flyinggibbon
Member
Currently having one of those weekends where your dream of what-if's and long for airplanes with the clean and delightful lines of the futurist period such as (arguably) the most beautiful plane ever built, the de Havilland DH.88 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_DH.88) and you start wondering whether if modern design techniques and features such as composite materials, laminar flow wings with tanks and judicious use of the whitcomb rule, the DH-88 couldn't be transformed from a 200Kt cruise to a 300Kt cruise (Vb/Vc) aircraft?Keeping to the same tandem seat, light twin planform, with say the Gypsy-6 engines replaced by modern turboprops of the same output such as the TP-1000's and a tricycle undercarriage with everything else up for change, how fast a lightweight long distance cruiser could you build http://www.pbsvb.com/customer-industries/aerospace/aircraft-engines/tp-100-turboprop-engine ?
DH-88 General characteristics
Crew: two
Length: 29 ft 0 in (8.84 m)
Wingspan: 44 ft 0 in (13.41 m)
Height: 10 ft 0 (3.05 m)
Wing area: 212.5 sq ft (19.75 m2)
Airfoil: RAF 34[15]
Empty weight: 2,930 lb (1,332 kg)
Loaded weight: 5,550 lb (2,523 kg)
Powerplant: 2 × de Havilland Gipsy Six R six-cylinder air-cooled inverted inline engine, 230 hp (172 kW) each
Performance
Maximum speed: 237 mph (206 kn, 382 km/h)
Cruise speed: 220 mph (191 kn, 354 km/h)
Stall speed: 74 mph (64 kn, 119 km/h) [16]
Range: 2,925 mi (2,541 nmi, 4,710 km)
Service ceiling: 19,000 ft (5,790 m)
Rate of climb: 900 ft/min (4.6 m/s)
http://www.dhmothclub.co.uk/pixbin/cometx.JPG http://richard.ferriere.free.fr/3vues/dh88_comet_3v.jpg https://www.salonqp.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/bremont-dh88-1.jpg
