A regular customer at the hobby shop I worked with grew up in Germany late in WW2 in the countryside, and he and his friends used to collect the aluminium tanks and cut them in half to make canoes!
The RAAF did similar early in the Pacific war with Catalinas stooging around Japanese air bases in PNG. In addition to small bombs they'd also empty the contents of the onboard toilet!
As I understand the two companies simply took different ways of manufacturing an engine to the required tolerances.
In the UK, with cheaper labour and (generally) shorter production volumes they'd produce components to looser tolerances, then after manufacture get these groups into matching...
IIRC both the P51 and Lancaster were sold on the basis that in the time needed to retool to become second-source suppliers of the P40 and Halifax respectively they could develop a new, better aircraft. I think something similar happened with Consolidated and the B24.
One major problem with the MiG 21 which I don't think anyone overcame was that on low fuel the cg moved dangerously aft, which meant that considerations of safe handling meant that the usable fuel load was well below what the aircraft actually carried, reducing the range of an already...
I thought the advantage wasn't so much outright performance, but that the Merlin versions were effective for a few thousand feet higher, even single-staged.
Firstly, why have the engine behind the pilot?
One in theory was that it would increase maneuverability by reducing the polar moment of inertia, ie the main masses would be close to the centre of gravity and so there would be less resistance to turning. I don't know whether that worked, but it...
Then late in the war, with the Red Army running rampant in the East, concentrates on trying to force the Western Allies to abandon unconditional surrender and join him to take on the Soviets. All it does is slow down the advance in the West, while the forces used in forlorn offensives (eg...
His book "Wings on my Sleeve" has umpteen bizarre stories, but my favourite is him immediately after VE day flying around Luftwaffe airfields with a couple of German mechanics inspecting and test-flying Luftwaffe aircraft, including the only Allied "hot start" in an Me163. That section reads...
Yes, good altitude performance and range, but sod-all armour. Made an OK recce aircraft for its time.
In hindsight more development would have sorted it out, but it was only an interim type pending the P47.
I'd love to see one given that the RAAF had eight of them at one stage as recce...
WOW! My top choice of extinct WW2 aircraft (even if it was right at the end).
Better still, it's being restored/rebuilt in flying condition!
Others for me:
Stirling
B-32
Whitley
He177