Recent content by eWildcat

Ah, now I understand what you actually inferred ! No, by "usual" I just meant "common", as produced by thousands instead of the few P-47Ms. ;) EDIT : Typo: P-47M.

Well, pretty well : on the same website you'll see that the P-51D was good for about the same speed as a P-47M at 5,000 ft. All versions of the P-47 had a decent speed for their time at low altitude, but it wasn't where they excelled. Methinks you misread my previous post.

Yes and no. It was the fastest at high altitude. But at low altitude even a "usual" Merlin P-51 was as fast.

Well, that's one of the reasons why at the end of the 50's fighters were designed without guns... because they flew so fast that their pilots wouldn't be able to use cannons anyway. So why bother fitting any ? ;) Interestingly enough, there were numerous kills achieved at very high speed even...

Well, first no A6M flew 300 knots faster than its target. The difference in performance between an A6M and an SBD was far less than the difference of performance between an A-10 and any modern fighter. So you can't really compare the two situations. Moreover, even if you really want to do it, a...

Yep. The French Navy used AU-1s (in small numbers) and F4U-7s in Indochina (a version purpose-built for the French Navy). The F4U-7s were also used in Algeria. Unfortunately, the AU-1s were worn-out from their service in the Korean War, and were given back to the US as soon as possible. The...

Well, I can only give the opinion of most French pilots who flew in the Indochina War : their favourite fighter-bomber was actually... the Hellcat. :D They liked the F8F, but they favoured the F6F because of its range.

Well, even one "normal" 30-mm round (such as one fired from a DEFA or ADEN cannon) or a couple 20-mm rounds would cause great damage to a modern fighter and at the very least makes it unable to fight any longer anyway, if it doesn't shoots it down. Then, an A-10 would sure fly low, but that...

Well, it would be as good as a Ju-87 against Spitfires... Sure it can turn, but that's all it can do. Compared to a real fighter, it can't climb, it is slow, it accelerates poorly and it can only decently fight at low altitude.

The F-5 is a great roller, but many modern fighters are better turners. It's definitely cheap though. The Rafale is often forgotten, but it seems that at subsonic speed and low/medium altitude it can definitely hold its own against a Typhoon. At least that's what several Belgium F-16 pilots...

Drag increases dramatically when speed gets too close to speed sound. So it can be done (Concord did it for many years), but it's definitely not fuel-efficient.

Because of its weight/power ratio at low altitude, the P-47 didn't accelerate as well as many other fighters at low altitude. However it doesn't mean it was slow. Its maximum speed at low altitude was decent for the time (330 to 350 mph, depending on version). Besides, a difference of 20 mph...

Well, it's true, but the Re.2001 and Ki-61 entered service well after the Spitfire I, and the P-40 was actually "cannon fodder" if it flew higher than 15/20 000 ft.

As for the 37-mm cannon, interestingly enough a good number of the first P-39s used in combat by the USAAF were actually armed with a 20-mm cannon, as the P-400s used by the USAAF and the P-39D-1s amounted to a bit more than 450 aircraft (EDIT : After a more thorough check, the number of which...

What was said : tactics, clever use of a net of observers by Chennault, lighter P-40s which could fly a bit higher than their opponents if warned soon enough. Add to this Japanese aircraft that often flew lower than what happened at Guadalcanal, a higher proportion of Ki-27s instead of the...