Ryan's Ultimate Piston Engined Fighter Had The Coolest Name In Cold War Aviation (And A Jet Engine)
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- čas přidán 20. 05. 2024
- Ryan's Fireball was an interesting and innovative solution to the problem of getting a jet fighter aboard ship. Unfortunately it was underpowered and therefore lacked the performance to be useful in a jet-on-jet fight. The solution, inevitably was MORE POWER. And that was what Ryan produced in the XF2R-1 Dark Shark.
Sources:
There are two decent, but long out of print books on the Dark Shark. "FR-1 Fireball In Action" by Ernest McDowell is the better of the two and contains a lot of useful information as well as schematics illustrating development of Fireball into Dark Shark.
Steve Ginter's "Naval Fighters Number 28: FR-1 Fireball and XR2R-1 Darkshark (sic)" contains a number of interesting extracts from the pilots instructions, which give significant technical detail. I personally found its structure a little hard to follow, but it might suit others better!
You are making the aviation history videos I wish I could make after fifty years of studying aviation matters. You deserve every upvote you get.
And so do you.
Right? I don't know why his sub count is so freaking low when he regularly gets double his subscriber count in views! He fills a often neglected niche on The Tube of well researched cold war aviation
@@Legitpenguins99his narration is also nice and calm and the polar opposite of "reaction videos" I have been fed up of for as long as they have existed...
Pilots hated the name "Fireball". I wonder why?!
Maybe the same reason Latin American drivers didn't buy the Chevy No Va.
LoL ! ...'cause they didn't like Cinnamon Whiskey?
Cinnamon whiskey is for toddlers.
Next some jackwagon will simply name an aircraft "fiery crash"...
Decades ago there was an American racecar driver called Fireball Roberts. Sadly he lived up to his nickname.
I'm from San Diego, and love the pics surrounding the test aircraft. I spent part of growing up just a few miles from the Ryan plant. Many of my neighbors worked at the plant.
Same here, at about 6:20 the skyline is bare enough that you can make out the El Cortez Hotel in the distance about midway across the horizontal stabilizer. My Dad worked at Convair for several years before he transferred over to GD Astronautics up in Kearny Mesa. Those old Consolidated/Convair buildings are still there today. along the east side of the airport.
@@tomterific390 My uncle, Jeff Hall worked at Consolidated, and joined the Army Air Corps during WW2. He later became an aeronautical engineer after the war. They may have even crossed paths. My Grandfather knew Charles Lindberg. He and my Grandfather witnessed Charles Lindberg testing his aircraft out on Dutch Flats, which became MCRD San Diego. My Grandmother was a secretary for T. Claude Ryan , and filled out work orders for the materials for Lindberg's aircraft. I just retired from a 53 year career in Aviation. I was a Senior Civil Service Structural Mechanic for the US Coast Guard at the Depot Facility at Elizabeth, City, N.C.. I live in Chesapeake , Va..
@@tomterific390 P.S. I was born at Balboa Naval Hosp.. We used to live at NAS Miramar in the early 50s. We later lived in Imperial Beach some 10 years later. My mom was from Oceanside. My Grandfather was a San Diego Motorcycle Policeman from 1923-1948.
@@redr1150r Great family history there. My parents grew up in NYC, my Dad joined the Air Force in '51, flew B-29s in Korea. He was flying B-47s when I was born at the base hospital at Smoky Hill AFB in Salina KS in '55. He got out just as B-52s were coming on line. He then got a job with Convair in San Diego, we moved out there (Linda Vista) when I was 2, and his first job was as a test engineer for ejection seats being developed for the F-102 & F-106. At that time he was working out of the Convair facility at Lindbergh Field. He then got transferred up to the then new Astronautics division in Kearny Mesa, and worked on the Atlas Agena program for the Gemini missions. He quit to go into business as a general contractor in '67. He taught me how to fly when I was 14. Incidentally, my Mom's mother was 18 or 19 in Paris when Lindbergh made his flight, and was one of those waiting at Le Bourget Field when he landed. In '59, we moved into a brand new housing development in Del
Cerro, our newly built house cost $13 K, a couple of years ago I went by my old house and the lady who owned it said she paid almost two orders of magnitude more than that.
I do really quite enjoy your videos. Good and detailed history and specifics at a good medium and constant speed. With consistent uploads I can enjoy.
And I do agree, there are few names that match up to "Dark Shark". Gave me a little chill just thinking about it.
Spiteful comes close!
Great images. I hadnt seen many of these pics of the Fireball/Darkshark. Truly a delight.
Theres another turboprop attack aircraft I find interesting. The Argentine Pucara.
That is a gorgeous airplane.
That photo of it at 3:00 makes it look really nice.
Wow really obscure and airplane history we did not know we needed but now we know. Thank you!
Love these not so familiar aircraft types. Now when is the F5E Tiger II video. Would love to see what those Florida firms are doing to gut and update those Ex Swiss F5s, or the stillborn F20.
the F 5 video came out 3 months back!! he needs to do one on how general dynamics and the state dept screwed us over on the F 20!!!
