"
Whereof you know nothing, thereof should you remain silent" (Wittgenstein) [Wiki] is, in general, good advice.
I know nothing about Flying Boats except for the tale I told long since about the naughty Flight Engineer, but I venture to add a few words to the learned discourse presently on Thread:
Topcliffe Kid (#9785) and Chugalug (#9786),
At Linton-on-Ouse ('62) the True Blue said: "
Seamanship is only Airmanship at ten knots !"
jeffb (#9787) and FED (#9788),
Yes all the prop-driven tail-draggers I had to do with tried to do a dirty dive to the left * when power was applied. As you were ready for it, with full right rudder trim on and poised to boot on full right rudder and a bit of right brake if needed, you could keep the nose pointing down the runway (most times) until you got tailup and steerage way with rudder.
Multi engines could, as jeffb's Dad noted, get the same result with differential advancement of the throttles (wasn't the Whitley known as "The Flying Suitcase", btw ?
Either way, it was vital not to let the beast get away from you. More than 25°of swing and all was lost. If you chopped the power before then, you
might be able to stop it before you ran off onto the grass. If you left it on, anything could happen. I remember a Beau which ended behind the spot it'd started takeoff from ! (Ground Loop to end all Ground Loops ?)
Note *: Except the Griffon-Spits, which swung to the right instead. Or rather, they "hopped" to the right across the runway - a sort of "Right Close March !" movement. Rather disconcerting, as at the same time, there was so much torque that the engine was trying to rotate the airframe round the prop ! Solution: feed the power in
very gently indeed. Even so, would not like to try a formation takeoff !
Geriaviator (#9789),
...their Pegasus engines sometimes gave trouble because they were consistently overworked and had two-speed VP propellors...
Good Lord ! did we really go to war with 2-speed props in an operational aircraft ? Scandalous ! It means that the engine can only give of its best at two points, one in each "mode", instead of across the whole range of rpm.
Those of us who are deriving much amusement and entertainment from the T.C-T. saga, may recall the Arizona "incident" (in which the Stearman, "hot, high and heavy", manfully managed to lift-off and get up to 50 ft before "losing 300 rpm" with disastrous result (but happily without casualty).
This was first ascribed to "contaminated fuel" (but I understand that that cause has now been excluded), and I mused that it was exactly the result to be expected if the prop conrtol (which would be at "fine" pitch for takeoff and climb) had been inadvertently pulled back into "coarse".
...maybe we thought we could sneak up on him. !
With a thing the size of a Sunderland ? Good thing they didn't catch up with him - with a 20mm cannon and 4x13mm guns, he'd blow them out of the sky before they got him in range of their peashooters !
...I don't blame him, said the skipper, first time I saw you lot forming up at OTU I felt like doing the same thing”...
A variant of the better known "I do not know what effect.....but by God they frighten me !"
Danny.