Who / What / Where Game Part 2 - Page 395

mapuc · 11-09-23, 05:53 PM

Bomber ?

Markus

Aktungbby · 11-10-23, 12:12 AM

...Of a sort. It drops it 'pay load' on specific targets.

Ostfriese · 11-10-23, 12:23 AM

A Polish PZL M-15 "Belphegor" crop duster.

Jimbuna · 11-10-23, 06:21 AM

Nice one.

Aktungbby · 11-10-23, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ostfriese

A Polish PZL M-15 "Belphegor" crop duster.

Very good! My next hint would have been "any one flying this contraption would have to put on a polished performance...lest he 'come a cropper", and crash-land!

Quote:

Is the PZL M-15 Belphegor the world’s slowest jet, or the world’s heaviest biplane?
Behold, the PZL M-15 Belphegor, the world’s only jet-powered biplane and also the world’s only jet-powered agricultural aircraft. Doesn’t look so hot, does it?

The PZL M-15 was part of a 1970s era Soviet economic plan to replace the AN-2 biplane for the task of tending to the vast wheat fields of Ukraine and Poland which were critical to the USSR’s food supply. Interestingly, the M-15’s specifications were handed down from political leaders within the USSR; the M-15 was to be the people’s crop duster of the future, meant to embody the rapid progress of socialism. State of the art technology would be used to create the best darn crop duster that the world had ever seen—or that was the plan, anyway.

The political constraint imposed on the hypothetical next-generation crop duster was that it would have to be jet powered because jets were thought to be the future of all aviation at the time. It also turns out that the Politburo (or Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) didn’t realize that jets are terrible at tasks like crop dusting. The Polish engineers behind the PZL M-15 weren’t about to ruin their tentative independence from the USSR’s main aircraft production corpus by producing a plane that didn’t meet the spec, and so the abomination of the M-15 began to take shape, literally. Polish engineers recognized the difficulty of using a heavy jet engine in a plane that must fly slow and low, and quickly invented a solution which took cues from the AN-2 that the M-15 was intended to replace. The M-15 would be a biplane to produce enough lift, and, to protect the intake of the engine from debris, the engine would ride on top of the fuselage. In essence, the M-15 would take a common Soviet jet engine, and build a crop dusting plane around it in the hope that it would end up working better than the AN-2.

Making a Demon
Originally produced in Poland, the PZL M-15 was beset by quite a few problems right out of the gate, with some issues being more serious than others. Simply put, the M-15 didn’t retain the classic biplane aesthetic of the AN-2, and instead was an ungainly monster that didn’t clearly belong in the sky or on land. People hated the way that the M-15 looked, and christened it “Belphegor” after the biblical demon of greed. Not a great start for the new workhorse of the USSR’s breadbasket.

It’s no surprise why the Belphegor is so ugly: the Belphegor’s sets of wings are connected by the fuselage as well as two apple shaped pillars, which are hollow. Inside of the hollow pillars lies the crop dusting chemicals required to perform its job along with the pressurized air system which disperses the chemicals.ie: "a bomber of a sort"??!

Looks and crop dusting aside, jet engines are much harder to maintain than the AN-2s that agricultural aircraft mechanics were accustomed to in the late Soviet era. Even once mechanics were properly trained to service the M-15, they were often short on parts due to the shortcomings of the Soviet supply chain, leading to a lot of hours spent on the ground rather than above the crop fields. Needless to say that the aircraft the M-15 was meant to replace—the AN-2—had none of these problems whatsoever, and continued to serve the same role during the same time period.

For a jet, it’s hard to beat the lift that the M-15 airframe provides on its own. It’s also hard for most jets to go as slow as the M-15 does without stalling. The M-15 cruises at around 80 knots, and stalls at 58.5 knots. (hence the 'polished' performance!) Unfortunately, the farming staff responsible for actually flying the M-15 couldn’t appreciate these features, as they were used to using very forgiving propeller-based biplanes which could more easily tolerate subpar flying and landing on rough airstrips. Early M-15s suffered from extreme abuse, and couldn’t ever get the maintenance that they needed afterward. Predictably, this led to even more time spent on the deck rather than dusting the crops.

Far too late, civil aviation authorities recognized that transitioning to using the M-15 would require a substantial amount of re-education of the agricultural pilots. Early exposure to the M-15 proved that many immediately pilots picked up on the plane’s weaknesses in comparison to the less sophisticated planes they were used to. The M-15 handled worse than the politically “obsolete” AN-2 and didn’t offer substantially increased payload capacity or range. On the occasions that it was able to do its job, the M-15 was an expensive, loud, and over-engineered crop duster that was subject to constant comparison to its superior predecessor.

The Long Tail of the Belphegor
175 PZL M-15s were produced out of a total of 30,000 planned. It’s quite surprising that there were as many produced; the M-15 was panned for all of the aforementioned reasons well before leaving the prototype stage. Unfortunately, it appears politics came before effective jet design and then forced an ineffective jet to dust the crops for years out of stubbornness.

