1 engine vs 2 engine fighters

[BiffF15]

In terms of range I think the Mk.I eyeball has WWII airborne radars beat by a long shot, generally.

3-6 miles and only gives returns in a cone in front of the aircraft. This varies a lot depending on the set of course, but in general - if you have your head stuck in a radar screen trying to get the jump on a single engine fighter on a bright, clear day ... you're in trouble.

Concur!

Radars / sensors have matured greatly in the interim, however back in the day they were limited to night or instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) do to high workload and small contributions to situational awareness.

Cheers,
Biff

 

[Shortround6]

For a good part of WW II many radars had patterns like this

ANd with the somewhat primitive displays situational awareness could actually be lost if concentrating on the display too much.
Some radars had range gates in which the operator selected a certain range or max and min distance/s the radar would display. You might be "following" one or more aircraft just fine but be totally unaware of others just a few miles away. especially if they were around 90 degrees to your flight path.

 

[wuzak]

I'm not sure why the Mosquito is being included in this thread at all. It is true that some early Marks were specified as day and night long range fighters (among other things), but in reality they were not used as day fighters. From memory the F.B.VI was the last to be designated this way.
Cheers
Steve

In reality the last day fighter type was the F.II.

The FB.VI (and Canadian and Australian equivalents) were fighter-bombers - they could give a fighter if necessary, but that was not their role.

And in many raids in which the FB.VIs participated, such as the Amiens prison and Shellhus raids, the FB.VIs were escorted by fighters.

The ADFU did tactical trials of an F.II as a long range day fighter, concluding that it was not suitable for that role.

 

[Mad Dog]

Analysis of losses also suggests that the Me 110 had a favorable exchange ratio (more victories versus losses) against RAF fighters during the BoB.

The ME110 was actually very successful when used as intended. It was designed to sweep ahead of the bombers, catching opponents in the climb (or on the ground), effectively the Freijagd role preferred by the ME109 pilots. When used so against opponents from Poland through until the BoB it was very successful, even scoring well against the Spitfire. Acceleration was its weakness, and when Goering forced the ME110 into the slow, close escort role, giving up the advantage of initiating combat on their own terms, and pushed the bombers out on longer raids into the UK airspace, giving more time for the radar-guided Hurricanes and Spitfires to get the height and speed they needed, the ME110 groups began to suffer. But part of the reason the ME110's failings have become such a myth was propaganda - Goering had personally lauded the Zerstorer concept so the British saw great value in embarrassing Goering by making out it was a failure. The reality was the ME110 was actually one of the first victims of the lack of preparedness of German industry - in 1940 they simply could not make ME110s fast enough to meet replacement demands, hence operations by the Zerstorer groups had to be curtailed. The ME210 was supposed to replace it as the day Zerstorer, but in Russia and North Africa it was still a valued long-range day fighter for another two years after the BoB. For example it was ZG26 ME110s that shot down South-African ace Marmaduke "Pat" Pattle, thought to be the highest scoring Commonwealth ace of WW2, over Athens in 1941.

In an artificial, one-vs-one dogfight, starting at equal height and speed, the ME110 was not going to beat many single-engined fighters the majority of times, excepting maybe Barbarosa era Soviet fighters. But in the reality of 1939-40 - striking from above with the advantage of speed and surprise - they shot down a lot of single-engine fighters.

 

[Elmas]

..........
In an artificial, one-vs-one dogfight, starting at equal height and speed, the ME110 was not going to beat many single-engined fighters the majority of times, excepting maybe Barbarosa era Soviet fighters. But in the reality of 1939-40 - striking from above with the advantage of speed and surprise - they shot down a lot of single-engine fighters.

Probably due to better tactics: 4-loose fingers against 3-tight Vic.
.

 

[stona]

In reality the last day fighter type was the F.II.

Yep! Even less reason to include it

Cheers

Steve

 

[Shortround6]

There was a reason that some countries persevered with the large twin engine piston fighters (lets leave the jets out of this) and that is that the single engine fighters had trouble performing some tasks.

Please also note that until 1945 there were few, if any, single-seat twin engine fighters in service in quantity except for the already mentioned Whirlwind and P-38. and the quantity of Whirlwinds is debatable.

Evolution also played a part in that more powerful engines rapidly became available which meant that large, well armed single engine fighters became possible instead of having to use two engines of lower power.

The goal of most air forces (not always achieved) was to to have fighters that were superior to their enemies fighters in most circumstances. Not in specialized circumstances or situations although that was a tactic often used when the original performance goal was not met.

