"A SHORT HISTORY OF AIRCRAFT SURVIVABILITY" Topic

A very interesting read on the advancements in aviation and what was thought to be the better of them though out the years as they were applied to military aircraft.And how they influenced the ability to survive combat in them. Robert

PDF link

Ta for that. Handy……

And it's only 48 pages this time!

An interesting read, BTW.

LOL It does say a "short" history . And I thought so too. especially one of the statements,

"In particular, American high-octane fuel supplied to Britain prior to the Battle of Britain played a major role in influencing the battle's outcome, increasing the power and rate of climb of British Spitfire and Hurricane fighters. Conversely, the Axis, forced to make do with lower 87-octane fuel, increasingly found its aircraft performance--and hence
survivability--compromised as the war went on."

Robert

And thank you too David. Robert

Aside from summarizing statistics which mean completely different things depending on their context, I don't see any point to this article at all. The opening premise is never even discussed – and is extremely weak in the first place:

It was human error and misjudgment that directly lead to the loss of the Titanic and both Space Shuttles.

Battlecruisers only had a "design flaw" when facing battleships. They were misused.

And regarding the Comet, how are you supposed to design for something "unanticipated"?

It's the same with the statistics. Poor leadership, tactics, and strategy had as much or more impact on losses than any design characteristics.

Which is why I posted it for discussion.IIRC wasn't one of the other additional reasons the Titanic sank was due to the ships hull metal being brittle? I think though that his statement rings true with some aircraft,

"So it should come as no surprise, certainly to this audience, that survivability is a demanding and implacable field of inquiry, and that it is, of course, inherently related to broader areas of study such as human factors and safety, modern technological development, and military concepts of operations."

I believe at least IMO one or all of these factors could have an effect on how "survivable" an aircraft could be. Be it human,tech or operation or any combination thereof. Robert

"Abraham Wald's Work on Aircraft Survivability Marc Mangel, Francisco J. Samaniego Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol 79, Issue 386 (June, 1984)

The paper is an excellent bit of homework for those in the Counting 101 class, who also enjoy their history. One is forced to take out pencil and paper, but it's worth the effort.

Wald analyzed data on bombers returning from missions over the Continent. One objective was to determine what parts of the aircraft might be strengthened in order to reduce losses. The paper lays out the following case: Divide the surface area of a bomber into four parts and determine what percentage of total surface area each of the four parts represents:

aircraft surface area:

engine 26.9%

fuselage 34.6%

fuel system 15.4%

everything else 23.1%

Then examine the 380 aircraft that returned from a mission on which 400 were sent. Count the number of hits in each of the four areas and calculate what percentage of total hits this represents:

hit distribution:

engine 18.6%

fuselage 38.2%

fuel system 17.7%

everything else 25.5%

Doing a simple comparison between surface area and hit distribution gives the following over/under:

hit_distribution_% minus surface_area_%: engine -8.3% fuselage +3.6% fuel system +2.3% everything else +2.4%

It appears the engines are getting hit less often than expected, and the fuselage more, so we should strengthen the fuselage. But of course, we are leaving something out, and it's very interesting to work through Wald's analysis (at an introductory level, certainly) and see the results."
link

Abraham Wald's Work on WWII Aircraft Survivability
PDF link

Understanding Stealth and Aircraft Survivability
PDF link

Appendix A provides survivability features of several aircraft used in World War II'
Survivability Features of Several Aircraft Used in World War II.
link