@@keithmoore5306 The F5 A,B,C, not the E or F. 1/3 larger airframe and more capacities.
@@craigfox3205 i only got the front 2/3's of that and haven;t had a chance to catch the ass end of it yet!!
@@craigfox3205the F-20 is based on the E/F series.
6:49 gorgeous historic photo. Looks like its taxiing on an alabaster runway in the land of Oz.
As a 14 year old in Chino, one of my project aircraft to maintain and keep clean was the Fireball. It was such a "weird" aircraft. It really stands out, very tall for it's size, kind of like me.. But my favorite that was on the field at the time was the Sky Shark. Since you broached the subject, may as well do something on the Skyshark..
Here is yet another aircraft I have never heard of, and from Ryan. Thanks.
Then you have not heard of the Ryan Navion? The Plane That Won the Cold War? Chuckle….
Always wondered by the navy didn't just transition from piston to turboprop. Imagine how much longer the A1 Skyraider may have served with a turboprop.
It seems that a lot of designers were thinking along similar lines. Douglas did produce prototypes of a turboprop Skyraider, called the "Skyshark". There were problems during this phase, and it was dropped. Details at wikipedia and other sources. I'm just wondering why "shark" became such a popular part of aircraft names?
Piston engines have lower sfc
The Douglas XA2D-1 was the turboprop version of the Skyraider and instead called the Skyshark. It was powered by an Allison XT40-A-6 tuboprop engine and had contrarotating six-bladed propellers. Only five were apparently built. Mechanical troubles with the power transmission led to the aircraft being cancelled by the U.S. Navy.
@@WAL_DC-6B that turbo prop never proved well.
This era is fascinating,design was way ahead of engine technology,many designs were let down by their engines (see Allison xt40) and contra rotating gearboxes often failed when you needed them most.
Air Force trivia at 7:10. Convair XP81.
I love this channel.
The Dark Shark did look cool.
Thank-you!
Good stuff
I consider myself to be more than familiar with all US naval aircraft but for the life of me I’d never heard of Ryan, nor any of these planes. I thought this must be some really late April Fools joke, or some kind of AI gone wrong. Then I looked up Ryan and I do recognize the Firebee. So, I’m less ignorant now, and I am happy to learn something new. Thank you.
It looks…elegant
Mid-week W from Not a Pound
Wait! It's not Friday.
Well, that didn't work when we needed it.
Other twin propulsion aircraft like the P2V and P4M would be interesting future topics that could be made into an interesting series.
Fireball isn't too bad either, as long as you're not supposed to fly the thing...
I would just report "yikes" and then have a nap
Since we are on the subject of weird 50s prototypes, you should do one on the A2D Skyshark, a very wacky aircraft
I want to know how well it would work if you turned the radial backwards and used it to power the turbine as a ducted fan.
I read that the Fireball used only AVGAS for simplicity. As all heavies that were upgraded with JATO systems (senso stricto, i.e. jet pods).
Knew about the early Ryan. Didn't know about the developments. Ta.
time to beg war thunder devs to add this to the game for the next 5 years
I'm sure they'll happily add it for a premium, and it will be damn near unstoppable just like the T-28 superheavy tank. They love the pay-to-win model.
Man, imagine riding one of those Tu95 engines...
That would be interesting! 😀
When it set the altitude record for a turboprop aircraft, was the turbojet engine also running? If so that was not really a turboprop record.
*I ❤️ TURBOPROPS*
Why didn't they give it an R2800 or something? Seemed like a missed opportunity to me
And it cold carry enough fuel for a 17 mile flight, one way.
Drop the rear jet, and you get an aircraft formula that is still being used today. Those turboprops should have been trialled on a B-29 or the B-36.
Dark Shart 🤣
There's a hybrid powered F-47 that combined turbojet and turboprop propulsion systems but the Air Force prefered F-84 instead.
Wait, it's already Friday?!?!
Well in the alternate history comic series “Kamikaze 1946” it was used against Japanese kamikaze birds.
Anerica got the propellor abd throttle modules from Germany
Calling a plane Fireball is like calling a russian tank Flying Turret. It may sound sort of cool but it doesn't really encourage to use it.
Its like a F4U-51 or a F4U-Mustang or maybe a P-51-F4U or a P51-Corsair. But I like dark shark better!!🤣🤣❤
39,100 ft is far far bellow the recird holder the Ta152H at around 50000ft
a Wright radial? they never heard of the Pratt and Whitney R 2800??
too big for the intended size
Wait, what, why?! Not conpalining. Just surprised. Yay.
😁😁
Oh, so we're looking at turboprop aircraft that never advanced past development now? XF-84H video when??
Technology was just moving too fast for many innovations.
Yes, good point!
It didn't have a piston engine though ... ...
300th Like!!!! 😁
Ryan Dark Shark was NOT piston engined. It used a turboprop in front and a turbojet in back.
The fireball was.
The video does cover this...
Try watching the video thru prior to commenting.
N.A.C.A. Was always pronounced Enn Aye See Aye. Don't be fooled in thinking it was pronounced like NASA.