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Some of the latest developments in propeller aircraft has fascinated me. It also brought up an interesting hypothetical question; mostly when reading about modern day warbird replicas. With relatively easily available technology off the shelf (no rail guns or laser cannon please). Lets say a reasonable development budget of oh say $300 million. The question is are we capable of producing superior prop aircraft than the great fighters of WWII and what configuration would it take? To keep the discussion relatively focused we'll put in a couple of rules: 1. Mission: Air superiority/dominance during WWII. Land based. It should be able to clear the skies of any and all opposition at all ranges and altitudes. 2. Must be a propeller aircraft. 3. Only armanent allowed are guns/cannons. No guided missiles. I guess dumb firing rockets will be ok since they were used during WWII. With the above two exceptions all of modern technology is allowed to be used for example composite materials, radars, titanium armour, fly-by-wire (will dynamic instability benefit the agility of a prop plane?) advanced aerodynamic configurations (rear mounted engines). To make matters really intesting helicopters are fine. Just as long as the driving force isn't a jet. If we were to design a new prop, gun armed aircrafy would it essentially look pretty similar to a carbon fibre, turbo-prop P-51 Mustang or would it be some bizzare split wing, dual rear engined travesty? regards, Nev [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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