Bell/NACA early studies for X-1

hesham

hesham

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Hi,


from the book; Bell X-1 Variants, by Ben Guenther and Jay Miller;


NACA MCD 524 jet-powered proposal
NACA MCD 520 rocket-powered proposal
Bell early studied to Model 44
 

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I saw this illustration in Jay Miller's "X-Planes: X-1 to X-45" and I'm curious to find out why Bell opted to power the X-1 with a rocket engine rather than a jet engine. If Douglas decided to equip the D-558 with a jet engine and not a rocket, why didn't Bell use a jet engine for the X-1?
 
Perhaps it was a case of the government saying: "Let's not put all our eggs in only one basket. Let's have the Air Force and Bell test the rocket engine, while the Navy and Douglas test the jet engine... and we'll decide eventually what's best based on their results." Just a thought...
 
a Tremulis early concept;

http://www.coachbuilt.com/des/t/tremulis/tremulis.htm
 

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By the way,

the early concept to XS-1 was very close to German aircraft concept of WWII,specially
the cockpit.
 
hesham said:
By the way,

the early concept to XS-1 was very close to German aircraft concept of WWII,specially
the cockpit.
Click to expand...

Here it's,from ; Into the Unknown The X-1 Story
 

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Nothing linked with nazi German sciences but all to do with the shape of an US bullet. Up to you to draw the right conclusion.
 
hesham said:
Are you sure ?,I think not.
Click to expand...

I don't have a source to hand at the moment, but I believe that the fuselage design of the X-1 was indeed derived from the US .50-cal (12.7-mm) bullet, which was one of the few tested supersonic shapes in service.
 
hesham said:
Are you sure ?,I think not.
Click to expand...

Given that XS-1 design work began in 1944 and the first mockup was complete in November 1945, the amount of German input would seem to be limited.

The shape was indeed related to the .50-caliber boattail bullet, which was known to be stable at supersonic speeds.
 
I thought everyone knew the basic outline was based a 0.50 calibre boattail bullet? Surely that's one basic fact every account has mentioned hundreds of times.

The real myth is that the 'secrets' of the Miles M.52 were incorporated, something very unlikely given the different timelines of both aircraft.
We don't need more myths to add. The Germans might have had more wind tunnels than everybody else, but that doesn't mean no-one else was capable of looking at and understanding aerodynamics or drawing curved lines on paper.
 
The briefly studied swing wing x-1
 

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Just for the sake of interweaving the threads here...

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,14311.0.html

In almost 40 years since I first started finding traces of M.52 ancestry in the X-1 (and as alertken has said, nothing was stolen and much was shared freely) nobody has found a U.S. design that looks like the X-1 (extremely thin mid wing, bullet-shaped body, all-moving tail) that antedates the transfer of Spitfire-test and M.52-related data from RAE to NACA, and that would demonstrate independent evolution.

To reiterate: there was nothing shady about the original transfer. What was shady was the insistence of at least one very senior official historian that the X-1 owed nothing to the British.
 
For the umpteenth time the XS-1/X-1 did not have an all-moving tail, it had a conventional
horizontal stabilizer and elevator setup that could be trimmed in flight for pitch control, a different animal
from the slab tailplane and something that had been around since well before WWII.

Anyhow the N.A.C.A. had been testing an all-moving tailplane on the modified XP-42 before they received
the M.52 data.
 
A slightly (at least) isolationist view of a historic event that will never be agreed on. Sadly.
 
In the late 60's or early 70's, I attended a talk by Chuck Yeager at Norton AFB in which he certainly said that the X-1 had an all moving tailplane. I know I'm old but my memory is still good.
 
hermankeil said:
In the late 60's or early 70's, I attended a talk by Chuck Yeager at Norton AFB in which he certainly said that the X-1 had an all moving tailplane. I know I'm old but my memory is still good.
Click to expand...

Nice Info Hermankeil.
 
jcf said:
For the umpteenth time the XS-1/X-1 did not have an all-moving tail, it had a conventional
horizontal stabilizer and elevator setup that could be trimmed in flight for pitch control, a different animal
from the slab tailplane and something that had been around since well before WWII.
Click to expand...
That depends on how you look at it.

I've looked up the bit about the X-1's stabilizer in 'Yeager' by Chuck Yeager and Leo Janos. In the chapter 'Against the wall', Yeager describes how in early October 1947, on his seventh (?) powered flight in the X-1, flying at M 0.94 at 40,000ft, the elevator became wholly ineffective. After landing, flight data analysis showed a shock wave forming at the elevator's hinge point at just that speed. Jack Ridley then proposed, and I quote:
"Well, maybe Chuck can fly without using the elevator. Maybe he can get by using only the horizontal stabilizer."
The stabilizer was the winglike structure on the tail that stabilized pitch control. Bell's engineers had purposely built into them an extra control authority because they had anticipated elevator ineffectiveness caused by shock waves. This extra authority was a trim switch in the cockpit that would allow a small air motor to pivot the stabilizer up or down, creating a moving tail that could act as an auxiliary elevator by lowering or raising the airplane's nose. We were leery about trying it while flying at high speeds; instead, we set the trim on the ground and left it alone.
Click to expand...
After thoroughly ground testing Ridley's idea, Albert Boyd agreed to trying it out in the air. Using the trim switch alone cured the control problem. The X-1 may have had a stabilizer and elevator setup, but its use as a de facto flying tail - something Bell's engineers had foreseen - enabled the X-1 to exceed M 0.94 in controlled flight.

So: intended to be used as a stablizer-elevator setup - found wanting - then used as an all-flying tail.
 
In almost 40 years since I first started finding traces of M.52 ancestry in the X-1 (and as alertken has said, nothing was stolen and much was shared freely) nobody has found a U.S. design that looks like the X-1 (extremely thin mid wing, bullet-shaped body, all-moving tail) that antedates the transfer of Spitfire-test and M.52-related data from RAE to NACA, and that would demonstrate independent evolution.

I don't think that any of the above demonstrates British influence. The point about the all-moving tail has been disproven elsewhere. The other features would part of any late 40s speed-optimized research aircraft
 
The other features would part of any late 40s speed-optimized research aircraft.

Not the Skystreak (low 10% wing, cylindrical body). Or the DFS 346 (swept wing, blunt nose, oval body with max cross-section level with wings). Or the X-3, or...

Added later: Guys - I know the evidence is somewhat circumstantial and correlation ain't causation. But as Thoreau said, "some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."
 
From Le Fana 281,

what was that which under the fuselage ?. intake,impossible ?.
 

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hesham said:
Strange design ?

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b2/04/b5/b204b5bb0a04de8aa91424b56b17c24b.jpg
Click to expand...

How so?

The caption says: "AAF Wright Field 'Mach 0.999' Study for Transonic Airplane, April 1944". Most of the info you need is contained within that caption.

The lack of intakes show that this illustrates the (April 1944) conclusion by the Design Branch of the Aircraft Laboratory at Wright Field that rocket-power provided the best solution to transonic flight. So, this form represents the end point of the transonic flight research process begun by Ezra Kotcher in the Fall of 1939.

In general shape, the illustrated Wright Field design is all but indistinguishable from the NACA MCD 520 rocket aircraft proposal shown in your first post.

BTW, do you have an original source for this Pinterest image?
 

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