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wingsofwrath — Ol'Salty
Published: 2012-11-16 00:54:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 5891; Favourites: 109; Downloads: 108
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Description
A small reference drawing for Inner Space, the plane belonging to Tambrian pilot Artana Pohimvi , "Ol'Salty".EDIT, 28.08.2013: Finally, I am able to come in with some technical specifications:
The IAT-180 is a heavy interceptor / ground attack plane of the "Confederation of Tambr", derived from the ubiquitous IAT-153 carrier borne fighter.
Like it's parent, the basic structure of the aircraft is aluminium, with the wings covered with laminated plywood strips glued with tree resin derived glue. To give a measure of "self sealing capabilities" to the fuel tanks in the top wings and fuselage in the conditions in which rubber is unknown in this world, those areas are also padded with a layer of resin bonded cork.
Unlike the fighter version, though, the ground attack/heavy interceptor is fitted with an aluminium supercharged 16 cylinder H water cooled engine, capable of producing 120 abe (1500 hp), in a stretched nose, but, because of the type's increased weight, the top speed is only 300 ksome (498 km/h, were one "ksom"=1 verst / 1 ur) at an altitude of 1000 steje (1333 m) and about 315 ksome (523km/h) at sea level, with the engine running at 1600 revolutions/tem (3136 revolutions/minute).
Since the engine is water rather than air-cooled, the whole of the lower wings are given over to radiators, with the right one for cooling water and the left for both oil and water.
The armament is the main difference and consists a single 40 hatte (53.3mm) autocannon firing in between the two crankshafts of the engine, with an ammunition reserve of 52 rounds and a cyclic rate of fire of 130 rounds/tem (254 rounds/min).
Since the recoil force spikes at aproximatively 7 terran tons, the cannon is fitted with a gas vent channelling some of the gas through two venturi nozzles towards the back as well as a muzzle brake, reducing the recoil force to a much more manageable 4.5tons.
Because the cannon itself, along with the ammunition feed system and the recoil nozzles approach 350kg and is placed very close to the CG, the 400kg aluminium engine is placed well forward. This results in a somewhat nose-heavy design with poor low speed handling characteristics, but, as firing the cannon moves the CG back the designers decided to err on the side of caution, because, as the old saying goes, "a nose heavy aeroplane flies poorly; a tail heavy one flies once".
Also, the pilot is provided with an optical illuminated gunsight with three levels of magnification (5X, 2X and 0X) ensuring theoretical long range interception capability, obviously more useful against stationary or slow moving targets.
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Comments: 8
Thanks! I love coming up with designs of various machines and I've had a lot of fun trying to make this look both different and plausible at the same time.
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Yup, you really did it. I bet Miyazaki would love this! Only the cannon muzzle looks a bit too heavy; it probably wouldn't hurt if you reduced it in size a bit.
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Are you saying it's too heavy in the design sense, or in the physical sense of being a big lump of steel attached to the nose of the aircraft? Because if it's the latter sense, I must say that the engine itself is much, much heavier, and in any case, jut behind the engine is the cannon proper with a rather large drum of ammunition. It's still a bit front heavy though.
Also, I can't really make the thing smaller, because the whole point of the design was to have a large calibre cannon and an aircraft around it. It's in a sense the Inner Space version of the A-10 Warthog.
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I meant in the sense that it looks heavy to the eye, it's mostly a visual thing. Bit front heavy, as you yourself said. Maybe longer wings would make it look more compensated?
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Well, someone's been enjoying their Renault UE 57, eh? It's quite a distinctive style of muzzle break, and it works quite well on an aircraft. It really is inherently aerodynamic. Now all you need to worry about is the back blast blowing your propellers off.
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Even though I liked the firepower of the UE 57 I hated the limited gun traverse, so I gave up the vehicle in favour of the "Killer Bathtub", the superb S-35 CA.
Oddly enough I have introduced this muzzle break design some time before WOT unveiled the French line, it's just that the drawings have laid uncoloured for over a year on my workbench so they never made it to DA. But you're right, I got the design from the two pictures showing the UE 57 alongside the Lorraine 37L tank destroyer prototype armed with a 17 Pdr. AT gun.
The way I designed it, the blast is not directed straight back but more to the sides, so the propeller won't really be affected. Especially since it's a semi-recoilless design anyway (some of the gases are directed to vanes to the back of the aircraft, but some of the recoil is still needed in order to cycle the gun).
On the other hand, this design has quite a few shortcomings, most notably a rather slow rate of fire (45-50 rpm), limited ammunition (52 rounds) and the fact the aeroplane will end up unarmed if the gun jams. But then again, this is meant to be primarily an interceptor rather than a true "fighter", and the 5cm (approximate calibre, they obviously don't use centimetres) gun packs quite a lot of punch, and even a single shot can bring down even an enemy heavy bomber if aimed right.
The heavy firepower also means that the aircraft is useful in an anti-shipping/anti-armour/ground support role as well, especially since it's carrier borne rather than land-based.
Also, the pilot is provided with an optical illuminated gunsight with three levels of magnification (5X, 2X and 0X) ensuring theoretical long range interception capability, obviously more useful against stationary or slow moving targets.
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