That is an incredible story!! Truly a great generation of Americans. My grandfather was a Captain in the Army then, and was shot in northern Africa, but fortunately made it home to sire my dad.
WildScotsRacing wrote:Duke wrote:My grandfather's older brother was killed on the secon Ploesti run. TSgt Ronald Campbell, flight engineer and top turret gunner. Posthumous Silver Star for that one. Before raid #2 he was officially credited with 3 confirmed kills, 4 probables, and 11 damaged. It seems he had earned a reputation for hitting every last German fighter that ever came within range of his guns. On raid #2 his crew was the lead plane for his entire 3-squadron group. The formation was so low that the nose gunners, ball gunners, waist gunners, and tail gunners were actually "dueling" with the German anti-aicraft gunners. The after action report states that 38 seconds after turning onto the bomb run from the Initial Point, after decending the Group to the bombing altitude of 500 feet AGL, his plane was hit with an 88 shell just outboard of the #1 engine (left outboard engine), knocking it out and setting the fuel tanks in the left wing on fire. The pilot then pushed the power on #2 to War Emergency Power (max RPM, max turbo boost, max prop pitch, max mixture rich) to maintain steady airspeed for the bombardier. Shortly after the first 88 hit, another exploded ajacent to the waist gun position, killing both waist gunners. Ronald was then witnessed by other aircrafts' crews to leave his top turret (which was useless for firing down at German gunners) and move to the waist position. All the while, the plane condinued to take random 20mm hits. In spite of the flames from the left wing which were beginning to swirl into the open waist windows, he manned the left waist gun and began firing into the German FlaK poisitions. When their bombardier dropped their load, the rest of the group dropped on that cue. Immediately after the last bomb was clear of bay, a third 88 shell struck directly amidship, competely blowing the aircraft apart. There were no survivors from his crew. And the refinery suffered a 40% reduction in fuel output. Now, attempt to imagine what it takes for a man to stand his ground and keep fighting and killing the enemy while being blowtorched with burning gasoline.pilotbraden wrote:My middle-school athletics teacher was a B-24 pilot in the ETO. He did not fly the Ploesti run, but he told me a *lot* of hair-raising stories. I read extensively about Ploesti - what a clusterberk.
914Driver wrote:
That aircraft is local to me. The owner is an incredibly nice guy. I walked into his hangar as a complete stranger one day after seeing a bunch of semi-derelict MiGs outside and discovered them putting the cowls back on Panchito after some maintenance. He spent 20 minutes showing me around the airplane and then basically cut me loose to wander through his stuff. I see it fly over my house a couple times a month on summer weekends.
In reply to mthomson22:
My grandad used to talk about when they were kids growing up on the family farm in Missouri. Ronald Campbell, Jr. was, according to grandad, the prototypical/mythical farmboy crackshot who really could, and did, hit any and all targets that were within the physical limits of whichever rifle or shotgun he happened to have with him. He could supposedly head-shot a squirel at 75 yards with his notch-and-blade sighted Remington Model 41 .22 rifle (which I proudly possess now), from the off-hand standing position!!! In my dad's house in the upstairs "pub" is a large frame displaying "Junior's" Air Corp portrait, the last photo taken of his crew in front of their B-24, his military awards and medals, three .50 rounds that Junior sent back to Grandad from Tunisia, a copy of the Air Corp after action report and Silver Star recommendation, and the War Department telegram informing the family that he and his crew were MIA, then the second telegram from the following day confirming that he and the crew were officaially KIA.
I'll just leave this here
Keith Tanner wrote: I'm guessing there's a spherical bearing (loaded axially, yikes) in those outer pivot joints.
That's what stage rally struts use for the top mounds, can't be THAT bad as long as you retain them well (and make them easily replaced, I suppose)
Knurled wrote:Keith Tanner wrote: I'm guessing there's a spherical bearing (loaded axially, yikes) in those outer pivot joints.That's what stage rally struts use for the top mounds, can't be THAT bad as long as you retain them well (and make them easily replaced, I suppose)
Does the bearing support the whole weight of the car, or just take the loads from the shock shaft? I don't deal with struts much.
We use them for shock tops, and we had to go to an exotic spec to keep the shocks from hammering them to death in a short period. That was with the bearing seeing just the shock loads, not the spring load. Now, this is a featherweight FSAE car so it'll probably be fine. The top one isn't taking much load, but that lower one...
Aurora bearing says the axial rating is 20% of the radial rating.
Keith Tanner wrote: Does the bearing support the whole weight of the car, or just take the loads from the shock shaft? I don't deal with struts much.
Whole weight.
To be fair, the Good Stuff is way bigger than you'd put on a shock, like 22mm.
