Best mass produced postwar single engine piston fighter?

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The V-1650-9 is, to all intents and purposes, a Merlin 100. There are detail differences, such as a slight difference in supercharger gear ratios due to a different gear train design.

drgondog told you that the higher power was with PN150 fuel, while the lower number was with PN130 fuel. The PN150 fuel allowed 80inHG MAP against 70inHg MAP for the PN130 fuel.

The V-1650-9 also had ADI, which the Merlin 100 did not, this allowing 90inHg MAP and over 2,200hp (lower altitude, though).
 
That what i initially believed as well.
But as I dig deeper, I found this


For comparison, this is the performance of V-1650-9 at 90 Hg MP.
You can see that at 20k feet, the 14 S.M delivered a lot more power than the V-1650-9
 
No, the 1950 SAC taken data from NA-8284A, as clearly indicated in here.
When I said I choosen the latest chart, i mean any mistake from original estimate should have been found and corrected by that point in time
 
The V-1650-9 was rated to RM.14SM. It was a 100 series engine.

As far as I know, the most boost used by a wartime Merlin was the RM.17SM, which used +36psi boost (~103inHg MAP) with ADI and ~PN160 fuel (PN150 fuel + extra TEL).

If one was running 120inHg MAP it should produce much more than 2,200hp. The RM.17SM with the ~103inHg MAP was producing 2,600hp.

The RM.17SM did not go into production, though.

*It must be noted that some 100-series test engines were run at higher rpm. A 100-series test engine (may have been a RM.14SM) was rated for 3,300rpm and >2,300hp for flight testing, but this was not an official service rating. Maybe the XP-51G was running an experimental RM.14SM with the higher flight test ratings?
 
but RM.14SM produced 2200 hp at 22k feet though, not at 9 k ft
 
mig-31bm said:
but RM.14SM produced 2200 hp at 22k feet though, not at 9 k ft
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wuzak said:
Where is that data?
Click to expand...

mig-31bm said:
I posted it in post #122, inside the red square
Click to expand...

In one highlighted section it says 2,080hp @ 20,000ft. But also calls the engine the Merlin 145. I don't know if such an engine existed. Lumsden, British Piston Aero-Engines and their Aircraft lists a Merlin 140 (for the Short Sturgeon) and Merlin 150 (a commercial engine that was redesignated 620). These were both rated RM.14SM.

The 130/131 and 134/135 for the de Havilland Hornet were rated RM.14SM, but did not have ADI, so were stuck with +25psi boost (~80inHg MAP) and just under 2,100hp.



The other says 2,200hp @ 120inHg MAP, but does not specif the altitude.

If the engine was run at 120inHg MAP it would make way more then 2,200hp, would do it lower than the 9,000ft of the V-1650-9, but would not do it for very long. It would blow up, as wartime Merlins were not built for such pressures.
 
SaparotRob said:
I wondered about that myself. It usually comes down to pilot skill but I'm wondering just how tired those birds were.
Click to expand...
I don't recall the name but the US air attache who helped train the Honduran Air Force was a WW2 P-51 ace. He said that the Honduran pilot, Fernando Soto, was outstanding at gunnery. Soto flew an F4U-5N (radar removed) while El Salvador had P-51 and FG-1D.
 
An old timer who had bounced around between all the major airframers told me that the B-25 was the first airplane to be mathematically lofted. My immediate reaction was "How hard is it to loft a fuselage with flat sides?" but the nacelles are obviously a bit more difficult than that.
 
Mike Alba - his ex wife was my neighbor when I lived in SoCal. He told me that Soto was his best Honduran student. Mike was credited with 3 aircraft destroyed IIRC.

 
Two other votes so far for my pick. The Skyraider simply doesn't count as a "fighter" (although two MiG-17s were shot down by them over Vietnam) but if you said "single-engine, propeller-driven COMBAT PLANE then the A1D gets the prize. It was so good at what it did that it was still being used for attack missions in Vietnam in 1968, 23 years after WWII ended.
 
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