Advanced French Fighters vs 1942/1943 contemporaries (4 Viewers)

[Shortround6]

Whirlwind was 'medium ranged' by the standards of it's day- it had a range of ~ 800 miles, almost twice the earlier Bf 109, Yaks, LaGG 3 and La 5, Spitfire, Hurricane, MC 202 etc. Because of this it ended up being used over the channel and North Sea quite a bit later in it's sadly all-too-short career.

There seems to be quite a bit of misinformation about the Whirlwind. It held 609 liters of fuel. It had more drag than most of the single engine fighters listed. Expecting twice the range at similar speeds demands a high degree of optimism. Some people in the Air Ministry were not paying attention in physics or didn't have common sense. For a while it seemed to be " it has twin engines, it should be safer to fly over water than a single engine plane."
1. They ignored that the MK Is could not transfer fuel from one side to the other. If an engine went down they only had the fuel on same side as the working engine to get home with while flying in a high drag condition. The Props were not full feathering, how much rudder trim was needed to fly straight?
2. One source (and they vary a lot) claims max range was at 180 ASI ( but height not given). Range at 210mph is 150-200 miles less.
3. Whirlwind had the same radios as the Hurricane and Spitfire and at similar altitudes had the same range, that is not enough at low altitudes.
4, some debate about having a generator on each engine or having dual accessories (air pumps or hydraulic?)
At one point the Whirlwind was 'allowed' to fly about 110miles from shore while the Hurricane and Spitfire were limited to 80 miles (?).
Some early Beaufighters could not maintain height with engine (slow crash). British standards for safety over water were a bit dubious.
The 800 mile range may have been a "paper range", one source claims it includes a 15 minute allowance for take-off and landing.

I like the Whirlwind and the Air Ministry screwed it over. It never got a MK II and even simple things like a cross over valve between the left side fuel tanks and right side were never fitted.

MiG-3, at least the later versions, had exceptionally heavy armament by Soviet standards, 3 x 12.7mm and 2 x 7.62 mm machine guns,

You are basing this on selective basis. The vast majority of Mig-3s had 3 guns, not 5. Yes some got 5 guns, roughly about 1/4, a lot had them removed. it was not popular with the pilots and there was a performance loss. the two wing guns were in underwing pods and the performance loss was enough that the 5 gun planes could not always keep formation with the 3 gun planes, and in soviet fashion they mixed the planes up even in small units.
Planes lost 20-30kph at all altitudes, and maneuver was degraded unacceptably. A lot of planes also had the rear fuel tank reduced in capacity by 80kg of fuel and the center tank by 36kg. Maximum Operational range is given as 720km with the reduced fuel capacity, but speed and height not given.

 

[bada]

In fact, and more to the point, this is also true of the Dewoitine D.520 (strait line range 810-930 miles - with self-sealing fuel tanks and armor mind you), and the MS 406 had a range of 680 miles.

The d520 had this long range(1500km) only when using the wing-tanks (not self-sealing) and those were only used for ferry flight. For all other type of "missions", only the fuselage self sealing tank was used. The wing tanks being placed on the external part of the wing, the plane was a cow in the rolling plane and the CG on the limit when those non self sealing aluminium canisters were filled. Totaly unusable in combat context.