It does hearten me that people do this, though, given that my suspension is FC based and FCs keep the strut shaft stationary and only rotate the spring. So, I'm thinkin', I can eliminate those strut tops that I keep breaking and go to rod ends and a fabricated bracket. Get any caster or camber I want with that and replace the rod end for at most $40 a pop, take the strut out of the car with three bolts. And, as you note, I'd be doing the spring/damper loads radially on the bearing instead of axially.
The question is, which way should I have the throughbolt facing? Braking stresses are high but I also tend to wham sideways into things a lot.
That bearing looks fine- the housing didn't retain the bearing. It's ok to load the bearing radially as long as it's spec'd appropriately.
Keith Tanner wrote:Knurled wrote:Does the bearing support the whole weight of the car, or just take the loads from the shock shaft? I don't deal with struts much. We use them for shock tops, and we had to go to an exotic spec to keep the shocks from hammering them to death in a short period. That was with the bearing seeing just the shock loads, not the spring load. Now, this is a featherweight FSAE car so it'll probably be fine. The top one isn't taking much load, but that lower one... Aurora bearing says the axial rating is 20% of the radial rating.Keith Tanner wrote: I'm guessing there's a spherical bearing (loaded axially, yikes) in those outer pivot joints.That's what stage rally struts use for the top mounds, can't be THAT bad as long as you retain them well (and make them easily replaced, I suppose)
Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: That bearing looks fine- the housing didn't retain the bearing. It's ok to load the bearing radially as long as it's spec'd appropriately.
Oh, I know the housing failed in that picture. I didn't spend a lot of time looking for it.
You're right that it's okay as long as it's spec'd correctly, but it would have to be one hell of a bearing to put up with rally loads. We were using 9/16" bearings and hammering them apart with nothing more than shock shaft loadings on the street, no spring loads. There's a reason you're supposed to have big washers to "catch" the car in case of failure.
In the original case of the FSAE car, it's light. But I'd rather have ball joints myself, especially on the bottom one that sees all the axial loading.
The interesting thing is, the spring loading is relatively light, the shock loads tend to be much heavier duty.
This is all good conversation about the perils of loading spherical axially but the FSAE car in question loads the bearings radially.
The pushrod takes the only vertical load and it is attached to the upright. That means all loads into the arms occur radially which is how you want to load spherical bearings. Braking loads will go along the car axis (still perpendicular to the spherical ball bolt axis) and cornering loads will go towards the chassis along the tube axis. There will be a small axial component due to misalignment between the bolt axis in the outer ball and the plane made by the inner pivots and the spherical ball.
But maybe I am seeing this completely wrong.
The pushrod is attached to the upright. I missed that. Makes all the difference.
Aren't ball joints in a SLA type suspension, really, just axially loaded rod ends?
WildScotsRacing wrote:Duke wrote:My grandfather's older brother was killed on the secon Ploesti run. TSgt Ronald Campbell, flight engineer and top turret gunner. Posthumous Silver Star for that one. Before raid #2 he was officially credited with 3 confirmed kills, 4 probables, and 11 damaged. It seems he had earned a reputation for hitting every last German fighter that ever came within range of his guns. On raid #2 his crew was the lead plane for his entire 3-squadron group. The formation was so low that the nose gunners, ball gunners, waist gunners, and tail gunners were actually "dueling" with the German anti-aicraft gunners. The after action report states that 38 seconds after turning onto the bomb run from the Initial Point, after decending the Group to the bombing altitude of 500 feet AGL, his plane was hit with an 88 shell just outboard of the #1 engine (left outboard engine), knocking it out and setting the fuel tanks in the left wing on fire. The pilot then pushed the power on #2 to War Emergency Power (max RPM, max turbo boost, max prop pitch, max mixture rich) to maintain steady airspeed for the bombardier. Shortly after the first 88 hit, another exploded ajacent to the waist gun position, killing both waist gunners. Ronald was then witnessed by other aircrafts' crews to leave his top turret (which was useless for firing down at German gunners) and move to the waist position. All the while, the plane condinued to take random 20mm hits. In spite of the flames from the left wing which were beginning to swirl into the open waist windows, he manned the left waist gun and began firing into the German FlaK poisitions. When their bombardier dropped their load, the rest of the group dropped on that cue. Immediately after the last bomb was clear of bay, a third 88 shell struck directly amidship, competely blowing the aircraft apart. There were no survivors from his crew. And the refinery suffered a 40% reduction in fuel output. Now, attempt to imagine what it takes for a man to stand his ground and keep fighting and killing the enemy while being blowtorched with burning gasoline.pilotbraden wrote:My middle-school athletics teacher was a B-24 pilot in the ETO. He did not fly the Ploesti run, but he told me a *lot* of hair-raising stories. I read extensively about Ploesti - what a clusterberk.
amazing
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