The weight penalty of the 2nd seat in early war fighters was such that that the two seat fighter could rarely compete with a single seat fighter of the same generation. Please note that the weight penalty is not JUST the weight of the 2nd crewman but the larger fuselage needed to house him. the extra equipment he was there to operate ( long range radio, primitive radar,) extra oxygen and so on. Pre war the 2 seat fighter was expected to operate from the same air fields/carriers as the single seat fighters which would mean a larger wing to handle the extra weight of the payload which, in turn, increased the weight of the aircraft.

Converted bombers simply can't pull enough "G"s without breaking the airplane to try to dog fight single engine fighters.
The 110 Might have been strong enough, at least there are few, if any, reports of them breaking up in flight.

 

[stona]

the quantity of Whirlwinds is debatable.

Not really. The ORBs of both squadrons are available and show that there were not many weeks when they could field a double figure number of serviceable aircraft between them.

For example, you often see accounts of Whirlwinds flying 'Rhubarbs' to aerodromes in France, but they often fail to mention that the number of Whirlwinds involved was sometimes only two!

Cheers

Steve

 

[pbehn]

Does updating a twin cause more problems than a single engine aircraft. As an example could a Griffon engine have been put in a mosquito more easily than a Spitfire?

 

[Shortround6]

Not really. The ORBs of both squadrons are available and show that there were not many weeks when they could field a double figure number of serviceable aircraft between them.

For example, you often see accounts of Whirlwinds flying 'Rhubarbs' to aerodromes in France, but they often fail to mention that the number of Whirlwinds involved was sometimes only two!

True enough but then many 'Rhubarbs' were flown with only 2-4 Blenheims as "bait".
Point is that any other single seat twin engine planes (again barring the P-38) were in even smaller numbers, either issued or operational at any given time.

 

[Glider]

In daytime all the advantages of having a radar are gone (assuming good weather). Beaufighters and later Mosquitos were sometimes used as what we would now call all weather fighters, if the weather was poor.

 

[Robert Porter]

Lets not forget at least one other inherent advantage to twin engine fighters, survivability when having lost one engine. Probably enough to get home or a controlled landing, but not enough to continue to fight. But with a single if it takes a hit and dies you are pretty well out of options.

 

[pbehn]

Lets not forget at least one other inherent advantage to twin engine fighters, survivability when having lost one engine. Probably enough to get home or a controlled landing, but not enough to continue to fight. But with a single if it takes a hit and dies you are pretty well out of options.

For a surprising number of twins they didn't have single engine survivability.

 

[Shortround6]

It took quite a while for the idea that to be truly twin engine, both engines had to have generators and hydraulic pumps to sink in.

Twin engine fighters generally had a good enough power to weight ratio to have a positive rate of climb on one engine. Some bombers did not. This was not helped on many early British twin engine bombers by the fitting of non-feathering propellers.

Many WW II twins also could not cross feed the fuel from one side to other which meant a high fuel consumption on the remaining engine to fight the out of trim drag (lots of rudder and aileron) meant a shorter range on one engine than with both running.

 

[Robert Porter]

For a surprising number of twins they didn't have single engine survivability.

Very true. The P-38 could, but it was tricky and the surviving engine had to be throttled back quickly. If an engine was lost on takeoff, rare but it did happen, the aircraft was prone to yaw wildly and almost always resulted in a crash. Again it required very quick action on the pilot to throttle back to idle right away. Not sure of the British twins as to how well they could perform on a single engine. But several recorded instances of P-38's surviving to land on a single engine are out there including one by Lindberg done on purpose.

 

[pbehn]

Very true. The P-38 could, but it was tricky and the surviving engine had to be throttled back quickly. If an engine was lost on takeoff, rare but it did happen, the aircraft was prone to yaw wildly and almost always resulted in a crash. Again it required very quick action on the pilot to throttle back to idle right away. Not sure of the British twins as to how well they could perform on a single engine. But several recorded instances of P-38's surviving to land on a single engine are out there including one by Lindberg done on purpose.

SR just covered it above, basically the plane could survive losing an engine if the enemy hit the engine that the designer wanted them to.
To run on one engine you need all the pumps and electrics to run and also the ability to take fuel from one side to the other.

 

[Shortround6]

Very true. The P-38 could, but it was tricky and the surviving engine had to be throttled back quickly. If an engine was lost on takeoff, rare but it did happen, the aircraft was prone to yaw wildly and almost always resulted in a crash. Again it required very quick action on the pilot to throttle back to idle right away. Not sure of the British twins as to how well they could perform on a single engine. But several recorded instances of P-38's surviving to land on a single engine are out there including one by Lindberg done on purpose.

In the SE Asian theater some P-38s made it back to base on one engine flying 600 miles.

