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[a.irons]

Hi all,
I have a question, what is the litle rod, similar to an antenna, placed near the wing tip, in the WW2 fighters?
Thanks,
Alessandro

[OberstDanjeje]

It's a pitot tube for misuring the air speed

[a.irons]

Thanks Danjeje, do you know why some plane, like Fiat G50, has 2 Pitot tubes?

[OberstDanjeje]

The Pitot tube is connected with some instruments, not sure but I think it's used for the air speed, altimeter and variometer so maybe they chose to use 2 tube for different instruments

[redfox]

Pitot tube is used to measure airspeed only. Can't understand why the G50 would have 2 (if they are both pitot tubes), and I haven't been able to find any info on it.

Would be interesting if somebody had some details.

As an aside for the skinners out there, many skins show the end of the pitot tube in bright colours or bands of colour. These colours are the colour of the pitot tube cover, which was used to protect the head of the tube when on the ground only - always removed before flight. The head of the pitot tube was bare machine-polished metal to reduce turbulance around the pitot head. For the RAF of the 60s to 90s the pitot head cover was of black rubber with a red flag suspended from it. Believe it was the same for the 40s and 50s and for most air forces.

Cheers - Redfox

[a.irons]

Thanks a lot to Danjeje and Redfox for your kind answers.

[redfox]

Not to mislead you a.irons but some pitot tubes were actually pitot-static tubes which would read static pressure as well. This static pressure would be fed to the altimeter, airspeed indicator and vertical speed indicator. Which type they would use would depend on the a/c designer.

Otherwise they would use static vents on the side of the fuselage to read static pressure. I don't remember ever seeing a tube that read static pressure only, but that might be the answer to the G50 having two tubes; one for pitot pressure and one for static pressure.

Cheers - Redfox

[Furio]

If our game is correct, it was simply a matter of redundancy, because G50 has two airspeed indicators, one on the left and one on the right.