Re: Modern day propeller fighter - hypothetical

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Nev) wrote:

>  The question is are we capable of producing
> superior prop aircraft than the great fighters of WWII..?


probably not. 

new prop planes have been designed for modern air forces, but these are
made to different specifications. these planes might be used for
missions that require slow speeds, such as reconnaissance. or they are
built for low-budget customers- not at all the high performance
machines that you are looking for.

the task then becomes a question of engineering man-hours. you would
begin by identifying modern materials and devices that are superior to
what existed 60 years ago. this is the easy part.

then you would have to start designing and testing ways to use your
21st century technology for this 20th century application. that would
be the hard part. 

let's say you actually did this, hired a team of good engineers to
spend millions of dollars on the question and started manufacturing the
results. the odds are that your effort would still fall short. 

during wwii, the best minds of the entire world were devoted to this
question.  the large scale use of these planes allowed a great deal of
trial-and-error refinement. there would be no similar opportunity in
the modern world. 

to get the real-world testing, you would have to hypnotize everyone on
the planet to forget jet technology, but to not forget any other
technology that might contribute to this issue. then get everyone in a
big war again so you can sit back and observe the results. 

the question rapidly becomes too silly to consider.