It is quite different loosing an engine due to combat damage (including flak) when you have sufficient speed and altitude to sort things out vrs loosing an engine at low speed and low altitude.

Another Squadron operating out of India lost about 12 engines due to mi-rigged engine controls. I believe it was 11 engines on one side vs 1 engine on the other? to know this I would assume that most of the planes would have had to make it back to base? Problem was solved when a few flights were made with engine panels removed and factory tech rep was crammed behind the pilot to observe the throttle/supercharge control operation. Locally made modification kits were fitted to the planes in the India/Burma Theater and several hundred kits were supplied to the South Pacific Theater. Lockheed instituted a similar fix from the factory for Med and European P-38s.
The engines did NOT use mirror image controls which is why the difference between left and right engines.

British "twins" covers quite a range and it is doubtful if some of the lower powered twins (Blenheims, Pegasus powered Wellingtons, Whitleys and such) could maintain altitude except at the lowest levels on one engine and only if there was no major damage to the plane (large holes or flaps of metal sticking out.)
The Canadian Bolingbrokes fitted with Twin Wasp juniors had to have the bomb load cut to 500lbs because they could not maintain height on one engine with a 1000lb bomb load. This is on search or training missions with no extra damage.

I have always wondered if the Lockheed Hudson was called "old Boomerang" because it was really so tough or because it had a better power to weight ratio than most contemporary British twins AND fully Feathering propellers.

 

[swampyankee]

One of the early problems with the P-38 was inadequate pilot training. The most common -- and dangerous -- non-combat time for engine failure is near takeoff, when the engines are at high powers and the aircraft's controls have the least authority. Pilots have to do the right thing right now or find that twin-engine redundancy just means that there's more noise on the way to the crash site (an interesting datum I saw many years ago: for general aviation aircraft flown by private pilots, who would tend to have a hundred or more hours in type, insurance rates were higher than for singles: twins crashed more. Many pilots entering squadron service in WW2 probably had less than 200 hours flight time, and less than 10 hours in type).

The pilot training issue was sorted out eventually, partly with demo flights by Tony LeVier

 

[wuzak]

Does updating a twin cause more problems than a single engine aircraft. As an example could a Griffon engine have been put in a mosquito more easily than a Spitfire?

Interesting question.

I would not think it any easier, nor more difficult.

In both cases the structure has to be strengthened to cope with the heavier engine, the CoG change has to be compensated for and stability issues from the extra power need to be addressed.

In the case of the Mosquito the stability issue could be harder than on the Spitfire, since both engines turned the same way, which would mean twice the torque effects, etc. And, of course, the Griffons turned the other way, so that may cause more issues.

I don't think the Griffon was considered for the Mosquito, but it was for one of the larger "Super Mosquito" proposals. That didn't proceed due to insufficient performance improvement over the Mosquito.

 

[Shortround6]

It may be more difficult. There is more stuff you have to change.

I am using the Hornet because I can find the numbers easy. somewhere we have the numbers for the Mosquito.

See: http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/Hornet/Hornet_F1_weight.jpg

Please note that the power plant with Merlin 130/131 engines was 40.3% of the normal gross weight, powerplant does not include fuel tanks or fuel or oil.

The plane weighed 16,141lbs loaded and was rated at 10 "G"s ultimate load. Service load would be between 7 and 8 "G"S??

Switching to Griffons is going to require not only the greater weight of the engines but a greater weight of much of the rest of the "powerplant" Please note that 18% of the loaded weight of the aircraft is comprised of items in the "powerplant" that are not included in the bare weight of the engines.
A two speed, two stage Griffon weighs about 350lbs more than a Merlin 130. Now throw in the heavier propellers, radiators and such needed for the Griffons.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that you have solved the CG problem with no increase in weight.
We now have the ultimate stress factor problem. If we cut either armament or fuel (or both) we may be able to keep the 16141 lb gross weight and have a real hot rod of plane even if short ranged and lightly armed. However if we wish to keep the armament and fuel (or even add to the fuel) we have to do at least two things. One is beef up the structure to keep the ultimate 10G stress rating. No 2 is beef up the landing gear to handle the extra weight. Please note the main gear already weighs 598lbs and the tail wheel gear weighs 90lbs perhaps it will take extra weight by simply using more air pressure, perhaps it won't.
in any case if we add 1000lbs of powerplant and up the gross weight to 17141lbs we have lowered the ultimate stress factor to 9.4 and lowered the service load by about 0.4 Gs, this may be acceptable or it might be.

Now simply because a twin is larger and more complicated (on average) than a single it is going to be more work to modify and do the stress calculations to beef up the structure.