Bizarrely, as the M-15’s production run dragged on, more and more AN-2s were ordered and adopted for the crop dusting role. The M-15 had its lunch eaten by the very aircraft that it was intended to replace, and eventually, production stopped in recognition of this.

The PZL M-15 Belphegor is remembered fondly in Eastern Europe despite its abysmal performance record. In front of many Eastern European airports, decommissioned M-15s are left as living testaments to the reach of the Soviet age’s agricultural reforms. It’s unclear whether there are any M-15s still in operation today, but it’s extremely likely that there are AN-2s.>

Over 2 Ostfriese!

Catfish · 11-10-23, 03:42 PM

Would not have found this one. First I thought of some seaplane, then a chopper, then a biplane, but still.. with a jet??

Nice find !

Aktungbby · 11-10-23, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Catfish

Would not have found this one. First I thought of some seaplane, then a chopper, then a biplane, but still.. with a jet??

Nice find !

Precisely why I posted it!

Ostfriese · 11-11-23, 01:22 AM

I admit I got lucky here. The strut in Aktung's pucture made me think of an Antonov aircraft (An-28), but it didn't fit. While looking for derivates I stumbled over a picture of the M-15.
A jet-powered biplane cropduster. Let that sink in

Anyway, for the next round I'd like you to tell me who ol' blue eyes might be:

Aktungbby · 11-11-23, 02:08 AM

German?

Ostfriese · 11-11-23, 02:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

German?

^No.

Aktungbby · 11-11-23, 02:25 AM

male?

Ostfriese · 11-11-23, 02:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

male?

He is indeed.

Jimbuna · 11-11-23, 06:35 AM

American?

Ostfriese · 11-11-23, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

American?

He holds American citizenship, but as a dual citizenship. Originally he is not from the US. As far as I know he doesn't live in the US.

Jimbuna · 11-11-23, 10:02 AM

Politician?

11-09-23, 05:53 PM	#5911
mapuc Fleet Admiral Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Denmark Posts: 18,050 Downloads: 37 Uploads: 0	Bomber ? Markus __________________ My little lovely female cat

11-10-23, 12:12 AM	#5912
Aktungbby Gefallen Engel U-666 Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: On a tilted, overheated, overpopulated spinning mudball on Collision course with Andromeda Galaxy Posts: 27,947 Downloads: 22 Uploads: 0	...Of a sort. It drops it 'pay load' on specific targets. __________________ "Only two things are infinite; The Universe and human squirrelyness; and I'm not too sure about the Universe"

11-10-23, 06:21 AM	#5914
Jimbuna Chief of the Boat Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: 250 metres below the surface Posts: 181,344 Downloads: 63 Uploads: 13	Nice one. __________________ Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something. Oh my God, not again!! GWX3.0 Download Page - Donation/instant access to GWX (Help SubSim)

11-10-23, 03:42 PM	#5916
Catfish Dipped Squirrel Operative Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: ..where the ocean meets the sky Posts: 16,903 Downloads: 38 Uploads: 0	Would not have found this one. First I thought of some seaplane, then a chopper, then a biplane, but still.. with a jet?? Nice find ! __________________ >^..^<*)))>{ All generalizations are wrong.

11-11-23, 02:08 AM	#5919
Aktungbby Gefallen Engel U-666 Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: On a tilted, overheated, overpopulated spinning mudball on Collision course with Andromeda Galaxy Posts: 27,947 Downloads: 22 Uploads: 0	German? __________________ "Only two things are infinite; The Universe and human squirrelyness; and I'm not too sure about the Universe"

11-10-23, 12:23 AM	#5913
Ostfriese Ace of the Deep Join Date: May 2004 Location: Northern Germany Posts: 1,178 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	A Polish PZL M-15 "Belphegor" crop duster.

11-11-23, 01:22 AM	#5918
Ostfriese Ace of the Deep Join Date: May 2004 Location: Northern Germany Posts: 1,178 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	I admit I got lucky here. The strut in Aktung's pucture made me think of an Antonov aircraft (An-28), but it didn't fit. While looking for derivates I stumbled over a picture of the M-15. A jet-powered biplane cropduster. Let that sink in Anyway, for the next round I'd like you to tell me who ol' blue eyes might be:

11-11-23, 02:25 AM	#5921
Aktungbby Gefallen Engel U-666 Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: On a tilted, overheated, overpopulated spinning mudball on Collision course with Andromeda Galaxy Posts: 27,947 Downloads: 22 Uploads: 0	male? __________________ "Only two things are infinite; The Universe and human squirrelyness; and I'm not too sure about the Universe"

11-11-23, 06:35 AM	#5923
Jimbuna Chief of the Boat Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: 250 metres below the surface Posts: 181,344 Downloads: 63 Uploads: 13	American? __________________ Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something. Oh my God, not again!! GWX3.0 Download Page - Donation/instant access to GWX (Help SubSim)

11-11-23, 10:02 AM	#5925
Jimbuna Chief of the Boat Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: 250 metres below the surface Posts: 181,344 Downloads: 63 Uploads: 13	Politician? __________________ Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something. Oh my God, not again!! GWX3.0 Download Page - Donation/instant access to GWX (Help SubSim)