and was unable to use its aircraft, it was defeated in a very famous battle
- In another famous battle, the commander of one side approved the use of only this type of aircraft for a specific mission, even though he had other aircraft available
- The failure of the planes, from clue 26, to complete their mission ultimately led to that command's eventual defeat and unwarranted finger pointing, for decades, by so called historical scholars
- Toward the end of this plane's conflict, one of its primary jobs was shared with submarines
- The subject aircraft was actually renamed by an ally that used it and that name was soon after adopted by the manufacturer and home country
Good Luck
Last edited by Hydro Junkie; 12-06-2021 at 11:59 AM.