Best naval fighter II

[cheddar cheese]

ive seen a few stats around the 470 mark, but never any higher than 500

 

[cheddar cheese]

ive seen a few stats around the 470 mark, but never any higher than 500

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

i'm gonna have to show you my book then you'll see...........

 

[cheddar cheese]

i bet on the back page it says

all information researched at tgplanes

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

no.....................

i'm very sorry, i found out i was wrong, my book actually says the F.3 could hit 585mph at sea level.....................

 

[cheddar cheese]

485mph? Maybe. But most certainly not 585mph.

 

[Lightning Guy]

585 at sea level! If that were the case the F.3 certainly would have been the first supersonic aircraft and I just can't buy into that.

 

[plan_D]

How do you work that out? Mach 1 (Speed of Sound) is 760 mph at sea level, this means that it would be no where near being supersonic.
The Swallow was reported to break the sound barrier anyway, in a power dive.

 

[Lightning Guy]

I figure that this way. Planes get faster at altitude and the speed of sound gets lower. It was not uncommon for a piston engine aircraft to be 50-70mph faster at altitude. So a jet with a speef of 585mph on the deck is probably capable of doing 635-655mph (maybe even more) at altitude. That could well be breaking the speed of sound (depending on what the altitude is).

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

it's true, i'll show C.C the book...........

and what was the the payload of post war meteors??

 

[plan_D]

The speed of jets does increase so greatly at altitude, and the speed of sound does not drop so dramatically.
A plane has optimum altitude, and the Meteors optimum altitude would have still kept it off the sound barrier.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

unless it was in dive from 50,000ft, i'd imagine it could break it then.............

 

[plan_D]

That's how the Swallow broke it.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

i hear a spit hit 0.87 in a dive.................

 

[plan_D]

Good for the spit, but that's not that fast.

 

[Lightning Guy]

The speed of jets do increase considerably at altitude. And the speed of sound does decrease. At 30,000ft the speed of sound is down to 678mph and at 40,000ft it has dropped to 660mph. If the F.3 Meteor truly was capable of making 585mph on the deck it would have been very close (if not exceeding) the speed of sound at altitude.

 

[plan_D]

That's not dramatic, at 40,000 ft it has gone down by 100, the Meteor was probably struggling to get up there, and altitude doesn't mean speed. There is an optimum altitude for planes, and even if it is 585 mph on the deck, at 40,000 ft it probably would be like 630, at best.

 

[plan_D]

Once you get above the aircrafts optimum altitude, you start getting inefficent, and sometimes even slower. They only get faster with altitude to a point.

 

[Lightning Guy]

This I know. It's called an aircraft's critical altitude. Does anyone know what the critical altitude and absolute maximum speed of the F.3 supposedly were?

 

[Lightning Guy]

OK, I did some checking on some of this stuff this afternoon. Several modern jets are capable of substantially higher speeds at altitude (like 300-400mph greater). However, it appears that this only applies to jets equipped with afterburners while non-afterburning aircraft have a fairly constant top speed at all altitudes so I was wrong on that point.

The F.I Meteor had two engines rated at 1700lbs of thrust each. I've checked several sources and they all agree that the Mark I's top speed was 410-415 mph. Now the engines on the F.III produced 2,000lbs each and I do not see that being enough to produce a top speed of 585mph. The Mark 4 did hit 616 mph (temorarily setting a speed record) but that was with engines producing 3,500lbs each. The best speed I've seen listed for the F.III is 495 mph which seems reasonable but well below the 262.