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Yes. It demonstrates his complete lack of understanding how flight works. Lift is generated by air moving from the front of a plane's wing towards the rear. Hav

by greedo 5y ago

Yes. It demonstrates his complete lack of understanding how flight works. Lift is generated by air moving from the front of a plane's wing towards the rear. Having a tailwind reduces the amount of air traveling in this direction, reducing lift. Generally, planes prefer to land and take off into the wind. Tailwinds are nice once you're already in flight, since they give you free speed.

jollybean 5y ago
I think this is a bad reason to worry. Knowing how 'lift' works is basically irrelevant to anything in the rest of the story. Over 500 pages, you're going to get things wrong. The important facts of that para related to the strategic importance of the Island. The minute details of 'why lift works' are not really relevant. What's relevant is that "The islands importance is as an airstrip/base and even then it's barely 'in range'".
- cpleppert 5y ago
  It isn't irrelevant in the context; by saying that they are only in range under 'perfect conditions' he makes it sound like the operation was barely doable. This is misleading. Air operations in WWII where continuously dependent on weather conditions and the wind conditions make a large difference to the payload a piston powered aircraft of that era can carry. The B-29 was specifically designed to accomplish the strategic bombing mission in a pacific war; it would not have been accepted into production if it could not reach Japan from the Marianas Islands. In fact, it could comfortably reach the vast majority of Japan and its industrial centers, only the north of japan was outside of its normal range. The removal of most self-defense weaponry (except the tail cannon) made the entirety of Japan reachable; they simply weren't needed for night operations and Japan's fighter force was negligible by the end of the war. In fact, future b-29's were built with only a tail cannon in the first place.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    Plus the B-29 was previously bombing Japan from China, which was farther than the Marianas, right?
    - jkhdigital 5y ago
      Japan is a very long island chain; parts of it are quite close to China but Tokyo not so much.
      - aidenn0 5y ago
        I couldn't find a complete list of places the B-29 launched from, but Chengdu was mentioned in the Wikipedia article, and that's pretty far inland.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

by greedo 5y ago

jollybean 5y ago

I think this is a bad reason to worry. Knowing how 'lift' works is basically irrelevant to anything in the rest of the story. Over 500 pages, you're going to get things wrong. The important facts of that para related to the strategic importance of the Island. The minute details of 'why lift works' are not really relevant. What's relevant is that "The islands importance is as an airstrip/base and even then it's barely 'in range'".

cpleppert 5y ago
It isn't irrelevant in the context; by saying that they are only in range under 'perfect conditions' he makes it sound like the operation was barely doable. This is misleading. Air operations in WWII where continuously dependent on weather conditions and the wind conditions make a large difference to the payload a piston powered aircraft of that era can carry. The B-29 was specifically designed to accomplish the strategic bombing mission in a pacific war; it would not have been accepted into production if it could not reach Japan from the Marianas Islands. In fact, it could comfortably reach the vast majority of Japan and its industrial centers, only the north of japan was outside of its normal range. The removal of most self-defense weaponry (except the tail cannon) made the entirety of Japan reachable; they simply weren't needed for night operations and Japan's fighter force was negligible by the end of the war. In fact, future b-29's were built with only a tail cannon in the first place.
- aidenn0 5y ago
  Plus the B-29 was previously bombing Japan from China, which was farther than the Marianas, right?
  - jkhdigital 5y ago
    Japan is a very long island chain; parts of it are quite close to China but Tokyo not so much.
    - aidenn0 5y ago
      I couldn't find a complete list of places the B-29 launched from, but Chengdu was mentioned in the Wikipedia article, and that's pretty far inland.
deleted 5y ago
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