User:XD864/Sandbox

Post War Military Jets, Safe Life and Material choice

This is a History of post war military jet aircraft development, my 'expertise' is centred on the Vickers Valiant and the material DTD683 which was used in the construction of its airframe. The sources come mainly from the technical and scientific archive at Cranfield University, The Journal of the Institute of Metals, Journal Mechanical Engineering, Flight Magazine, PRO Kew, The usual books E.Morgan Vickers Valiant, Andrew Brookes, Humphrey Wynn, (though there are problems with Wynn's account), Broken Wings etc.

So my research is biased towards the UK (though NACA papers are available at Cranfield), US aircraft suffered from similar problems.

This history concerns how Aircraft design strategy evolved post WW2 from 'Safe-Life' through 'Fail Safe' to 'Fault Tolerance' and how this evolution was precipitated by the introduction of the new aluminium alloys in the West. The choice of material was in turn founded on strategy decisions regarding the best way to hit back at the Soviets with nuclear weapons carried in bombers, i.e. high speed, high altitude, long range and payload considerations.