On Tue, 23 Sep 2014 12:09:51 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"John B. Slocomb" wrote in message
.. .

I never worked on small airplanes and I don't know how much nose
gear
problem they have (the big ones don't have much) and the strange
nose
gear was pretty light. Maybe a steel tubing, welded together, change
the whole thing, nose gear makes sense. A lot of the things the
Russians did that were condemned as "crude" actually made very good
sense.
--
Cheers,

John B.

I've watched a Russian engineer bend the framework of a military
optical device to align the lenses, where we would have made the frame
heavier and added screws.

I've read that the TBO for their fighters was 200 hours, then they
tear it down and replace what's worn or damaged, like the hot section
and accessories.

Hot section repairs are a fairly frequent and common repair on most
jets. The KC-135's had a heat deflector ring inside the tail pipe that
would have cracked mounting screw holes on every teardown. The navy
had some fighters that would run on either avgas or JP and they used
to crawl up the tail pipe to inspect the turbine wheel. As the engines
might have been burning avgas the protection gear worn during the
inspection was quite exotic :-)

In WW2 the average life of ours =in combat= was supposedly about 50
hours, though they held up far longer in training or on patrols.
http://www.wwiifoundation.org/missio...ircraft-facts/
"In 1942-43 it was statistically impossible for bomber crews to
complete a 25-mission tour in Europe."

-jsw


The original WW II rotation plan (War Department Directive of 1 July
1942) was a one year combat tour.
http://www.afhra.af.mil/shared/media...080424-048.pdf
--
Cheers,

John B.